There is a law in wrestling which must be observed. If a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully, 2 Timothy 2:5. He alludes to the Roman games, to which there were judges appointed to see that no foul play were offered contrary to the law for wrestling; the prize being denied to such, though they did foil their adversary; which the apostle improves to make the Christian careful in his war, as being under a stricter law and discipline, that requires not only valour to fight, but obedience  to fight by order and according to the word of command. Now few do this that go for great wrestlers.

1. Some while they wrestle against one sin, embrace another, and in this case it is not [that] the person wrestles against sin, but one sin wrestles with another, and it is no wonder to see thieves fall out when they come to divide the spoil. Lusts are diverse, Titus 3:3, and it is hard to please many masters, especially when their commands are so contrary. When pride bids lay on in bravery, lavish out in entertainment, covetousness bids lay up; when malice bids revenge, carnal policy saith, Conceal thy wrath, though not forgive. When lust sends to his whores, hypocrisy pulls him back for shame of the world. Now is he God’s champion that resists one sin at the command of another, it may be a worse?

2. Some wrestle, but they are pressed into the field¹, not volunteers.

Their slavish fears scare them at present from their lust, so that the combat is rather betwixt their conscience and will, than them and your lust. Give me such a sin, saith will. No, saith conscience, it will scald; and throws it away. A man may love the wine, though he is loath to have his lips burned. Hypocrites themselves are afraid to burn. In such combats the will at last prevails, either by bribing the understanding to present the lust it desires in a more pleasing dress, that conscience may not be scared with such hideous apparitions of wrath; or by pacifying conscience with some promise of repentance for the future; or by forbearing some sin for the present, which it can best spare, thereby to gain the reputation of something like a reformation. Or if all this will not do, then, prompted by the fury of its lust, the will proclaims open war against conscience, sinning in the face of it, like some wild horse, [which] impatient of the spur which pricks him and bridle that curbs him, gets the bit between his teeth, and runs with full speed, till at last he easeth himself of his rider; and then where he sees fattest pasture, no hedge or ditch can withhold him, till in the end you find him starving in some pound for his trespass. Thus, many sin at such rate, that conscience can no longer hold the reins nor sit the saddle, but is thrown down and laid for dead; and then the wretches range where their lusts can have the fullest meal, till at last they pay for their stolen pleasures most dearly, when conscience comes to itself, pursues them, and takes them more surely by the throat than ever, never to let them go till it brings them before God’s tribunal.

3. Others wrestle with sin, but they do not hate it, and therefore they are favourable to it, and seek not the life of sin as their deadly enemy. These wrestle in jest, and not in earnest; the wounds they give sin one day, are healed by the next. Let men resolve never so strongly against sin, yet will it creep again into their favour, till the love of sin be quenched in the heart; and this fire will never die of itself, the love of Christ must quench the love of sin, as Jerome [saith] excellently², ‘one love extinguishes another’.  This heavenly fire will indeed put out the flame of hell…

How the true wrestlers should manage their combat

Direction to the saints. Seeing your life is a continual wrestling here on earth, it is your wisdom to study how you may best manage the combat with your worst enemy; which that you may do, take these few directions.

First. Look thou goest not into the field without thy second. My meaning is, engage God by prayer to stand at thy back. God is in a league offensive and defensive with thee, but he looks to be called. Did the Ephraimites take it ill, that Gideon called them not into the field, and may not God much more? As if thou meanedst to steal a victory before he should know it. Thou hast more valour than Moses, who would not stir without God, no, though he sent an angel for his lieutenant. Thou art wiser than Jacob, who to overcome Esau, now marching up, turns from him, and falls upon God; he knew if he could wrestle with God, he might trust God to deal with his brother. Engage God and the back-door is shut, no enemy can come behind thee, yea, thine enemy shall fall before thee. God turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness, saith David. Heaven saith amen to his prayer, and the wretch hangs himself.

Second. Be very careful of giving thine enemy hand-hold. Wrestlers strive to fasten upon some part or other, which gives them advantage more easily to throw their adversary; to prevent which, they used–1. To lay aside their garments; 2. To anoint their bodies.

1. Christian, labour to put off the old man which is most personal, that corruption which David calls his own iniquity (Psalm 18:23). This is the skirt which Satan lays hold of; observe what it is, and mortify it daily; then Satan will retreat with shame, when he sees the head of that enemy upon the wall, which should have betrayed thee into his hands.

2. The Roman wrestlers used to anoint their bodies. So do thou; bathe thy soul with the frequent meditation of Christ’s love. Satan will find little welcome, where Christ’s love dwells; love will kindle love, and that will be as a wall of fire to keep off Satan; it will make thee disdain the offer of a sin, and as oil, supple the joints, and make [thee] agile to offend thy enemy. Think how Christ wrestled in thy quarrel; sin, hell, and wrath had all come full mouth upon thee, had not he coped with them in the way. And canst thou find in thy heart to requite his love, by betraying his glory into the hands of sin, by cowardice or treachery. Say not thou lovest him, so long as thou canst lay those sins in thy bosom which plucked his heart out of his bosom. It were strange if a child should keep, and delight to use, no other knife, but that wherewith his father was stabbed.

Third. Improve the advantage, thou gettest at any time, wisely. Sometimes the Christian hath his enemy on the hip, yea, on the ground, can set his foot on the very neck of his pride, and throw away his unbelief, as a thing absurd and unreasonable. Now, as a wise wrestler, fall with all thy weight upon thine enemy. Though man think it foul play to strike when his adversary is down, yet do not thou so compliment with sin, as to let it breathe or rise. Take heed thou beest not charged of God, as once Ahab, for letting go this enemy now in thy hands, whom God hath appointed to destruction. Learn a little wisdom of the serpent’s brood, who, when they had Christ under their foot, never thought they had him sure enough, no, not when dead; and therefore both seal and watch his grave. Thus do thou, to hinder the resurrection of thy sin, seal it down with stronger purposes, solemn covenants, and watch it by a wakeful circumspect walking.

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DOCTRINE: It is the will of Jesus Christ that all that are his own by the donation of the Father shall be in heaven where he is.

There are two things in the doctrine which I might prove clear in order before I come to application. First, That there are some certain men whom God the Father hath made over to the Son, that belong to Jesus Christ, and are his own by donation from the Father.

Secondly, That it is the will of Christ that they who are so his own shall be in heaven where he is.

1. There are some certain men who belong to Jesus Christ who are his own by donation from the Father. And he gives them to the Son by his decree from everlasting, and by the execution of the same decree in time. This I do but mention here, because it hath been largely handled on ver. 12.

2. Now for the second branch, that it is the will of Christ that they who are so his own shall be in heaven, where himself is; you see it is the suit he makes to God the Father in my text, ‘Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am,’ that is, in heaven where I am to be; in heaven, where I am already in my Godhead, and where I am to be very shortly in my manhood; there I will have them to be also.

And for this end our Saviour Christ is gone to heaven, even to make heaven ready for his people, that so they may be presently admitted when they come. He yields it as one special cause of his departure from his apostles and disciples, when he was about to leave them; saith he, ‘I go to prepare a place for you,’ John 14:2. When he entered into heaven and passed in to the immediate presence of his Father, he took possession of it in our name and stead, and left it open after him to all his members. He hath in this respect prepared it for them, that he hath made it ready to receive them. And when they are ready too, he will come and receive them to himself, that where he is, there may they be also, as it is added, John 14:3. And upon this account it was that the apostle Paul desired to be dissolved, because he was assured that as soon as that was over, he should be with Christ, Phil. 1:23; and so he teaches us expressly in another place, that ‘all that sleep in Christ Jesus shall be for ever with the Lord,’ 1 Thess. 4:17. By which it is apparent that it is the will of Christ that all that are his own by the donation of the Father shall be in heaven where himself is. But you will ask me, Why will he have them to be there?

To this I answer, that a man would think it necessary by reason of the union between Christ and them, that seeing they are one, they should be in one place. But you must know, my brethren, that the corporeal and local presence of the parties contributes nothing to the union that is made between Christ and his members, which is a spiritual and invisible thing, and which no nearness in regard of place can further, no distance in regard of place can hinder. So that Christ’s people may be in him, though they be not with him (in the sense wherein I speak.) I mean not with him in the same place. Their being with him locally in heaven is no way necessary to their union with him: or, were it so, the saints on earth were in a very ill case. Well, then, this cannot be the reason why Christ would have his people to be in one place with him; that they may be one with him. They may be this without the other. But there are divers other weighty reasons of the point. I shall name a few of them.

Reason 1. Christ would have his people be in heaven where himself is; because he hath a dear affection to them; his heart is carried out exceedingly in love to them. And more particularly and distinctly, he loves them with a love of benevolence, and he loves them with a love of complacency.

1. Christ would have his people be in heaven, where himself is, because he loves them with a love of benevolence. With such a love as makes him wish them all the good that they are possibly capable of. Now, my beloved, what greater good can be wished to true believers than to be with Christ in heaven? To be in heaven where they shall be absolutely and completely holy and happy, where they shall never sin, and where they shall never suffer any more; where holiness and happiness shall be both perfect; where there is fulness of joy and pleasure for evermore: and to be with Christ there, of whose immediate presence true believers are unavoidably debarred as long as they remain in this world. ‘While they are at home in the body, they are absent from the Lord,’ as 2 Cor. 5:6. But when they come to heaven they shall be with him, they shall have the complete and full fruition and enjoyment of him, which is the greatest happiness that can be. ‘To be with Christ is best of all,’ Phil. 1:23. To be with saints on earth is good, though they be imperfect here, and though by reason of their imperfections they be the less delightful, and the less beneficial to us; to be with saints in heaven is better, because they are perfect there. There are ‘the spirits of just men made perfect.’ But to be with Christ there is best of all. This is so good that there is nothing better; there is no higher happiness attainable by any creature. And therefore Christ would have his people to enjoy it, to be in heaven where himself is, because he loves them with a love of benevolence.

2. Jesus Christ would have his people to be in heaven where himself is, because he loves them with a love of complacency, because he takes delight in them; and friends that delight in one another think it not sufficient to be present each with other by the presence of their hearts and spirits. No, if it be possible, they will be present each with other in their bodies too; as you may see in Jonathan and David, what shifts they made to come together. So Jesus Christ, who loves his people out of measure, is not content that he is with them in his Spirit, and that they are again with him in their spirits. No, this is not enough, but he must have their bodies with him too, he must enjoy their company in heaven, or else it is not well there. Christ is not fully satisfied till he enjoy the sweet society of his beloved saints in heaven, with whom he hath such intimate and dear acquaintance, while they are here upon earth. And hence he begs his Father for them, to bring them to the same place where himself is, as if he could not live in heaven without them : Father, I will that, etc.

Reason 2. There is a second reason added in the text, which I shall handle only under that consideration: ‘Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.’ And why so? might the Father ask him. Why, ‘that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me;’ as it is added in the next words, that they may see the lustre which I sparkle with. The glory of Christ’s human nature in heaven is exceeding great. The evangelist, who saw it through the dim spectacles of human frailty, endeavours as he can to set it forth. Saith he, ‘His countenance was as the sun that shineth in his strength,’ Rev. 1:16. But this was but a short resemblance. Our Saviour Christ, who knew it better, carries it a little higher. ‘The Son of man,’ saith he, ‘shall come in the glory of the Father,’ Matt. 16:27, in comparison of whose incomparable lustre and transcendent brightness the sun itself is but a shadow. Now Christ would have his people be in heaven, where himself is; that they may see this glory which he shines withal. But why would he have them see it? what shall they gain by it?

1. While they see it, they cannot but exceedingly rejoice in it. It cannot but transport them even to an ecstasy of joy to see him whom they love so infinitely sparkle forth with such dazzling rays of glory. Oh, will the poor believer say, this is my head, my husband, whom my soul loveth, that is become so out of measure glorious. There was a time when he was black; and when there was no form nor beauty in him–when wretched men made him vile and ignominious, and when they hid their faces, as if they were ashamed of him. But now he shines forth as the sun that hath been masked with a gloomy cloud. This is he that died for me, that shed his blood for me, that loved me and gave himself for me. Oh, how my heart is ravished to behold his glory!

2. While they behold it, as they shall rejoice in it, so they shall partake of it, and that especially two ways, both by union and reflection.

First, They shall partake of it by union, for, being one with Jesus Christ, they cannot choose but share together with him in his glory. And as the glory of the members redoundeth to the glory of the head, in which respect it is that the apostle saith that Christ shall be ‘admired in all them that believe;’ so on the other side, the glory of the head redoundeth much more to the glory of the members.

Secondly, And as they shall partake hereof by union; so also by reflection, when they see Christ; while they behold the glory of the Lord they shall be transformed into the same image from glory to glory. Their ‘vile bodies shall be conformed to his glorious body;’ (Phil. 3:21); and while they see him as he is, they shall be like him, as the apostle John insinuates (1 John 3:2). They shall bear the very image of the heavenly Adam (1 Cor. 15:48). And as the face of Moses shined when he had been with God upon the mount; so when we come to be with Christ in heaven, and to behold his glory there; we shall reflect it back again, and so shall shine together with him in the same glory. And this is another reason why Christ will have his people to be with him; that they may see his glory, and, seeing, may partake of it, both by union and reflection.

The post ‘With me where I am’: Christ’s Heart for Believers in John 17:24 appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

THE public life of Master Robert Bruce in the city of Edinburgh was cast in troublous times. His ministry in the Church of St Giles had an influence which was quite unique, and the voice which found utterance in the capital had its echo throughout the whole Church. There were circumstances in Bruce’s previous career which prepared him for the great position in which he found himself. His great social position was in his favour; the breadth and variety of his training gave him exceptional advantage; above all things, he had his mind made up with reference to critical public questions, and there was on him the stamp of a true messenger of Jesus Christ. ‘The godly for his puissant and most moving doctrine loved him; the worldly for his parentage and place reverenced him, and the enemies for both stood in awe of him.’¹ It was felt that a successor to Knox had been raised up in Providence.

In the very first twelve month of his pastorate, February 1588, Bruce found himself thrust into the chair of Moderator of the General Assembly. The High Court of the Church had been specially summoned, owing to a threatened invasion of the island by Spain. That Bruce was called to preside over its deliberations is a proof that he occupied already a high place in the counsels of the Church.

Let us attempt to bring up to our minds a representation of the preacher and the service in St Giles Church about the year 1589. As to the aspect of Bruce, it must have been commanding, for in an age which was much less curious about such externals as personal appearance than our own, men spoke of Bruce’s countenance and of his calm self-possession when conducting divine service. One close observer, who was resident in Edinburgh, writes: ‘This day Bruce preached, as he ever doth, very calmly.’² Men remarked upon his manner in prayer also. He was very brief in prayer when others were present, but every sentence was like a strong bolt shot up to heaven.³ When deeply exercised in his intercessions he was moved to tears.⁴ He had a habit of knocking upon the table with his fingers as he grew importunate in his prayers.⁵ To all this should be added the testimony of Kirkton concerning Bruce: ‘He made always an earthquake upon his hearers, and rarely preached but to a weeping auditory.’⁶ As in his conduct of the devotions, so in his preaching he tended to brevity. It is a mistake to suppose that our Scottish Reformers were unusually lengthy in their public services. James Melville informs us in the Diary that one and a half hours was set as the limit on Sundays, one hour on week-days. In his St Giles service, at the entry of Queen Anne of Denmark into the capital, Master Robert restricted himself to half an hour. ‘I shall be short, by God’s grace,’ was a common phrase of this preacher, and another equally pertinent expression was, ‘By God’s grace, I shall make it clear.’ His anxiety was to be understood: ‘Ye tak’ me up wrong,’ he interjected in his discourse. Point and lucidity were chief qualities of the great St Giles minister, Robert Bruce.

On entering the pulpit, it was a habit of Bruce to remain silent a while in secret prayer. ‘He was no Boanerges as to his voice,’ remarks a sympathetic worshipper; and, on the contrary, another contemporary speaks of ‘that trumpet-sound by which the walls of Jericho were overthrown.’⁷ It is certain that in the great church of St Giles, which even the voice of Knox could but imperfectly fill, Bruce would have had difficulty in making himself heard. In the last quarter, however, of the sixteenth century that pile of buildings known as St Giles Church was subdivided into no fewer than four places of worship, in order to accommodate four congregations. These were called the College Kirk, the Great Kirk, the Upper Tolbooth, and the East or Little Kirk. During the years of his Edinburgh ministry Bruce preached at first in the Great Kirk, ranking as chief minister of Edinburgh. In the later years a series of unhappy events of which he was the victim led to his labours being restricted to a smaller congregation, that of North-West Edinburgh, which met in the Little Kirk. This portion is traditionally known as ‘Master Robert Bruce’s Kirk.’

At the period of Bruce’s entrance on his ministry the lessons for the day would be taken by a reader. Bruce himself gave out the text, and he read it with much solemnity. His very tone and accent quickened his hearers, and there is at least one occasion when his deliberate, solemn repetition of a text from which he was about to preach led to the conversion of one who was present. Bruce would read, not from the Authorised Version (it was not to be published yet for twenty-three years), but from the Geneva Version, which for about eighty years was used in Scotland, before the adoption of the Authorised of 1611. Consequently the archaic form of many a quotation from Scripture will strike one; for instance, in the text of the thanksgiving sermon for deliverance from the Armada, ‘Thou art more bright and puissant than the mountains of prey’ (Psa. 76:4). Such unfamiliar words as ‘daunton,’ ‘kythe’ or ‘horologe’ (for Isaiah’s sundial) appear in the sermons. But to our ears the strangest thing of all in the preaching of Master Robert would be his use of the old Scots tongue. The dialect is so hard to be understood today that the sermons have been rendered into English for the benefit of modern readers. But this very manner of speech was what gave them their power when first they were uttered. Knox was the pioneer of those who cast aside the pedantry of scholastic Latin, and spoke to the people in their homely vernacular. The Scots tongue was spoken by all the nation from King James downwards. And one of the chief masters of that familiar ‘vulgar tongue’ was Bruce, who deliberately preferred it as a medium. His sermons are without any of those ornaments of quotation in which his generation loved to indulge. He preferred great plainness of speech, and in a preface to the published sermons he apologises for the unpretentious language which he uses. ‘I am somewhat hamely with you,’ he remarks in a sermon, in the course of his argument. Today we can hardly interpret, without a glossary, words like ‘throombes’ or ‘leisum’ or ‘bachill,’ and we are startled by the recurrence of expressions like ‘tak tent’ or ‘spunks of joy,’ no less than of words like ‘fash’ and ‘speir.’ We may well believe that these sermons are to this day full of life. They abound in illustrations drawn from political or social incidents of the moment. Figures of speech are numerous, and they are bold. The preacher can speak of ‘the teeth of the soul,’ meaning that faith which takes hold of Christ. He proposes to ‘open his pack and sell some wares,’ or again he seeks to ‘stanch the bleeding of the cause.’ He bids his hearers try themselves by the square of God’s law, and he describes Jesus Christ as the sconce to which men must flee for safety. He is as fond of a pithy proverb as Mr Spurgeon himself; such as ‘Over great wealth gars wit waver,’ or ‘They haud aye still on ae tune.’ ‘Is it possible,’ asks he, ‘that my drouth can be slokened with that drink that passed never over my halse?’ In the sermons, along with much simplicity and point, there is language of great elevation. One meets splendid expressions like this, ‘A wonderful and miserable madness that is in the soul of man,’ or this, ‘Terrible it is to see the countenance of God in His justice.’⁸ Sometimes his thoughts in the pulpit so move him that he breaks off his argument, and falls to prayer in the middle of the sermon. In fine, these sermons of Bruce reveal a spirit of the loftiest sort, earnest and strong; they have that indefinable note of distinction which indicates a mastermind. Soon we are aware, as we read, that this is a great theologian, whose intellect as well as his heart is engaged in his work. There is discernible throughout his preaching a weird note of prognostication, and a cry of coming judgment, all the more surprising when we remember that the preacher is but a youth. The fact is, that these are due to the special time of Bruce’s entering upon his ministry in Scotland. All around him he finds laxity, treachery, superstition. ‘God,’ cries he, ‘is not like our countrymen, for they, where they are best known are worst loved; but God, on the contrary, where He is best known He is best loved.’

The following extracts may serve to illustrate the lofty and searching thought of Bruce’s pulpit discourse:

It hath been the custom of God from time to time to bring His Church into wonderful extremities, that in the judgment of man there appeareth no hope of safety in them: yea, in our own judgment oft times there appeareth no escape. I say it is His custom to bring His Church into these extremities that His glory may appear so much the more in her extraordinary deliverances … It is a matter of great consequence to subdue and tame the great idol of evil will. We may speak of it as we please, and say that we are able to do it. But of all the works of the earth it is the greatest. For such is the stubbornness of our will, that it will do nothing but what it liketh itself. The perfection of a Christian standeth in striving; we must either strive, or we shall not be crowned … That same fury and rage whereby men think to dishonour God and overwhelm His Church, He turneth to the contrary, and maketh out of that same fury His own glory and the deliverance of His Church to shine. The Lord is a wonderful workman. He bringeth about His purpose in such sort that He can draw light out of darkness, and bring forth His own praise out of their greatest rage … There are two ways set down in Scripture: there is a broad and an open way, wherein the proud and vain men of the earth walk; there is a narrow and a strait way wherein the simple, and they that depend on God, walk. The broad way is easy and pleasant in the entry, but the end is everlasting and terrible straitness; the other way is strait in the entry, yet the end is large and pleasant, and bringeth a joyful eternity … There remains now, of all these great things, and of all this doctrine which has been taught, but this one lesson. Learn to apply Christ rightly to thy soul, and thou hast won all; thou art a great theologian if thou hast learned this well: for in the right application of Christ to the sick soul, to the wounded conscience, and diseased heart, here begins the fountain of all our felicity and the well-spring of all our joy.⁹

It may help us to enter into the soul of that splendid ministry of the Kirk of St Giles three hundred years ago if we try to bring before us a special service conducted by Bruce. In the month of October 1588 he conducted a thanksgiving upon two successive Sundays, after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The proclamation enacted that the service should be followed by holy communion, and accordingly Bruce concludes his discourse with an invitation to ‘dress for yon table.’ Those two sermons, preached from Psalm 76, have a special interest as the earliest public utterance of Bruce which has been preserved, and a paragraph or two upon their occasion will be useful. The Spanish Armada had hung for three years as a menace over Scotland and England. The suspense was tremendous and long drawn out. Rumour had it once and again that the foe was already landed at Dunbar or St Andrews, ‘and in very deed,’ says James Melville:

the Lord of Armies who rides upon the wings of the wind, the keeper of His own Israel, was conveying that monstrous navy about our coasts, and directing their hulks and galleys to the lands, rocks, and sands whereupon He had destined their destruction.¹⁰

Calderwood describes how the invaders were cast upon the Scottish coast, and wandered through the country begging, and found greater clemency and charity than they deserved or expected.¹¹ Bruce, for his part, had no doubt as to the hand to which the deliverance was due. ‘As truly,’ said he, in his emphatic way:

as truly as the overthrow of Sennacherib, this destruction of the Spaniard was divinely wrought. He thought no doubt to have rooted out the Kirk. Yet what cometh to pass, I pray you? When as he was of mind to combat with the Kirk, he meeteth with the wind, and he findeth the wind more than his match, as the carcases of men and of ships in all coasts do testify … It is commonly asked, and will be asked to the end of the world, when was yon great defeat done, and in what place was yon fleet destroyed? It will be answered again, and I am assured it is answered already, yon fleet was destroyed about the coasts of the Lord’s own dwelling-place, where He made His residence.¹²

One must feel thankful that in her hour of delirious joy over the discomfiture of the Catholic invaders Scotland had so sure and so clear a guide in St Giles pulpit. The mob of High Street and the Canongate were easily excited in those great old times, and very readily they slipped out of control. Not on every occasion when they rose was even Master Robert himself able to keep them in check. But upon this historic date he was their master. From the window of his manse he could see that roaring multitude at the cross, who celebrated the victory in their own fashion. Every mixed motive his shrewd gaze could take in, as well as all those inferior passions which were let free. In his sermon at the church no class of men escaped his scrutiny, from the king himself to the simplest folk; the timid clergy, the canny merchants of the Luckenbooths,¹³ the law-breakers, all came under the sweep of his discourse. If the language was somewhat archaic, what must be said of certain of the customs which prevailed in the church worship of that elder time? King James had his royal pew in St Giles, and he took leave occasionally to interrupt the preacher, calling his doctrine in question or giving his approbation. Haughty courtiers might stroll into church noisily, to hear what was said. Men sat in their pews with their hats on. On one occasion the following strange episode occurred when Bruce conducted the service. The lawless, defiant Earl of Bothwell stepped into church and, kneeling as a penitent, made confession before all the assembled people of his wicked life, and vowed with tears that he would prove in the future another man. Bruce’s exhortation, pointed, searching, dignified, is from the text, ‘Flee also from the lusts of youth.’ At the close the miserable nobleman asked the prayers of the assembled congregation; ‘but soon after he brake out into gross enormities.’¹⁴

Bruce was above all things a preacher to the conscience. He brought his own conscience to bear on all his work. While he took much pains in searching the Scripture, and in preparing his sermons, which indeed bear marks of wide reading among the Fathers, yet the main part of his business lay in ‘having his soul wrought up to some suitableness of frame.’¹⁵ ‘Of all the diseases that can come on any person,’ he says in one of the course of sermons on Isaiah:

no question the disease of the soul and conscience is greatest; and of all the diseases and troubles that overtake the conscience, no question this is the greatest, when with the sight of sin, which is enough, and more than enough to any to sustain, when with this sight there is a feeling of God’s wrath joined. O then, this sickness is unsupportable, when with the sight of sin is joined a touch and feeling of the wrath of God. Merciful God! If the horror be not exceeding great and terrible, so that it is a wonder if the soul can stand, and is not driven to desperation.

‘Is it possible,’ he asks, out of a deep experience, ‘that faith and doubting can have place in our soul?’ And he defines doubt in memorable terms:

It comprehendeth all the errors, fasheries, stammerings, and wrestlings wherewith our faith is assaulted full oft, which makes us sometimes to despair, sometimes to hope; while we look to ourselves to despair, and while we lookon the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, to hope … The soul must utter such stuff as it hath, to wit, doubting and stammering.¹⁶

But this preacher, out of the depths of his own memorable experience, is assured that doubt is the shadow cast by faith,

‘Which like a shadow proves the substance true.’

‘If thy conscience is wounded, assuredly thou shalt doubt. Entertain peace in thy conscience and thou shalt keep faith.’ Only by strict obedience to the voice of this inward companion can one find relief. ‘There is not another lesson in Christianity than this: this is the first and the last lesson, to shake off your lusts and affections piece by piece, and so piece by piece renounce thyself that thou mayest embrace Christ.’¹⁷ ‘Renounce myself’ is his message. ‘Looking to the greatness of our misery, and to the greatness of the price whereby He hath redeemed us, what heart is there but would willingly renounce itself to get a part in that redemption?’ The tense feeling of his mind in this matter of self-immolation for the sake of his Lord comes out in a story recorded by John Livingstone, who tells us that one day he arrived at Bruce’s house to see him, but that it was long ere the other came out of his study. When he came forth all his face was suffused with tears. He said that he had just learnt of the keen suffering of a faithful minister in London for his Lord. ‘My sorrow is not for him, but for myself,’ said Bruce; ‘for had I been faithful like him, I might have got the pillory, and have shed some of my blood for Christ as well as he! But he hath got the crown from us all.’¹⁸

In one of the earliest of those St Giles sermons the preacher closes with a reference to Romans 8, which sounds the very keynote of his teaching. When Master Robert quotes the splendid Quis Separabit,¹⁹ he cannot articulate the text of St Paul as a common preacher might. ‘We claim Christ as belonging to us, as if no man had a title to Him but we. Our persuasion becomes so strong that we dare at the last to say with the Apostle, what shall separate us from the love of Christ?’ And as Bruce, in face of the allurements of those who loved him, or of the menace of those who hated him, stood firm as a tower; so also stood his Master steadfast to him up to that supreme hour when, placing his right hand upon the passage from Romans 8, which was his peculiar text and trust, he passed, declaring his faith in the word, ‘For I am persuaded that neither life nor death shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’²⁰ Meantime, that right hand is uplifted in St Giles Church, as the minister pronounces the doxology with which he was accustomed to end his discourse: ‘In the righteous merits of Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour, praise, and glory, for now and ever – AMEN.’

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Our object in studying this subject of the Christian and the State in Revolutionary Times has a very practical intent. We have not considered this matter in a theoretical manner for the simple reason that we are in the midst of such a situation ourselves. I have thought several times during the conference of a friend who was many times in this very room in recent years, Josef Ton a Baptist pastor in Romania, who is in the midst of the fiery furnace, if one may use such an expression, at the present time, and also a colleague of his, Prof. Valish Talosh who is professor of history in the Baptist Seminary in Bucharest. These men are already in this very situation.

The former periods of which we have been hearing were revolutionary times like ours, but as we have been seeing, each period tends to have its own special features. So if we want to consider this subject in a practical manner we have to bring it up to date; and it has fallen to my lot to do that very thing. We cannot stop even at the American War of Independence and the Declaration of Independence. We must go on beyond that; and so my title is ‘The French Revolution and After.’

My whole thesis is to show that something entirely new emerged, and came into being, with the French Revolution. It is one of those great turning-points in history comparable to the Reformation – not in the same way, of course, but quite as defin­itely a turning-point as was the Protestant Reformation. I start by saying that it was something which was essentially different both from the rebellion and revolution in England in the seventeenth century and also from what happened in America in 1775–76.

This new thing that came to expression in the French Revolution can be traced to a number of influences, particularly in France. It was the age of the so-called Enlightenment. The man who played a very prominent part in that was Diderot. He edited what was called an Encyclopaedia in thirty-five volumes, between 1751 and 1780, which was meant to cover the whole of knowledge, a complete conspectus of life. He was aided in this by many men but in particular by two men. The first was Jean Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau is vital to any consideration of the French Revolution. He was a voluminous writer and an undoubted genius. He published a number of books that had a profound effect on the thinking of the French people. In a book on education in 1762 he said that education was to be based entirely on natural instincts, and was to be entirely free from every competing influence of society, and especially the church. He introduced a rational view of everything. He discounted revelation and all revealed religion. He believed in a kind of natural religion based upon feeling and an experience of God; and he denounced any belief in a supernatural revelation. Then came his famous book called The Social Contract. In this book his argument is that the laws of the state are not of divine appointment and are not based upon Divine law but upon ‘the will of the people.’ We know about the view of John Locke and others but there is something that is quite new here. Those men, after all, were deists. But we now reach a point when that is no longer the case in these matters. These Frenchmen held a very optimistic view of human nature, and they refused to take the Christian revelation, and especially as regards salvation, seriously. The basis of society, they said, is to be that the members of the society are to agree to a social pact, not under God, but among men themselves. There had been an acknowledgment of God so far, but now that had ended. Men are to combine for freedom and for just government in the interests of the majority. That was essentially the teaching of The Social Contract. Then came Voltaire, who was much more violent that Rousseau, and very violently anti-Catholic and ‘anti’ all Christian dogma.

These two men had a tremendous effect upon the whole outlook of the French people. They were living under the government of their dissolute kings – it was a tyranny and all that resulted from that. These new ideas came in, and at the same time Jean Astruc – the father of Higher Criticism, and, I regret to say, a physician – introduced his teaching. That introduced a yet more direct attack upon the authority of the Bible. Men had more or less, in a general way, accepted the Bible and its teaching, but now all this began to be queried. All these tendencies worked together. In other words man became the centre, not God. Not only in matters connected with the state but also in matters of religion. Reason is supreme, not revelation. The idea of the ‘sovereign people’ came in, and all this led in 1789 to the Revolution and the great slogan of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity.’ This referred not only to political but also social matters and the whole of life; and so you get the beginning of the French Revolution. There were other elements, other strands. The teaching of Kant worked in this same direction. And in this country there was Thomas Paine who wrote his famous book The Rights of Man.

All this led to the French Revolution. It was a phenomenon that in a sense shook the world. At first most intelligent people welcomed it. In this country, for instance, it was eagerly welcomed by people like Coleridge and Wordsworth. One cannot really understand Wordsworth’s poetry apart from the French Revolution, especially such expressions as ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.’ The Prelude gives the history, and frequent references to the Revolution are found in other poems. These men, Wordsworth, Coleridge and others, really believed that this was the dawn of a new era – not the millennium in the biblical sense, but in their sense a kind of millennium. Men were going to be set free from all restraints and shackles, and a great new world was going to develop. However, it did not last very long. These men soon became disillusioned. The ‘reign of terror’ followed in France, and that in turn led to the dictatorship under Napoleon. That disillusioned Coleridge and Wordsworth and others and caused them to revert to their former views. John Wesley denounced the Revolution from the very beginning, and prophesied that this was going to be the introduction of ‘the time of the end.’ William Wilberforce, the leader in the cause for the abolition of slavery, regarded it with absolute horror. So there was a reaction against it in this country.

Coming to the nineteenth century we find the popular teaching of the German philosopher, Hegel, with its new view of history. It rejected the view that God guides history and taught that there is a dialectical process which governs history – thesis and antithesis producing a new synthesis. This changed people’s view of history altogether; and they believed that this dialectical process produced inevitable progress. This obviously meant that there was an entirely new attitude towards the church, the State, man, everything; indeed there was a complete new view of life. Hegel, in turn, was followed by a man whom he had influenced, Karl Marx, whose teaching is essential to an understanding of our own century. Whatever we may think of his views, Karl Marx was an extremely able man who thought about these problems very deeply, both political and social. In a sense his central thesis was the inevitability of revolution, and that the course of human history had followed a certain dialectical pattern which would lead on inevitably to the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’ This was inevitable. So this stimulated men to think about revolution. There were, of course, many variations among his followers as to the details of the teaching. Some tended to say that as this process was inevitable then there was no need for us to do anything. Others taught that we can hasten the process, we can help it along. The result of all this was that the nineteenth century in many ways was the century of revolution. We came very near to revolution several times in this country. There was unrest in the Manchester area, the ‘Peterloo Massacre’ of 1819 being long remembered. There were revolutions on the Continent in 1830, and very nearly a revolution in this country. Many like Macaulay held the view that if the Reform Bill which was passed in 1832 had not been passed, undoubtedly there would have been a revolution in this country. But the year of revolution was 1848 when there were revolutions in many countries on the continent.

All this was the result of this entirely new thinking that had gained currency. It was an attack on all established institutions, including the church and the state. It meant the rejection of all authority and the setting up of ‘the sovereign people,’ and their reason and understanding, as the arbiters in these matters.

I

We must now look at the way in which people reacted to all this. We have already seen that in this country, at first, people reacted against it. There is the oft-quoted statement of Halévy that the Methodist Awakening of the eighteenth century undoubtedly saved this country from a revolution such as that experienced in France. This country was cautious, and I believe there is much in what Halévy said. I would add to that that there was also the influence of the history of what had happened in the seventeenth century. After all, we had had a revolution in the seventeenth century; and you will remember that there was a reaction against that. The restoration of Charles II cannot be understood except in terms of a disillusionment with the Commonwealth period, and a feeling that government was impossible without some kind of a head, preferably a king. That introduced a note of caution and carefulness into the thinking of this country. The ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 and the passing of the Bill of Rights in 1689 establishing a constitutional monarchy produced a settled order. So the tendency in this country right through the nineteenth century was to turn to political reform. The controlling belief was that you must have progress with order.

While that was true of the main church bodies and leaders it was not true of many of the followers. While most of the leaders of Methodism were really rank Tories, many of the Methodist people turned to Chartism, the teaching of Robert Owen and others, and became actively interested in Trade Unions. They believed and felt that the people had a right to liberate themselves from the tyranny and oppression under which not only industrial workers but also farm labourers suffered. So they entered into these movements of reform. Sometimes there was violence such as was seen in the Luddite activities, and the story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs; but on the whole the prevailing view was that which trusted to liberalism and reform. In brief I think that that is a fairly accurate picture of what happened in this country.

I turn now to something extremely interesting; to me, the most interesting reaction of all to the French Revolution. It was what took place in Holland. Here I call attention to a fascinating and most important man whose name was Groen Van Prinsterer. He was on all counts a most remarkable man. Born in very comfortable circumstances, he was trained in law and philosophy and history. He became secretary to the king, and eventually secretary to the cabinet. He had been brought up in a nominal religious atmosphere – the religion of his parents – and he was quite satisfied with it. He was sent on one occasion to do business for the king and the government to Brussels, and there he met and came under the influence of Merle d’Aubigné, the great historian of the Protestant Reformation. Under this influence – and that of the whole movement known as the Reveil which had started in Switzerland under Robert Haldane who had gone to live out there, and who influenced some students – Groen Van Prinsterer’s life was entirely changed. D’Aubigné was one of the people who was converted under that movement, and he happened to be in Brussels when Groen went there, and as a result of that meeting he was truly converted in 1828. This, of course, profoundly affected his whole view of politics and of everything else, and as he continued to think deeply he became increasingly a first-class historian. But he could not be content with being an academic historian. He felt that he must become involved also in politics. And the more he thought the more he saw the dangerous character of the French Revolution and all that it had introduced. The result of this was that he published a great book in 1847 with the title Unbelief and Revolution. It is a book of fifteen chapters, only one of which has so far been translated into English, namely, chapter eleven. I am glad to be informed by friends who are in this conference that two further chapters are on the verge of being published in English, and I do hope that some of our publishers will take this up and see that eventually the whole of this great book is published in English. Notice that it was published in 1847, the year before the many revolutions which took place in 1848.

In order to indicate Groen Van Prinsterer’s viewpoint let me quote his own words as they are translated into English. Writing about the French Revolution he says, ‘As respects theoretical origin and course, the Revolution cannot be compared with any occurrences of former times. Change of rulers, re-allocation of authority, change of forms of government, political controversy, many a difference of religious conviction – all these have, in principle, nothing in common with a social revolution whose nature is directed against every government, against every religion; with a social, or rather yet an anti-social revolution which undermines and destroys morality and society; with an anti-Christian revolution whose chief idea develops itself in systematic rebellion against the God of revelation. So Stahl: ‘I take the Revolution in its world-historical idea. It did not exist in its complete form before 1789. But since then it became a world power and the battle for or against it fills history.’ ‘The Revolution is a unique event. It is a revolution of beliefs; it is the emergence of a new sect, of a new religion; of a religion which is nothing but irreligion itself, atheism, the hatred of Christianity raised into a system.’

‘The revolution of the United Netherlands has been compared with it; also the revolution in North America. As respects the Netherlands I appeal to what I have often said, that “liberty of Christian exercise of religion was its chief object as oppression of the gospel was the chief cause of the war.” As respects America, I appeal to the remarkable work of Baird, who said: “In separating themselves from Great Britain and in reorganizing their respective governments, the United States modified their institutions much less than one would be able to expect there. King, parliament and Britannic justice were replaced for president, congress and the supreme court; but it was at bottom the same political system plus independence.” Still less may I recognize in the English revolutions a likeness of the French. If you find agreement between the revolutions of 1688 and 1789, read Burke on the similarity in outward appearance, the contrast in essence and principle. He says: “The present Revolution in France seems to me to be quite of another character and description and to bear little resemblance or analogy to any of those which have been brought about in Europe upon principles merely political. It is a revolution of doctrine and theoretic dogma.” Even with 1640, with the democratic tendency and with the tyranny of Cromwell, no comparison can be allowed in its chief conception. Says Tocqueville: “Nothing could be more dissimilar … In my opinion the two events are absolutely not to be compared.” And Stahl remarks: “The liberty of England and of America is permeated with the breath of the Puritans, the liberty of France is permeated with the breath of the Encyclopaedists and the Jacobins.”’

There we see Van Prinsterer’s essential point of view and his teaching. He did his best to propagate these views but he was very much a voice crying in the wilderness. But he was able to form, in a very embryonic manner, what became known as the Anti-Revolutionary Party. But fortunately another man arose, the great Abraham Kuyper, and Van Prinsterer soon recognized that Kuyper had public gifts which he himself lacked. Kuyper was a born orator, and a born statesman and eventually he became the Prime Minister of Holland. Groen Van Prinsterer brought Kuyper into the movement and soon handed it over to him; and so we know of, and tend to think of, Kuyper as the leader of the Anti-revolutionary Party, the Christian Party, and the many battles he fought in the political arena. Kuyper gave up being a minister of the church and eventually his professorship in the Free University which he himself had founded, in order to give himself to this political activity where he could introduce his Christian ideas and especially with regard to education. I wish I had time to go into all this thoroughly; but time only allows me merely to mention this most extraordinary and striking opposition to the whole principle of the French Revolution which took place in Holland. It did not take place in England; it did not take place in the United States of America; but in that little country it did. And there it stands as a great monument to the only real opposition to the whole notion behind the French Revolution.

Coming to this present century we find several striking events. Many of us, because these things were taking place in our own lifetime, do not realize what has been happening; but the Revolution in Russia in 1917 is a great landmark. The leaders of that Revolution, Lenin and Trotsky, claimed that they were putting into operation the theories and the teaching of Karl Marx. They have not done so; and it has been proved clearly that nothing could be further removed in a sense from the teaching of Marx, which advocates ultimately a class-less society and the end of all government, than the tyranny which we know exists in Russia and has done so for nearly sixty years. On the other hand, and at the other extreme, we have seen Mussolini and Fascism, and Hitler and Nazism. All these are essentially religious, as Van Prinsterer saw that the French Revolution was in reality a new religion, and not merely a political theory. There is an element of worship in them, and also an apocalyptic element. They are not merely political programmes, there is something much deeper and almost demonic. This is true of Fascism as well as of Communism.

These movements have had an effect and an influence in this country. Movements have arisen on what is termed the extreme Left and also the extreme Right; but until comparatively recently all this has taken a mainly political form. But when we come to the 1960s we are confronted by a new phenomenon. I refer to the appearance of what is known as ‘the theology of revolution’ or the ‘theology of liberation.’ This is an amazing phenomenon because it has mainly affected South America which is a Roman Catholic-dominated subcontinent. The movement has been led by various Catholics, the most prominent of whom was a Roman Catholic priest, Camilo Torres. He was actually killed in a gun battle as a guerilla fighter. Among his sayings was that ‘every Catholic who is not a revolutionary and is not on the side of revolutionaries, lives in mortal sin.’ An Archbishop of Brazil calls for the complete revolution of present structures on a socialist basis and without the shedding of blood. It is very interesting to observe that there have been these divisions in every century between revolutionaries who have believed in fighting and those who have said that you must not fight. Under the teaching of these men, and there are many others, conversion becomes ‘one’s commitment to the liberation of man from all sorts of oppression.’ The love of Jesus Christ becomes love for your neighbour. We are told that we meet God in an encounter with man, and so the division between the church and the world is reduced. We have seen elements of this in the notorious book Honest to God by John Robinson and others. Mission – this is their great word – becomes denunciation of, and a confronting of the present state of social injustice. In other words they teach that real Christianity means to liberate people from poverty, from political oppression and so on, and that the Christian church should be leading in this revolution.

What is particularly interesting is that this movement has mainly risen in the ranks of Roman Catholics. It is perhaps linked up with Pope John XXIII and his talk of liberation and various other ideas. This ‘theology of liberation’ has had considerable influence upon many of the leaders of the World Council of Churches. They have been discussing it recently at Nairobi. There are of course the two views again, but it is such an insistent emphasis that the leaders cannot ignore it; and there are many in this country and other countries who are interpreting the whole of the Bible in this way. But this teaching does violence to the whole notion of Christian salvation in a personal sense. According to it Christ came to set people free politically, socially, and then in other respects. They use the story of the liberation of the children of Israel from Egypt and their going to Canaan as the great illustration of this. This is what God wants and this is the great purpose of Christianity – to give people political and social liberty.

To sum up, we find that that which began in 1789 in France has spread world-wide and has been manifesting itself in these various ways. So by now we find ourselves in a world, and in a situation in society, in which men are asserting that they are the supreme authority. This expresses itself in this country in the attitude which says that, though Parliament may pass Acts, if we do not agree with them we need not observe them. The resulting lawlessness leads many people to ask the question: Is this country any longer governable? Can life and government continue when men cease to recognize any authority except what they think and what they believe? This is the state in which we find the world at the present time.

II

The question that arises therefore is, What are we to do in this situation? We have made this great review of history in this conference – what conclusions do we draw from it all? I start by making certain general statements which must of necessity take a very dogmatic form because of the limitation of time. The Christian is not only to be concerned about personal salvation. It is his duty to have a complete view of life as taught in the Scriptures. That is common to all the views that have been considered, apart from those which are non-religious, to which I have been referring. As far as the Christian is concerned – and that is what we are interested in now – we are not to be concerned only about personal salvation; we must have a world view. All of us who have ever read Kuyper, and others, have been teaching this for many long years. I must add, immediately, that it is equally clear, surely, from the study we have been making, that we all tend to be creatures of our times and much of our thinking is conditioned by the age in which we live. It is surely clear that this was true of the Reformers. It was true also of the Puritans. We must therefore be very careful not to follow slavishly anything that has been taught in the past. We are as responsible to God as the Reformers were, or as any Puritans were, and it is our business to interpret Scripture, as much as it was their duty to do so. We are not merely to be gramophone records of anyone who has lived in the past however august he may have been. That seems to me to be another inevitable conclusion.

Perhaps the thing that stands out most prominently is that what has bedevilled this whole question, and caused the greatest confusion throughout the centuries, has been the idea of a state church. That has been the greatest curse in the history of the church and of the world! This of course is seen especially in Roman Catholicism, in Eastern Orthodoxy in its various branches, and in Anglicanism – chiefly Anglicanism in this country. I suggest that this association between church and state has been responsible for many of the greatest calamities, directly, and also because of the violent reactions they have produced. We have seen how it produced such a violent reaction in France. It is very difficult to disentangle the antagonism to the king from the antagonism to the church. That was because they were one; and so when people revolt against the king they revolt against the church. That is what happened in France, and in Russia. The Russians had not only suffered under the tyranny of the Tsars – those dissolute men – but also under the tyranny of a foul creature like Rasputin, a priest, and the whole power of Russian Orthodoxy. So when they got rid of the one they got rid of the other also, because the two belonged together. And this is surely an acute problem both in Spain and in Portugal at the present time, and is likely to be an acute problem in Italy also and in various other countries.

III

Those are some of the very broad general conclusions at which we can arrive. Let me next suggest that there are certain dangers confronting us in this revolutionary situation, as they have confronted all who have been in it before us. There are three main dangers of which we have to be very wary. The first is that we must never allow ourselves as Christians to be thought of as mere defenders of the status quo. I put that first because historically it has been the greatest danger. Christianity has been equated with what has been termed the Establishment – king and church, king and bishop. This is the danger therefore of which we have to be very wary. Let me illustrate what I mean, because this has done grave harm to the Christian cause. Take the famous stanza written by Cecil Frances Alexander, the lady who wrote hymns such as ‘There is a green hill far away.’ It reads thus –

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate;
God made them high or lowly
And ordered their estate.

We have given the impression far too often, as Christians, that that is our standpoint. But were Luther and Calvin guilty of this? It was surely their danger because of their belief in law and order. Wesley and Whitefield were certainly guilty of this. They were both horrified at the possibility of rebellion in America, and we have to confess that the record of Whitefield as regards slavery was very poor indeed. How human and how fallible we are! Many also in America who from 1773 to 1776 and after spoke and fought so strongly for their own liberty as against England and the oppression that England was guilty of, did not seem to see that the same applied to the poor black slaves whom they continued to buy and sell and to employ for nearly a hundred years afterwards. This shows us the limits of human understanding. The same was true in Wales of some of the great religious leaders and preachers. We were celebrating in 1974 the bicentenary of the birth of John Elias. John Elias was a thoroughgoing Tory. He stood, as did most of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist, for conservatism; and they opposed what was then called liberalism.

But this has been especially true of the Roman Catholic Church. Throughout history you have had this alliance between Roman Catholicism and the king. It is interesting to observe how the Roman church, in a typical manner, changes her point of view from time to time according to changing circumstances. When the kings were in authority, they supported the kings and condemned revolutions; but when a revolution took place and another government came into power they justified rebellion against that government. The principle of ‘the just war’ could be manipulated to suit the exigencies of any particular situation! That has been prominent in the long story of Roman Catholicism; and that is what makes this new movement of ‘the theology of liberation’ so interesting. The same has been true of Orthodoxy, and also of Anglicanism. Is it not true that Anglicanism in the last century not only gave the impression, as has been said, of being ‘the Tory Party at prayer,’ but was also guilty of supporting the whole notion of colonialism? What is still more tragic is that the missionary enterprise was so often linked with colonialism and colonial ideas.

Whether you agree with the recent pronouncement of the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches or not, his assertion is true that this whole outlook, based upon the church-state idea, has been more productive of the problems of racialism confronting the new nations in Africa today than perhaps anything else. So we must be very careful not to give the impression that we are always on the side of the Establishment and the existing authorities. The Plymouth Brethren are by no means innocent in this respect. By regarding any participation in politics in any form as being the height of sin they inevitably landed themselves on the side of the status quo. The first Member of Parliament from among the Brethren told me and many others that he was more or less ostracised in his Brethren meeting because he had committed the terrible sin of taking part in politics. This shows how defective and contradictory our thinking can be. While they denounced a man for going into politics they never denounced men for going into the army. They gloried in the fact that certain of their members were generals and had had very high promotion. Are Evangelicals in the United States clear in this respect in their attitude to the coloured people? I have met some who base their whole attitude toward the coloured people on the fact that the latter are the descendants of Ham.

These are serious matters in a revolutionary age. Without our desiring to do so we can be jockeyed into a position in which we are regarded as mere defenders and advocates of the status quo. It is not insignificant, surely, that certain well-known evangelists are supported by numbers of millionaires, and that some of them in a recent presidential election even went so far as to propose that a certain evangelist might be put up as presidential candidate! They did this because of their political and economic interests. So, the impression has gained currency that to be a Christian, and more especially an evangelical, means that we are traditionalists, and advocates of the status quo.

I believe that this largely accounts for our failure in this country to make contact with the so-called working classes. Christianity in this country has become a middle-class movement; and I suggest that that is so because of this very thing. Nonconformity is by no means clear on this question. In the last century, and in this present century, far too often, as nonconformist men have got on in the world, and made money, and become managers and owners, they have become opponents of the working classes who were agitating for their rights. So it is as true of the nonconformists in this country as it is of the Anglicans and Roman Catholics and others. For some strange reason one of the greatest temptations to a man who becomes a Christian is to become respectable. When he becomes a Christian he also tends to make money; and if he makes money, he wants to keep that money, and resents the suggestion that he should share that money with others by means of taxation etc. Looking at history it seems to me that one of the greatest dangers confronting the Christian is to become a political conservative, and an opponent of legitimate reform, and the legitimate rights of people.

We must now turn to the second danger, which is the exact opposite. We always tend to go from one extreme to the other. In this conference, which has had to be selective, we have not considered the Levellers; but they were important people in the seventeenth century. The Levellers were not an accident. They played a prominent part in the debates held in Putney under the auspices of the army, and then in the later discussions that took place on these very matters in Whitehall as to how the country was to be governed, and what was to be done with the church. There were also the Fifth Monarchy Men, the Millenarians and many groups such as the Diggers in the seventeenth century. They did not belong to the mainline Puritans, but Cromwell – who was perhaps the most honest man in the seventeenth century, a man who strove to be true to his conscience above all others that I know of in political history – was ready to listen to them. He was torn between these various ideas, and his sympathies were on both sides. These men objected to the whole hierarchical view of life. They actually anticipated most of what is being demanded at the present time. They said that God was over all, even over kings and bishops. The individual soul and personal experience were of vital interest to them, and they claimed their right to express their opinions. The Methodist Awakening of the next century emphasized this also and stressed the importance of personal experience, and assurance of salvation – man and his standing before God. They taught a new notion of humanity and of the common people. They realized that they had brains; that is why they wanted to be taught to read and write. All this is inevitable, it is a natural outworking of true Christianity. So when you come to the nineteenth century you find that these Christian men were concerned about reform. In Sheffield the poet Ebenezer Elliott wrote in his moving manner –

When wilt thou save the people,
O God of mercy, when?
The people, Lord, the people,
Not thrones and crowns, but men.

This was the spirit. Throughout the centuries the talk had been about thrones and crowns and kings; but it is men that matter, so these men were concerned about reform. The result was that Nonconformity in the nineteenth century became very interested in reform.

It is vital, however, that we should realize that it was mainly political reform that interested them. What they agitated for, and fought for, was political equality. Macaulay understood this. He was a very astute thinker. At the time of the Reform Bill, as I told you, he was very fearful that there might be a revolution. But the Reform Bill was passed, and he saw that the danger had gone, but he realized that it was but a temporary respite. He said that the agitators were satisfied for the time being because they had the vote. They were being given more political equality. But he saw, and said, that the real problem, the ultimate problem would arise when the masses asked for economic equality and complete economic freedom. I suggest that we have already reached that particular point.

So Nonconformity, on the whole, in this country was content during the nineteenth century with political reform and political freedom. Today this concern is represented partly by the recent movement which emphasizes ‘The cultural mandate,’ and teaches that it is our primary duty as Christians to see that the lordship of Christ is exercised in every realm and department of life – in drama, art, literature, politics, in Trade Unions and in every other respect. Finally, there is this movement teaching the ‘theology of liberation or revolution.’ In practice in most countries, including ours, the latter is showing itself as a spirit of lawlessness. It is a defiance even of laws passed by the majority, and at times defiance of the guidance and instruction given by their own appointed leaders. The legitimate desire for reform has tended to give way to a spirit of revolution and lawlessness.

The third danger is to advocate complete other-worldliness. I have already dealt with that by emphasizing that it is the duty of the Christian always to be concerned about these matters and to have a world view.

IV

What, then, are we to do in the light of all this? What has this conference taught us? It was designed to help us to face the revolutionary position in which we find ourselves. The first and most obvious lesson must be that there is no blueprint in this matter. We have been hearing how great men, men of God, men who were concerned above all else about exposition of Scripture, exegesis and interpretation, differed and disagreed. We have heard of the different points of view, and disagreements; and we are left to face the position for ourselves, very much as they were. We have the advantage of knowing what they thought and said, whether we think it was right or wrong; but we certainly do not have any ready-made solution.

So, we must go back to the Scripture and attempt to summarize its teaching. The first is, that the New Testament never advocates revolution, but rather the reverse. Take the attitude to slavery for instance. Surely it is of importance at this point. Notice that the New Testament when dealing with this did not denounce slavery as such, or try to put an end to it. Its approach is illustrated in the Epistle to Philemon, for instance, where the apostle Paul makes a spiritual appeal and urges that the slave, though still remaining a slave, should now be regarded as a brother and a brother beloved. There is no broadside attack upon institutions such as slavery. Still more significant, surely, is the symbolical character of the Apocalypse, the book of Revelation, where the situation is dealt with quite deliberately in a symbolic manner in order that the Christians might receive comfort and help and enlightenment, but without aggravating the position, or adding to their sufferings, by a denunciation of the worldly and religious powers that were opposed to them and persecuting them. A fair reading of the New Testament leaves us with that impression, that Christianity is not a revolutionary movement in the sense that this new theology of revolution or liberation would have us believe. That is entirely contrary to the New Testament teaching. On the other hand, the Christian is represented as ‘salt’ in society and ‘leaven,’ and surely the whole point of those comparisons is that Christian influence is to be a quiet influence and a slow process of influencing society.

In the light of that principle it seems to me that we can justify the attitude of Luther and Calvin at the time of the Reformation as over and against that of the Anabaptists. Is it not true to say that, in the situation that obtained at that time, and remembering especially the views of the state, and the relation between the church and the state then held commonly, that Luther and Calvin probably saved the Protestant Reformation. That was surely the motive that governed their attitude to the Anabaptists and to the Peasants’ Revolt.

The seventeenth century, I would suggest, was mainly a political revolution. While the ministers, the preachers, were involved for spiritual reasons, it was essentially, and mainly a political revolution. It can be argued that the ideas entered the minds of the politicians through the preachers and their teaching. I would accept that, but I would still maintain that the revolution itself was primarily political. I would venture to say that the American War of Independence was mainly political also. The great influx in the population of which we heard had a great deal to do with it, and in spite of the influences on the part of the preachers the whole outlook leading to the war was essentially a political one.

Nothing is clearer from the history than that there is tension always between liberty and order. This is the great problem. Am I right when I suggest that the danger of Calvinism is always to overstress order? Order has to be stressed, the danger is to over-stress it. Arminianism over-stresses liberty. It produced the laissez-faire view of economics, and it always introduces inequalities – some people becoming enormously wealthy, and others languishing in poverty and in destitution. That outlook, which is essentially Arminian, always leads to a reaction – chaos first, then a violent reaction ending in a dictatorship on either the right or the left.

Another general remark at this point is that a lack of political and social concern on the part of Christians can very definitely alienate people from the gospel and the church. I hasten to add, on the other hand, that a demonstration of great interest in political and social matters never succeeds in attracting people to Christianity. The history of the past proves that conclusively. Christopher Hill says that there were two revolutions in the seventeenth century. The one he is most interested in, the political and social, he says failed. The Restoration of Charles II proves that. At the same time it is clear that the attempt to reform people by Acts of Parliament has always failed; and the state of the world today proves that that cannot succeed. It is pathetic, not to say ludicrous, to notice the way in which certain modern Evangelicals, who seem to have started reading some ten or twelve years ago, after having spent their time exclusively in evangelistic activities, are now rushing their ill-digested reading into print, and seem to think that they are innovators in saying that we should all be taking an interest in politics and social matters. They do not seem to have heard of the ‘social gospel’ craze of the earlier part of this century. All this has been tried with great thoroughness. I well remember certain men who were concerned about social and political matters, and who constantly preached on such themes, and packed their chapels for a while, but only as long as they preached politics. The moment they began to preach the gospel truly the crowds left them. Politically-minded people are always ready to make use of the church, but they always abandon and shun her when she ceases to be of any value to them.

We must always remember these two aspects. If we give the impression that we have no concern about political and social matters we shall alienate people; and I suggest that we have done so, and so the masses are outside the church. On the other hand, if we think we are going to fill our churches and solve our problems by preaching politics and taking an interest in social matters we are harbouring a very great delusion.

V

What then is our position? We start from the position that the Christian citizen is a man who says that his citizenship is in heaven. ‘Our citizenship is in heaven’ (Phil. 3:20). Christ said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ The Christian’s primary concern must always be the kingdom of God, and then, because of that, the salvation of men’s souls. The Christian is a ‘pilgrim and a stranger.’ He is a traveller and a sojourner in this world. Those are preliminary assumptions.

At this point I ask a question: Does eschatology come in at this point? I believe it does. The Christian, if he is at all instructed must have a view of history. The Bible has a view of history. There is a Christian view of history, and surely it is that everything is leading to an end. There is a development and a progress in history, and it is all leading up to ‘that one far off divine event to which the whole creation moves’ – our Lord’s Second Coming. This is basic to the whole of the New Testament teaching. It ends with, ‘Even so, come, Lord Jesus.’ The main function of government and of culture and of all these agencies is mainly to restrain evil, to make life possible, and indeed to introduce an element of enjoyment into life. That all comes under common grace, but that ultimate great event dominates everything. And I believe that if we are to face our particular age truly we have to face that question. Remembering all the warnings against being concerned about the ‘times and seasons,’ and as one who has been emphasizing that for nearly fifty years, I ask whether there are not indications that we may be in ‘the end of time.’ Are we reaching the ultimate stage? The sign of being in that ‘time,’ I would suggest, is the worship of man. The number of man, 666! Are we reaching that? Is not democracy bound of necessity to lead to that ultimately? The moment democracy loses any kind of biblical sanction it is bound to lead to the worship of men and the setting up of men as the ultimate power over against God, and indeed as god. We are in an age when man is being worshipped. ‘Man come of age,’ ‘Man come into his own,’ Man claiming even to be now in the position to exercise the ‘powers of the Creator’ as a Cambridge professor put it a year or two back. These are the characteristic phrases of today. And we are witnessing anti-God movements and a whole world attitude of anti-God. Not only so, the Turkish Empire has been destroyed, and the Jews are in Palestine. How difficult it is for us to understand how the Puritans could think that England was the elect nation. England is not the elect nation. God’s ancient people are the elect nation. That nation because of its disobedience was put on one side, and Christ said that God was going to give the kingdom to ‘a nation that bringeth forth the fruits thereof’ – the church. But he has not abandoned his ancient people. So, it seems to me, there are certain signs which should at least make us think. I find them to be of great comfort as we face the confusion and the chaos of the present time. Are we not also perhaps beginning to witness a crumbling and a final destruction of the Roman Catholic Church? I do not know. But it is our business as Christians to keep our eyes open. We are exhorted to do so. We are exhorted to expect certain signs by our Lord in his last great addresses.

VI

So I come to my final conclusion. I suggest we are back in New Testament times again. A whole era began to come to an end with the French Revolution in 1789. We are now back to the New Testament position; we are like the New Testament Christians. The world can never be reformed. Never! That is absolutely certain. A Christian state is impossible. All the experiments have failed. They had to fail. They must fail. The Apocalypse alone can cure the world’s ills. Man even at his best, even as a Christian, can never do so. You can never make people Christians by Acts of Parliament. You can never christianize society. It is folly to attempt to do so. I would even suggest that it is heresy to do so. Men must be ‘born again.’ How can they live the Christian life if they have not become Christians? Good fruit can only come from a good tree, a good root; and the idea that you can impose a Christian life or culture upon non-Christian people is a contradiction of Christian teaching. Nevertheless, government and law and order are essential because man is in sin; and the Christian should be the best citizen in the country. But as all are sinful, reform is legitimate and desirable. The Christian must act as a citizen, and play his part in politics and other matters in order to get the best possible conditions. But we must always remember that politics is ‘the art of the possible’; and so the Christian must remember as he begins that he can only get the possible. Because he is a Christian he must work for the best possible and be content with that which is less than fully Christian. That is what Abraham Kuyper seems to me to have done. I have recently read the life of Kuyper again and it is clear that his enactments as Prime Minister and head of the government were almost identical with the radicalism of Lloyd George. They were two very different men in many ways but their practical enactments were almost identical. The chief respect in which they differed was in their view of education.

I now come to what, to me, in many ways is the most important matter of all. I suggest that this is the main conclusion at which the conference should arrive. The Christian must never get excited about reform, or about political action. That raises for me a problem with respect to the men of the seventeenth century and other times. It is that they should have become so excited about these matters. I would argue that the Christian must of necessity have a profoundly pessimistic view of life in this world. Man is ‘in sin’ and therefore you will never have a perfect society. The coming of Christ alone is going to produce that. The Christian not only does not get excited, he never pins his hopes to Acts of Parliament, or any reform or any improvement. He believes in improvement, but he never pins his hopes to it, he never gets excited or over-enthusiastic; still less does he become fanatical or bigoted about these matters.

Another principle of great importance at a time such as this is that there is no point in changing one form of tyranny for another. There is also no point in fighting against impossible odds. So in many countries today the Christian can do nothing but indulge in passive resistance, and he must continue in that until a point arrives that his government tries to interfere with his relationship to God, or his worship of God. His resistance must then become an active resistance. But should he live in a country where a large number of people are agreed about reform and improvement, and that seems possible, I would say that it is his duty to join them and to belong to them. But he must never be foolish or foolhardy. He must be passive in his resistance until he feels that it is possible to produce the desirable form.

So the Christian is left with this profound pessimism with regard to the present, but with a glorious optimism with regard to the ultimate and the eternal future.

How does he live in the meantime? He must heed the great exhortations of the Scripture, and at a time such as this our Lords’ exhortation is – ‘Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man’ (Luke 21:34-36). That is our supreme duty, and I suggest that the primary function of preachers at the present time is to constantly urge that exhortation upon their people. We are not to get excited about the ‘christianizing’ of art or politics or anything else, imagining that you can do so. Exhort people to be ready and prepared; warn them. This surely is the primary business of the preacher at a time like this.

As for the people, they are to act according to their consciences at all times. Ultimately we cannot dictate to another man as to what he is to do. Niemoller in Germany defied Hitler and was sent to prison. Another Christian, Erich Sauer did not do so, and was able to continue with his ministry. We get this difference constantly. A man like Hromodka a Czechoslovakian, was able to justify himself as a Christian preacher and professor in a communist country, whereas other people spend most of their time in denouncing communism. I suggest that our overriding concern should always be our relationship to God, and our looking for, and longing for the coming of Christ. That is the only answer. Man has reached the ultimate. He can no longer be persuaded. He has gone beyond that and worships himself. I can see nothing beyond the present position. Democracy is the ultimate and highest human idea of government but because of man’s fallen sinful nature it must lead to lawlessness and chaos.

Little can be done to arrest this or prevent it; so we look to this ‘glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour,’ and in the meantime we do our utmost to open the eyes of our fellow men and women to what is coming to them. They are entitled to liberty and freedom; but, still more important, they have to meet God and stand before him in judgment.

So I end by saying that we must live as the early Christians did. In the final analysis, to the Christian what do all these things matter? What is your life, the life about which we get so excited and are ready to fight, and to agitate, and to quarrel and to divide. ‘What is your life? It is but a vapour.’ ‘In this tabernacle we do groan being burdened,’ and we shall continue to do so until the King comes, and ‘the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.’

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Mr Spurgeon is a Calvinist, which few of the dissenting ministers in London now are. He preaches salvation, not of man’s free will, but of the Lord’s good will, which few in London, it is to be feared, now do.
John Anderson of Helensburgh
The Early Years, p. 339.

I do not hesitate to say, that next to the doctrine of the crucifixion and the resurrection of our blessed Lord – no doctrine had such prominence in the early Christian Church as the doctrine of the election of grace.
C.H.S., Sermons, 6, 302.

The doctrine of grace has been put by in the lumber chamber. It is acknowledged to be true, for it is confessed in most creeds; it is in the Church of England articles, it is in the confessions of all sorts of Protestant Christians, except those who are avowedly Arminian, but how little is it ever preached! It is put among the relics of the past. It is considered to be a respectable sort of retired officer, who is not expected to see any more active service.
C.H.S., Sermons, 12, 429.

In the previous chapter we sought to recover the image of Spurgeon as he was in the days of his New Park Street ministry. The picture which emerged was not that of a jovial pulpit phenomenon upon whom men lavished their praise but rather of a youth whose arrival amidst the soothing and sleepy religious life of London was about as unwelcome as the Russian cannons which were then thundering in the far-off Crimea. The facts come as somewhat of a jolt to us, for we have more or less become accustomed to look upon Spurgeon as a benign grandfather of modern evangelicalism. When the revival of 1855 and onwards shook Southwark out of its spiritual slumber, the name of the pastor of New Park Street was a symbol of reproach, and blows were rained on him from every direction; the name has since been turned into a symbol of evangelical respectability and we tend to comfort ourselves amidst the prevailing defection from evangelical principles with the thought that the religious world has still some remembrance of a man holding our position whose influence not so many years ago encircled the globe. Yet when we recall the real character of his ministry our comfort may evaporate, for we are faced with the question, not how much we admire Spurgeon, but what would a man like this think of the church today?

We have already spoken of the general characteristics of his early life and they need to be borne in mind as we turn to more detailed aspects of the doctrine he preached. It would be an injustice to the man in any way to separate the truth which he held from the spirit in which he lived. His doctrinal convictions were not formulated in the cool detachment of intellectual study. Rather they were burned into him by the Holy Spirit, irradiated by his love for his Redeemer, and kept fresh in his ministry by communion with God. Spurgeon had little sympathy for men who held an orthodox system which was devoid of the living unction of the Spirit.

One of the first attacks which was made on Spurgeon’s ministry after his settlement in London came from a section of the Baptist community which could at that time be described as ‘Hyper-Calvinist’. The label is not one that Spurgeon liked to use, for he regarded the introduction of the great Reformer’s name as a misnomer: ‘Calvinists, such men may call themselves, but, unlike the Reformer, whose name they adopt, they bring a system of divinity to the Bible to interpret it, instead of making every system, be its merits what they may, yield, and give place to the pure and unadulterated Word of God.’ In the January 1855 issue of The Earthen Vessel, an anonymous writer of this school cast doubt on Spurgeon’s whole position and call to the ministry. Spurgeon’s untraditional phraseology, the crowds which followed him, his general invitations and exhortations to all hearers to repent and believe the gospel, and the ‘broadness’ of his theology were all grounds for suspicion. He was neither narrow enough nor discriminating enough for his critic, who complained: ‘Spurgeon preaches all doctrine and no doctrine; all experience, and therefore no experience.’

For a reason which will later be apparent, the youthful preacher was not concerned to meet this attack; nevertheless he did sometimes pause in the course of a sermon to deal with  the views of the Hyper-Calvinists. Sometimes his reflections are semi-humorous, as the following:

Is there not many a good ‘Hyper’ brother, who has a full knowledge of the doctrines of grace; but when he is reading the Bible, one day, he finds a text that looks rather wide and general, and he says, ‘This cannot mean what it says; I must trim it down and make it fit into Dr Gill’s commentary’?

More often he deals much more sharply with the principles which lead to this kind of practice, for Hyper-Calvinism not only causes personal lopsidedness, but what is more serious, it prevents a full preaching of the gospel.¹

I do not believe [he declares in the course of a sermon on the Good Samaritan] in the way in which some people pretend to preach the gospel. They have no gospel for sinners as sinners, but only for those who  are above the dead level of sinnership, and are technically styled sensible sinners.

We must break the quotation for a moment to clarify his terminology: Hyper-Calvinism in its attempt to square all gospel truth with God’s purpose to save the elect, denies there is a universal command to repent and believe, and asserts that we have only warrant to invite to Christ those who are conscious of a sense of sin and need. In other words, it is those who have been spiritually quickened to seek a Saviour and not those who are in the death of unbelief and indifference, to whom the exhortations of the gospel must be addressed.

In this way a scheme was devised for restricting the gospel to those who, there is reason to suppose, are elect. Spurgeon continues:

Like the priest in this parable, they see the poor sinner, and they say ‘He is not conscious of his need, we cannot invite him to Christ’; ‘He is dead,’ they say, ‘it is of no use preaching to dead souls’; so they pass by on the other side, keeping close to the elect and quickened, but having nothing whatever to say to the dead, lest they should make out Christ to be too gracious, and his mercy to be too free . . . I have known ministers say, ‘Well, you know, we ought to describe the sinner’s state, and warn him, but we must not invite him to Christ.’ Yes, gentlemen, you must pass by on the other side, after having looked at him, for on your own confession you have no good news for the poor wretch. I bless my Lord and Master he has given me a gospel which I can take to dead sinners, a gospel which is available for the vilest of the vile.²

Spurgeon was urgent upon this issue because he saw that if the sinner’s warrant for receiving the gospel lies in any internal qualifications or feelings, then the unconverted, as such, have no immediate duty to believe on Christ, and they may conclude that because they do not feel any penitence or need, the command to believe on the Son of God is not addressed to them. On the other hand, if the warrant rests not in anything in the sinner but solely in the command and invitations of God, then we have a message for every creature under heaven. Spurgeon did not believe that the fact of election should be concealed from the unconverted, but he held that Hyper-Calvinism, by directing men’s attention away from the centrality of personal faith in Christ, had distorted³ the New Testament emphasis and bolstered up complacency in unbelievers. It had alleged that because faith is wrought in man by the power of the Spirit of God, then we cannot command men to believe, but in so doing it by-passed the stark fact that unbelief is always presented to us in Scripture as sin for which we are responsible: ‘If you had not fallen you would come to Christ the moment he was preached to you; but you do not because of your sinfulness.’ Man’s failure to comply with the gospel, instead of being excusable, is the highest expression of his depravity.

It should be clear from this that Hyper-Calvinism is more than a mere theoretical deviation from the gospel, and Spurgeon spoke strongly because he knew by experience that it reduces churches to inactivity or even complete paralysis. ‘I have met with some brethren who have tried to read the Bible the wrong way upwards. They have said, “God has a purpose which is certain to be fulfilled, therefore we will not budge an inch. All power is in the hands of Christ, therefore we will sit still;” but that is not Christ’s way of reading the passage. It is, “All power is given unto me, therefore go ye, and do something.”’⁴ ‘The lazy-bones of our orthodox churches cry, “God will do His own work”; and then they look out the softest pillow they can find, and put it under their heads, and say, “The eternal purposes will be carried out: God will be glorified.” That is all very fine talk, but it can be used with the most mischievous design. You can make opium out of it, which will lull you into a deep and dreadful slumber, and prevent your being of any kind of use at all.’⁵

At no point was Hyper-Calvinism more seriously at fault, in Spurgeon’s eyes, than in its failure to be characterized by zeal for militant and world-wide evangelism. While he knew that not a few Christians of this persuasion were better than their creed, he saw clearly that both the theological and historical evidence indicated that the influence of this teaching never promoted earnest missionary work. If the gospel is only for sensible sinners, how then can the church act under the compulsion of her commission to ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature’? If the warrant to believe only belongs to the penitent, then it does not belong to all men everywhere, for the multitudes of the earth are not in that condition:

I would like to carry one of those who only preach to sensible sinners, and set him down in the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey. There are no sensible sinners there! Look at them, with their mouths stained with human blood, with their bodies smeared all over with the gore of their immolated victims – how will the preacher find any qualification there? I know not what he could say, but I know what my message would be. My word would run thus – ‘Men and brethren, God, who made the heavens and the earth, hath sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world to suffer for our sins, and whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.⁶

‘The day was,’ he says in another sermon, ‘when the very idea of sending the gospel to the heathen was regarded by our orthodox brethren as a piece of Don Quixotism, not to be attempted, and even now, if you say, “All the world for Jesus,” they open their eyes and say, “Ah, we are afraid you are tainted with universal redemption, or are going off to the Arminian camp.” God grant these dear brethren new hearts and right spirits; at present their hearts are too small to bring Him much glory. May they get larger hearts, hearts something like their Lord’s, and may they have grace given them to estimate the precious blood at a higher rate, for our Lord did not die to buy a few hundred of souls, or to redeem to Himself a handful of people; He shed His blood for a number which no man can number, and His elect shall excel in multitude the sands which belt the sea.’⁷

The above quotations are vitally important for a variety of reasons, Firstly, they indicate that there is a real difference between Biblical Calvinism and Hyper-Calvinism. The latter term is sometimes used as though it were simply a stronger formulation of Scriptural doctrines – something beyond a ‘moderate’ position – but this is an incorrect usage, for the system deviates seriously from Scripture and falls short of Scripture. Another wrong usage of the term, which is even more common, is for the label ‘hyper-’ or ‘ultra-’ Calvinist to be attached to those who are in fact opposed to Hyper-Calvinism. Being ignorant of the distinct theological differences which separate Hyper-Calvinism from the faith of the Reformers and Puritans, and being unaware of its different historical origins, some critics use the phrase as though it were the most suitable to describe anyone who is earnest in opposing the tenets of Arminianism. But while this may be a convenient way to brand ‘extremists’, it reveals the spiritual muddle of those who thus use it. Spurgeon, however, had frequently to put up with this treatment and it is not unknown today.

If the reader turns to the twentieth-century biographies of Spurgeon he will have no difficulty in finding references to the preacher’s opposition to the ‘hyper’ school. J. C. Carlile, for example, says, ‘Naturally Mr Spurgeon’s theology often brought him into controversy,’ and he immediately proceeds to mention the controversy we have sketched above. We are left with the impression that Spurgeon was just like we are – opposed to extremes, and we are confirmed in this feeling when we are told by W. Y. Fullerton that ‘he broke away from the sterner school’.⁸ Of course we are given a vague statement of Spurgeon’s Calvinism, but Carlile adds that ‘the stern truths of the Calvinist faith were held practically by all Protestants’.⁹ So with such assurances we are unsuspectingly allowed to suppose that the doctrinal content of Spurgeon’s preaching caused no great uproar in the religious world of his day. This is all thoroughly misleading. The twentieth-century biographers have in fact entirely passed over the greatest controversy of his early ministry; there is not even a whisper of the word which echoes through the six volumes of the New Park Street sermons; it cannot be found in the indexes to these biographies. Why should modern evangelicals be so much concerned to make the word ‘Arminianism’ vanish away?¹⁰

Whatever the purpose, this method of dealing with Spurgeon has quite effectively created an impression of the man which has wide currency today; yet we believe this impression of the nature of Spurgeon’s ‘evangelicalism’ is one which a study of his autobiography and a study of his unabridged sermons thoroughly demolishes. When a small selection of his sermons, entitled Revival Year Sermons, was published in 1959 to commemorate the revival of a century earlier, some British reviewers could not refrain from expressing their feeling that the sermons were ‘hand-picked’ in an attempt to put over a party position which was not really Spurgeonic at all, and when the same sermons were translated into Spanish by a minister of that country, Spanish Baptists questioned the veracity of the translation! We may smile at the story of the Victorian schoolboy who thought that Spurgeon was the Prime Minister of England but it seems there are similar wild ideas about what kind of man he really was, current at the present time.

In expanding these statements it is first necessary to show that the prevalent doctrinal outlook in the 1850s was not Calvinistic, as Carlile affirms, but rather Arminian, and it was chiefly because Spurgeon stood against this that his arrival in London was looked upon with such disfavour by the religious world. Spurgeon’s exchanges with Hyper-Calvinism were only skirmishes compared to the battle which he had to fight on quite a different and much wider front; he judged that Hyper-Calvinism was held only by a group, with comparatively small and scattered influence, within the Baptist denomination, whereas he regarded Arminianism as an error which was influential throughout Nonconformity, as well as within the Church of England. He consequently devoted more time and energy to the exposing of the latter, and the correctness of his assessment of the position is borne out by the strength of the opposition he soon encountered.

The few religious periodicals which favoured Hyper-Calvinism could never have caused the storm which raged round Spurgeon’s ministry in its early years. The newspapers generally, religious and secular, were indeed so far from Hyper-Calvinism that they were not even aware that Spurgeon was opposed by Hyper-Calvinists!

There is no shortage of literary evidence indicating that Spurgeon’s doctrinal position was his chief offence in the eyes of his contemporaries. For example, Silas Henn introduced his book Spurgeon’s Calvinism Examined and Refuted, published in 1858, with these words:

By many, the Calvinistic controversy has been considered as long since settled, and comparatively few in these times, amid such enlightened views of Christianity, dare to proclaim, openly and without disguise, the peculiar tenets of John Calvin. Even in many professedly Calvinistic pulpits, the doctrines are greatly modified, and genuine Calvinism is kept back. But there are some who hold it forth in all its length and breadth, and among these, the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, the notorious preacher at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens, is the most prominent.

The same criticism is commonly to be found in many of the newspapers of that period. The Bucks Chronicle accused Spurgeon of making Hyper-Calvinism essential for entrance to heaven; The Freeman deplored that he denounced Arminians ‘in almost every sermon’; The Christian News likewise decried his ‘doctrines of the most rampant exclusiveness’ and his opposition to Arminianism; and The Saturday Review was pained, as we have noted earlier, at the profanity of his preaching ‘Particular Redemption in saloons reeking with the perfume of tobacco’. Perhaps The Patriot, a Nonconformist journal, best summarized in the following broadside why they were all so much offended at the young preacher:

All, in turn, come under the lash of the precocious tyro. He alone is a consistent Calvinist; all besides are either rank Arminians, licentious Antinomians, or unfaithful professors of the doctrines of grace. College training does but wean young men’s sympathies from the people; and ‘really ploughmen would make a great deal better preachers’. The doctrine of election is, ‘in our age, scorned and hated’. ‘The time-serving religion of the present day’ is ‘only exhibited in evangelical drawing rooms’. ‘How many pious preachers are there on the Sabbath-day who are very impious preachers during the rest of the week!’ He ‘never hears’ his brother ministers ‘assert the positive satisfaction and substitution of our Lord Jesus Christ’. These fishers of men ‘have been spending all their life fishing with most elegant silk lines and gold and silver hooks, but the fish will not bite for all that; whereas we of the rougher sort’, adds the self-complacent censor, ‘have put the hook into the jaws of hundreds’. Still ‘rougher’, if possible, is Mr Spurgeon’s treatment of theologians not of his own especial school. ‘Arminian perversions’, in particular, are to ‘sink back to their birthplace in the pit’. Their notion of the possibility of a final fall from grace is ‘the wickedest falsehood on earth’.¹¹

These quotations are coloured by the annoyance of the writers but they are all unanimous in two charges: namely that Spurgeon’s doctrine was not that which was characteristic of contemporary Protestantism and secondly that he openly and repeatedly opposed Arminianism. Instead of clearing himself from the guilt of these charges Spurgeon readily accepted them.¹² ‘We need not be ashamed of our pedigree,’ he says, ‘although Calvinists are now considered to be heterodox.’ His estimate of the religious situation was that the church was being tempted ‘with Arminianism by the wholesale’¹³ and that her primary need was not simply more evangelism nor even more holiness (in the first place) but a return to the full truth of the doctrines of grace – which, for convenience, he was prepared to name as Calvinism. It is clear that Spurgeon did not view himself simply as an evangelist but also as a reformer whose duty it was ‘to give more prominence in the religious world to those old doctrines of the gospel’¹⁴ . . . ‘The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach today, or else be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges  of a doctrine. John Knox’s gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again.’¹⁵ These words take us back to the heart of his New Park Street ministry; there is a reforming zeal and prophetic fire about the man which, while it awakened some, aroused others to wrath and hostility. Spurgeon spoke as a man convinced that he knew the reason for the church’s ineffectiveness, and though he might have to say it alone, he would not be silent:

There has sprung up in the Church of Christ an idea that there are many things taught in the Bible which are not essential; that we may alter them just a little to suit our convenience: that provided we are right in the fundamentals, the other things are of no concern . . . But this know, that the slightest violation of the divine law will bring judgments upon the Church, and has brought judgments, and is even at this day withholding God’s hand from blessing us . . . The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible is the religion of Christ’s Church. And until we come back to that the Church will have to suffer . . .

Ah, how many have there been who have said, ‘The old puritanic principles are too rough for these times; we’ll alter them, we’ll tone them down a little.’ What are you at, Sir? Who art thou that darest to touch a single letter of God’s Book which God has hedged about with thunder, in that tremendous sentence, wherein He has written, ‘Whosoever shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; and whosoever shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city.’ It becomes an awful thing when we come to think about it, for men not to form a right and proper judgment about God’s Word; for man to leave a single point in it uncanvassed, a single mandate unstudied, lest we shall lead others astray, while we ourselves are acting in disobedience to God . . .

Our victories of the Church have not been like the victories of the olden times. Why is this? My theory to account for it is this. In the first place, the absence of the Holy Spirit in a great measure from us. But if you come to the root of it to know the reason, my fuller other answer is this: the Church has forsaken her original purity, and therefore, she has lost her power. If once we had done with everything erroneous, if by the unanimous will of the entire body of Christ, every evil ceremony, every ceremony not ordained of Scripture were lopped off and done with; if every doctrine were rejected which is not sustained by Holy Writ; if the Church were pure and clean, her path would be onward, triumphant, victorious . . .

This may seem to you to be of little consequence, but it really is a matter of life and death. I would plead with every Christian – think it over, my dear brother. When some of us preach Calvinism, and some Arminianism, we cannot both be right; it is of no use trying to think we can be – ‘Yes’, and ‘no’, cannot both be true . . . Truth does not vacillate like the pendulum which shakes backwards and forwards. It is not like the comet, which is here, there, and everywhere. One must be right; the other wrong.¹⁶

This reforming element in Spurgeon’s early ministry can only be rightly interpreted if we understand his convictions on the theological drift of his age. He believed that God had called him to stand for a reviving of the old Calvinistic evangelicalism once predominant in England and it was because this conviction was so intertwined with the course of his ministry during his first years in London that he has a chapter in his autobiography, at this point, entitled A Defence of Calvinism.¹⁷ An interesting letter of Spurgeon’s which has only recently come to light bears out the same point. The letter is to Charles Spiller, a Baptist minister in Chipping Campden, and while Spurgeon mentions the attack he has suffered from the Hyper-Calvinistic quarter in The Earthen Vessel, it is plain that his main attention is turned in quite a different direction. He rejoices that, through the platform of Exeter Hall, God has given him an opportunity to disturb the general religious malaise which he believed to be connected with an absence of the old orthodoxy.

75 Dover-road,
Boro.
13th February, 1855.

My Dear Brother,

Amid the labour of an enormous correspondence I yet find a moment to acknowledge your note. I bless God that I have sounded an alarm in Zion for I find the sound has gone forth. You may conceive my position, a young man under 21 preaching on that occasion to all the ministers ofLondon (nearly), but I thank God I never yet feared man and although last Sabbath more than 4,000 were assembled in Exeter Hall, though every inch was occupied and they clinging to pillars and everywhere, yet I feel unawed by it, for the God within makes even the Babe mighty. My position, as Pastor of one of the most influential churches, enables me to make myself heard and my daily labour is to revive the old doctrines of Gill, Owen, Calvin, Augustine and Christ. My sermons are printed weekly, I enclose one – the sale is great – and you can procure them at your bookseller by order. They are also printed in the Penny Pulpits.

If you have ever seen The Earthen Vessel you will see how I have been attacked, and set down as a deceiver – the consequence has been that more interest was excited, all the Earthen Vessels were sold –- hundreds of rejoinders were sent to the Editor – while I have quietly looked on, and rejoiced that all things work together for good. I think you will be amused if you read that magazine for December, January and February. I am not very easily put down, I go right on and care for no man on God’s earth. You may well pray that I may be kept near to God, for with knocks up, and kicks down – if I did not lean on His arm I were of all men most miserable. It is no easy matter to be belaboured, both by high and low, and stand still firm. I bless God my church increases at a hopeful rate, 20 to hear tonight before the church, and more to come. All honour to God – for His name I can bear reproach – but the truth I must proclaim. Your note is like a flower in winter – it has the bloom of the summer on it, oh, to have Christ in the Heart, the Holy Ghost in the soul and glory in prospect – for this we might well barter worlds, and for this let us strive not only in words in the pulpit but in verity and truth in our closets alone with our Father.

I am,
Yours fraternally,
C. H. Spurgeon.¹⁸

That it was his emphasis on reviving the old doctrine which aroused intense opposition to his ministry, Spurgeon had not the slightest doubt: ‘We are cried down as hypers; we are reckoned the scum of creation; scarcely a minister looks on us or speaks favourably of us, because we hold strong views upon the divine sovereignty of God, and his divine electings and special love towards his own people.’¹⁹ Preaching to his own congregation in 1860 he said:

There has been no single church of God existing in England for these fifty years which has had to pass through more trial than we have done . . . scarce a day rolls over my head in which the most villainous abuse, the most fearful slander is not uttered against me both privately and by the public press; every engine is employed to put down God’s minister – every lie that man can invent is hurled at me . . . They have not checked our usefulness as a church; they have not thinned our congregations; that which was to be but a spasm – an enthusiasm which it was hoped would only last an hour – God has daily increased; not because of me, but because of that gospel which I preach; not because there was anything in me, but because I came out as the exponent of plain, straight-forward, honest Calvinism, and because I seek to speak the Word simply.²⁰

Spurgeon was not surprised at the enmity that was manifested towards his proclamation of the doctrines of grace: ‘Brethren, in all our hearts there is this natural enmity to God and to the sovereignty of His grace.’²¹ ‘I have known men bite their lip and grind their teeth in rage when I have been preaching the sovereignty of God . . . The doctrinaires of today will allow a God, but he must not be a King: that is to say, they choose a god who is no god, and rather the servant than the ruler of men.’²²

The fact that conversion and salvation are of God, is an humbling truth. It is because of its humbling character that men do not like it. To be told that God must save me if I am saved, and that I am in his hand, as clay is in the hands of the potter, ‘I do not like it’, saith one. Well, I thought you would not; whoever dreamed you would?²³

On the other hand Spurgeon regarded Arminianism as popular because it served to approximate the gospel more to the thinking of the natural man; it brought the doctrine of the Scripture nearer to the mind of the world. The common view of Christianity was accepted by men simply because it was not the teaching of Christ: ‘Had the religion of Christ taught us that man was a noble being, only a little fallen – had the religion of Christ taught that Christ had taken away by His blood, sin from every man, and that every man by his own free-will, without divine grace, might be saved – it were indeed a most acceptable religion to the mass of men.’²⁴ The sting in Spurgeon’s comment was occasioned by the fact that this was precisely what a superficial Protestantism was preaching as the Christian Faith! So in attacking the worldly notions of Christianity which were current, Spurgeon could not help also undermining what so many within the church were actually preaching. No wonder there was a great uproar! But Spurgeon did not flinch, for he believed the old truths were powerful enough to turn his age upside down.

Featured Image:

Jacques-Laurent Agasse, 1767–1849, Swiss, active in Britain (from 1800), Old Smithfield Market, 1824, Oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B2001.2.252. Public Domain.

The post The Lost Controversy: Spurgeon and the Sovereignty of God appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying,
Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted,
My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?—Mark
15:34.

It was the darkest, yet the brightest, day the world ever saw!

Never was such a deed of darkness as the crucifixion of the Lord of glory—never was such a sufferer as the Son of God when he hung upon the accursed tree. Never such dismal hours as when there was darkness, not only over all the land, but darkness in the soul of the Father’s well-beloved, when a veil was drawn between, and the light of Heaven’s love was all eclipsed. Who can realise the depth of suffering, and the agony of desertion, that drew forth the cry, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ It was the darkest day the world ever saw!

But how the brightest?

Ah, the brightest! because there shone forth, in fullest manifestation, the love of God to a lost and ruined world.

It was dark to Jesus that it might be bright to us. The Father forsook him that we might not be forsaken to all eternity. From the shame of Jesus we get our glory; from his sufferings we get salvation; from his wounds we get our healing; from the wrath on him we get our peace; by his death we live!

If in the scene of the crucifixion this be the darkest part in the dark picture, then from it there may shine to us the brightest light. In that Father’s frown we may see a smile, in the forsaken one believers may see themselves brought nigh; and as they hear from their Saviour’s lips the awful words, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ they may also hear a God of love declaring to every ransomed one, to every soul that believes in Jesus, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, to all eternity’ (Heb. 13:5). In viewing this strange and solemn scene, the abandonment or desertion of Jesus, I note—

I. The nature of it.

And here we require to bear in mind the mystery of the person of the sufferer.

He who hangs on the cross, and exclaims, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ is the Son of God and the Son of man! Mysterious union this of natures, the divine and human in one person; ‘Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh’ (1 Tim. 3:16), the Son of God assuming human nature, and in that nature obeying, suffering, and dying on the cross. The world sees in him, and his murderers see in him, only a despised Nazarene. But, ah! within that man there is a holy human soul, and beneath the garb of humanity is the Son of God—‘We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14).

And although it was only in his humanity that he could suffer, for the divinity cannot suffer—he only that hath immortality cannot die—yet between these two natures there is a marvellous and indescribable union, so that when it is asked, Who is this on Calvary? the answer is, It is the Son of God, it is the Son of man, it is our divine Redeemer, who yet, as you see, is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh!

Now when Jesus cried upon the cross, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ he meant not that anything was affecting the union between the divine and human natures. Such a union having been formed, the eternal Son having taken our nature into personal union with himself, nothing can dissolve, nothing can disturb, this union; and it was as the God-man Redeemer that he cried, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’

Neither are we to suppose that when Jesus uttered this mournful cry, the love of the Father towards him had ceased or abated in the slightest degree. The Father loves the Son, and he cannot cease to love him. His love is eternal as himself, unchangeable as his own divine nature; and had it been possible for the love of the Father to the Son to have increased, I believe it would have been when ‘he took the form of a servant’ (Phil. 2:7), when he stooped so low as to become a man, and ‘became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross’ (Phil. 2:8). Yea, Jesus himself tells us, ‘Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again’ (John 10:17).

Neither are we to imagine that when this cry was uttered, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ there was a withdrawal of the support which the Divinity had ever given to the suffering Saviour. God had said, Go, my Son, and I will hold thy hand; and even when Jesus was forsaken on the cross, God could say, ‘Behold my servant whom I uphold’ (Isa. 42:1), with respect to the actual support which was given even then, and without which there never had been a suffering and victorious Saviour.

What, then, was this awful desertion?

There is in it a depth of gloom and horror which it is difficult, aye, impossible, for the human mind to fathom and fully comprehend. God withdraws from Jesus the light of his countenance, the comfortable sense of his love and his complacency in him. He makes him to feel the whole weight of wrath lying upon him as the sinner’s substitute and surety; and whereas the weight of this wrath is only completely felt when God’s absence is felt—when one is made to know the horror of being alone—in God’s universe without God— when the light of heaven is altogether eclipsed, and when one stands as forgotten, cast off, forsaken, Jesus is made to feel it thus, and so to utter the doleful cry, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!’

He was never left thus alone before. Forsaken by all others, we never saw him forsaken by his Father; but now he is emphatically the forsaken one, hanging between earth and heaven, as if owned by neither—‘Cast out from earth as a curse, and not yet received to blessing in heaven.’ Heaven and earth and hell all against him! Once we hear him crying, ‘Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?’ (John 12:27), but from heaven there comes a voice to comfort him; and though all around is dark, when he looks up, there is light in heaven and love in the Father’s eye. We hear him in Gethsemane pouring forth strong cries and tears, and agonising as the bloody sweat falls on the ground, and the prayer ascends, ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me’ (Matt. 26:39), but there is an open ear in heaven to hear that prayer, and a swift messenger wings his way to comfort and strengthen the suffering one. But at the dark hour when he hung on the cross there was no voice from heaven, no messenger—aye, no light, darkness over all the earth, and deeper darkness in the Messiah’s soul.

Behold on the cross the forsaken one!

II. The reason of the abandonment or desertion of Jesus.

Why is it so? Why has the God of love forsaken his beloved Son? How many an adopted child of God has died in peace, enjoying on his deathbed the light and love of Heaven, and singing on earth the song of the New Jerusalem! How many a martyr has expired triumphantly amid the flames, and rejoiced in the presence and support of the God he loved! It was with them the season of sweetest, richest consolation. Underneath and around they felt the everlasting arms, and they saw with faith’s clear eye the face of God, and had poured into their souls celestial light; and why—oh! why is the well-beloved, the only-begotten, the dearest Son expiring in the thickest darkness, feeling nought but the Father’s frown?

In the explanation of the mystery we have the gospel of the grace of God. In the suffering Jesus we see the sinner’s substitute and surety. Out of love to souls God delivered him up to the death of the cross, and he suffered our punishment while he ‘bore our sins in his own body on the tree’ (1 Pet. 2:24). We have forsaken God; we have left our Father’s home, like the poor, wandering prodigal; and the fruit of the sinner’s sin in forsaking God is that God forsakes him. Thus by sin we are cut off from God—from his favour, from his love, from his blessing, from all communion with him. And if you ask for the darkest picture of a forsaken sinner, of one reaping the bitter fruits of departure from his God, I point to the place of woe where there is ‘wailing and gnashing of teeth’ (Matt. 13:50). On the lost in hell lies the wrath of God, and who can tell the horror of falling thus into the hands of an angry God? But with this felt wrath and curse, there is the awful sense of God’s eternal absence.

Ah! they are banished ones; they have heard the sentence, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed!’ (Matt. 25:41). Nevermore shall ye see my face, never feel my favour, never know my smile, but down, deep down in the dark prison-house shall be your eternal home! Thou hast forsaken me! is the eternal shriek of a lost soul. Thou hast forsaken me, I am left alone! I am undone, for ever undone; for thou art absent, save in thine awful presence as a God of wrath and a God of terror, looking on me with thine eternal frown!

Jesus is the banished one in your room and stead, O believing sinner! When he was forsaken on the cross, this was part of his suffering for you. He must taste the bitterest ingredient in the cup of wrath. He must drink of that cup to the very dregs; and as we deserved to be cast off, abandoned, forsaken to all eternity, see on the cross the banished one, the Son of God in darkness, gloom, and woe. Behold on the cross the forsaken one!

III. The suffering in the abandonment or desertion of Jesus.

Intense must have been the agony of soul when Jesus uttered such a cry. Why is it so? was a question never asked before by him. ‘He was led as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before his shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth’ (Isa. 53:7). All the cruelties of his enemies, all the unkindness of his friends, drew forth no sorrow, no complaint at all equal in intensity to this. Here is the bitterest portion of the cup of wrath, here is the sharpest wound of the sword of justice. And he who opened not his month like a lamb, now roars like a lion, as that word means which we have in Psalm 22, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?’

To realise at all the intensity of the suffering of Jesus at this awful hour, you have to bear in mind that this is but the consummation of the sufferings of his life. He was ‘a man of sorrows’ (Isa. 53:3) all his days—‘Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head’ (Luke 9:58). One disciple has denied him; another has betrayed him; and when he was led away to the high priest’s house, they all forsook him and fled. His enemies have been treating him as the vilest malefactor; and amid shame and mocking and cruel violence, they have hurried him away to Golgotha. There is one shout which comes from a united rabble—‘Away with him, away with him! crucify him, crucify him!’ (Luke 23:18, 21). He is weary and worn with suffering. It has told on his very countenance, which is ‘more marred than that of any man’ (Isa. 52:14); and when little more than thirty, men take him for fifty; and at last, when stretched on the cross, and looking at his emaciated frame, he exclaims, ‘I can tell’ (I can count) ‘all my bones!’ (Psa. 22:17).

See him now on the cross. That cry, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ was uttered when he seemed given over to the malice of his cruel foes. For a time, the chains that bind and restrain the spirits of darkness are loosened, and they rage and riot around that cross. See their cruel and malicious enmity as cherished in the breasts and exhibited in the words and deeds of the savage murderers. No taunts are spared, no act of cruelty is wanting; it seems to be their aim to sport with the agonising Saviour. Do you not think you see them dividing his garments when they have nailed him to the cross, and sitting down to watch him there? But they cannot rest: it is too mild a death to allow him to expire without an addition of suffering inflicted by the hands that have nailed him to the tree. They pass and repass, and mock and revile and blaspheme, ‘wagging their heads, and saying, If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross: he saved others, himself he cannot save’ (Matt. 27:35, 36, 39, 40, and Mark 15:29-32).

And then, who can tell how fierce that conflict was, unseen by man, with the powers of darkness! The prince of this world comes to meet the Prince of Peace; Golgotha is the battlefield, and on the cross is the end of the awful conflict. But who can tell how fierce it was, when with the powers of darkness it was the last struggle to defeat the purposes of God, and ruin the souls of men!

At this awful hour, when deserted by friends, and insulted and wounded by enemies, and wrestling with the prince of darkness for a world of sinners—at this awful hour the Father leaves him, hides the light of his countenance, and lets fall the full and to us inconceivable impression of the wrath due to the sinners for whom he dies. He makes our iniquities to meet on him, and forsakes him!

Can we at all comprehend the agony, the gloom, of these three awful hours? Wrapt in darkness deeper far than that which covered the earth (for that was but the symbol and the image of the internal darkening of the sufferer’s soul), he agonises under the hiding of his Father’s countenance; his holy soul is filled with woe; and under the pressure of the suffering, which our words fail to describe, and our minds scarce can comprehend, he cries, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’

Behold on the cross the forsaken one!

IV. The fruit of the abandonment or desertion of Jesus.

I have said that the crucifixion day was the darkest, yet the brightest, the world ever saw.

It is now, it will be to all eternity, the darkest day to some, the brightest day to others. To the lost in hell it stands out in awful horror as the darkest day in the world’s history. To the saved in heaven it stands forth in lofty grandeur as the brightest day. The cross has a dark and a bright side. From it comes terror. From it comes consolation. By the same awful scenes it proclaims wrath and peace; and in them we read of damnation and salvation, of hell and heaven.

Look at the dark side first. In that forsaken one, in the abandonment of Jesus, you see a picture of hell. You see your merited curse. You see God’s righteous wrath and holy indignation against sin. You see that the time is coming when all the impenitent and unbelieving shall be eternally cast away, forgotten, forsaken, lost. When you see in the cross of Christ and in the agonies of the forsaken Jesus a picture of sin’s deserts, you learn that God is in earnest when he tells you what must be the bitter fruit and the eternal wages of sin. It is no mere threat. It is no empty declaration of vengeance that will never be realised. ‘If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?’ (Luke 23:31). In the abandonment of Jesus we hear the sentence ringing, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels!’ (Matt. 25:41). And if any of us are lost, verily the fruit of Christ’s abandonment will be the aggravation of our misery, the increase of our doom; and the bitterest ingredient in the cup of wrath will be the never-ceasing thought that hell might have been escaped, that we had the offer made us of the merits of the sufferings of Jesus the forsaken one. ‘How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?’ (Heb. 2:3).

Look now at the bright side of the cross.

What mercy and love and grace are to be seen in the face of Jesus Christ as he hangs on Calvary as the forsaken one! What hope for you, O anxious, trembling, yet believing souls! Jesus is forsaken that you may be received as returning prodigals to the Father’s bosom and the Father’s love, and never be forsaken to all eternity. Ye may come and lay your sins by faith on the head of the forsaken one. Ye may look on him as standing in your room and stead when the pains of hell gat hold upon him, and the Father’s face was hid. What a mystery is here! What a dark, deep, gloomy gulf this seems—the desertion of Jesus on the cross—but come and bring all your sins and sorrows and fears and distresses, and bury them in this unfathomable gulf, and take peace and consolation in the thought that Jesus was the forsaken one for you, that the Father’s answer to the Saviour’s piercing cry, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me,’ is his word of peace to the believing soul, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee’ (Heb. 13:5).

Is it not strange, the darkest hour
That ever dawned on sinful earth,
Should touch the heart with softer power
For comfort than an angel’s mirth!

The post The Darkest, Yet Brightest Day – Robert H. Ireland appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

WHEN Christian and Hopeful left the Delectable Mountains to pursue their way towards the Celestial City the shepherds bade them ‘Beware of the Flatterer.’ They learned afterwards, by sad experience, the folly of neglecting this advice, for thus the story runs:—

They went then till they came at a place where they saw a way put itself into their way, and seemed withal to lie as straight as the way which they should go: and here they knew not which of the two to take, for both seemed straight before them; therefore, here they stood still to consider. And as they were thinking about the way, behold, a man, black of flesh, but covered with a very light robe, came to them, and asked them why they stood there. They answered, they were going to the Celestial City, but knew not which of these ways to take.

‘Follow me,’ said the man, ‘it is thither that I am going.’

So they followed him in the way that but now came into the road, which by degrees turned, and turned them so from the city that they desired to go to, that, in little time, their faces were turned away from it; yet they followed him. But by-and-by, before they were aware, he led them both within the compass of a net, in which they were both so entangled, that they knew not what to do; and with that the white robe fell off the black man’s back. Then they saw where they were. Wherefore they lay crying some time, for they could not get themselves out.

Then said Christian to his fellow, ‘Now do I see myself in an error. Did not the shepherds bid us beware of the Flatterer? As in the saying of the wise man, so we have found it this day, “A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet”’ (Prov. 29:5).

Hope. ‘They also gave us a note of directions about the way, for our more sure finding thereof; but therein we have also forgotten to read, and have not kept ourselves from the paths of the destroyer. Here David was wiser than we; for, saith he, concerning the works of men, “By the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer”’ (Psa. 17:4). Thus they lay bewailing themselves in the net.

This is not a picture of a temptation to turn aside altogether from the good way. The path of the destroyer appeared to run parallel to that in which they ought to have kept. Nor did they go blundering on, but consulting with one another. Therein they were mistaken, for they should have consulted their Book of instructions. Then they were misled by a gentleman of pleasing appearance, who looked like a servant of the King of kings, and who spoke softly to them, assuring them that, as he himself was bound for the Celestial City, he could lead them thither. His winning accents caused them to yield themselves to his guidance; and, by-and-by, their faces were turned directly away from the city towards which aforetime they had been pressing. You see, it is not a case of the deliberate choice of sin; but rather of being deluded through neglect of the word of God, which is the true guide of the pilgrim.

There are flatterers of this kind in our own hearts. It has often happened, in our experience, that we have been living in simple dependence upon the Lord Jesus  Christ, which is the straight and narrow way which leadeth unto life eternal, and, by-and-by, we have, perhaps, read the experience of some great man, and we think, ‘Well, it must be right to feel as he felt, to doubt as he doubted, to be tempest-tossed as he was.’ There is another road, and we begin to think that it is well to live by feeling. The flatterer does not tell us, in so many words, to give up faith in Christ alone. We should recognize him, and be shocked if he did that: but he insinuates that we may walk a little by our holy feelings. We are not now such infants as we used to be; we have grown in grace somewhat; we may now rely a little upon the past; there is not the same need to be daily hanging upon Christ; why not rest on what was enjoyed at conversion, and make up, if necessary, with some present frames and feelings, present power in prayer, or present usefulness in the Lord’s work?

Mr Flatterer knows well that, when we are most sanctified, there is enough cause to weep over every day in our life. He knows that those who most resemble Jesus are very, very far from being quite like him. There is much more cause to deplore our sinnership, than to admire our saintship. As we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so must we walk in him. Still we rely upon his merits alone. If you begin to walk by yourself even a little way, you will soon find that path leading you, insensibly, into such legality that you try, if not actually to save yourself, yet to keep yourself saved through the works of the law. In a very little time, the believer who does this will fall into the net. He will find the pangs of hell, as it were, get hold upon him; he will find trouble and sorrow. When a bird is caught in a net, it attempts to get out this way and that way. It may break its wings, but it cannot escape; it rather entangles itself more completely. So the soul, that has forsaken simple faith, to live upon its own works, and feelings, and experiences, will try in vain to get relief. It is in legal bondage. The Ten Commandments suffice to make a heavy net when they twist around the sinner who has broken them. Apart from the blood of Jesus Christ, who can hope to escape from an awakened conscience? Thus is the Christian caught in a net when the Flatterer, who lives in his soul, tempts him to self-righteousness and to forsake the Lord. Luther used to say, ‘You need fear a black devil half so much as a white one.’ The white devil of self-righteousness is more dangerous to the Christian than even the black devil of open sin. When open sin tempts us, we know it to be sin, and we are helped to forsake it. But oftentimes, the white devil seems to be an angel of light; and, under the garb of striving after sanctification, or aiming at perfection, we are tempted to leave our child-like confidence in the Lord. This way lies the net!

There are so many other nets that I should not care to have to count them. You young converts may meet with a person who will say to you, ‘I hear you are converted; I am glad of that, but where do you attend?’ ‘Oh, So-and-so!’ ‘Ah! you should not go there; it is very well for some things, but there are higher truths that you will never learn there; you should come with us, and hear how we can explain the prophecies to you’; and so, under the guise of desiring you to listen to prophetic truth, they will lead you into some new form of error.

Others will seek to win you to admire with them the splendours of outward forms and ceremonies. How many unwary ones have been thus allured to Ritualism and Romanism! Certain others will say, ‘Oh, you should not have a minister!’ They cry down the Lord’s shepherds who are found on the Delectable Mountains, and urge you to go where everybody teaches everybody. They are the people of God; they are not a sect, though ten thousand times more bigoted than any sect that ever existed. Beware, I pray you, of any form of doctrine or practice which would lead you from the place where you were born to God, where you have been nurtured in Christ, where you have been made useful, and helped forward in the divine life. There are certain sects that only live by stealing members from other churches, whereas the aim of a Christian church should be to win souls direct from the world. These flatterers, for they are generally such, will tell you that you are too experienced to sit under the ordinary ministry; you are much too useful, or too spiritual, to remain in such a congregation. If you hearken unto them, you will soon find  that leanness has come into your soul, and that you are entangled in the net, for you have been drawn away from the truth as it is in Jesus by some creed of man’s devising.

I would warn our young members especially against that form of faith which holds only half the Bible; against those who proclaim the divine election, but ignore human responsibility, and who preach up high doctrine, but have little or nothing to say about Christian practice. I am persuaded that this is another net of the Flatterer, and many have I seen taken in it. They have ceased from all care about the souls of others, have become indifferent as to whether children were perishing or being saved, have settled on their lees, to eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and have come to think that this was all for which they were redeemed. Their compassions have failed; they have had no weeping eyes over perishing sinners; in fact, they have thought it a sign of being unsound to care about saving sinners at all. May God keep you from being flattered into this net, lest you become pierced through with many sorrows! To the Bible only you must look. Test every new idea with this touchstone: ‘To the law and to the testimony.’ Require a ‘Thus saith the Lord’ from every flattering notion. The old Book is our infallible guide.

Now let us read the passage in which Bunyan describes the pilgrims’ release from the net.

At last they espied a Shining One coming towards them, with a whip of small cord in his hand. When he was come to the place where they were, he asked them whence they came, and what they did there.

They told him that they were poor pilgrims going to Zion, but were led out of their way by a black man, clothed in white, ‘who bid us,’ said they, ‘follow him, for he was going thither too.’ Then said he with the whip, ‘It is Flatterer, a false apostle, that hath transformed himself into an angel of light’ (Prov. 29:5; Dan. 11:32; 2 Cor. 11:14, 15).

So he rent the net, and let the men out.

Then said he to them, ‘Follow me, that I may set you in your way again.’

So he led them back to the way which they had left to follow the Flatterer.

Then he asked them, saying, ‘Where did you lie last night?’

They said, ‘With the Shepherds, upon the Delectable Mountains.’

He asked them then, if they had not of those Shepherds a note of direction for the way.

They answered, ‘Yes.’ ‘But did you,’ said he, ‘when you were at a stand, pluck out and read your note?’

They answered, ‘No.’

He asked them, ‘Why?’

They said they forgot.

He asked, moreover, if the Shepherds did not bid them beware of the Flatterer.

They answered, ‘Yes; but we did not imagine,’ said they, ‘that this finespoken man had been he’ (Rom. 16:18).

Then I saw in my dream, that he commanded them to lie down; which, when they did, he chastised them sore, to teach them the good way wherein they should walk (Deut. 25:2);

and as he chastised them, he said, ‘As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous, therefore, and repent’ (Rev. 3:19; 2 Chron. 6:26, 27).

This done, he bid them go on their way, and take good heed to the other directions of the Shepherds.

So they thanked him for all his kindness, and went softly along the right way, singing,—

‘Come hither, you that walk along the way;

See how the pilgrims fare that go astray?

They catched are in an entangling net,

’Cause they good counsel lightly did forget:

’Tis true, they rescued were,

but yet you see

They’re scourged to boot.

Let this your caution be.’

When a Christian gets into the net of self-righteousness, he is sure to be delivered because he belongs to the Lord, who will not suffer him to be destroyed. But the Shining One, who comes to deliver him out of the net, will certainly bring a scourge of small cords with him, and will chasten him, again and again, till he is willing to walk humbly with his God. Alas! how soon we get high looks and a proud bearing! We dream that we need not come crouching at the Cross-foot, as other sinners do. I heard one say that he had not prayed for forgiveness of sin for twelve months; he had had his sins forgiven years ago. But when the Lord gives us a good dose of bitters, and makes us drink of the  waters of Marah, we ask to be washed as Peter did when he changed his mind, and said, ‘Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.’ Then we feel the need of daily application of the precious blood, and we are willing to stand with the poor publican, and say, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’ We must be chastened to keep us low. A good old countryman, now in heaven, said to me, as I was walking with him in the field where he was ploughing, many years ago, ‘Ah, Master Spurgeon! if I get one inch above the ground, I get that inch too high, and have to come down again.’ So shall we. We must cling to the faith that owns that Christ is our All-in-all. If the Flatterer leads us astray, woe will be unto us. So will it be, I believe, with Christian men and women who, having received a blessing in any church, are induced to turn aside from it. ‘As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place.’ Many such have been well chastened, and have had to come back to their old church again, and have rejoiced once more to sit with the Lord’s people with whom they had happy fellowship in days gone by.

The post ‘Beware of the Flatterer’ – <i>Pictures from Pilgrim’s Progress </i> appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

J. Gresham Machen once wrote: ‘If we are going to avoid controversy, we might as well close our Bibles; for the New Testament is a controversial book practically from beginning to the end.’ Then he made this prediction about the future:

I do not know all the things that will happen when the great revival sweeps over the Church, the great revival for which we long. Certainly I do not know when that revival will come; its coming stands in the Spirit’s power. But about one thing that will happen when that blessing comes I think we can be fairly sure. When a great and true revival comes in the Church, the present miserable, feeble talk about avoidance of controversy on the part of the servants of Jesus Christ will all be swept away as with a mighty flood.¹

You understand that in speaking of revival, Machen was not speaking simply of a time of blessing or excitement in a local church; he was referring to the kind of awakening in the churches and in society which turns attention to God, brings conviction of sin, humbles people, and even changes the course of history. But is his prediction, that such an event will be accompanied by controversy, justified? I believe that it is. Church history shows that all the great turning points in history have been times of controversy and there is good reason why that is the case. It is because every great advance of the kingdom of God takes place in conjunction with the recovery of biblical truth, and when the truth is known in its power opposition will not be absent. Thus when the book of Acts tells us, ‘The word of God grew and multiplied’, we go on to read that the Christians were seen as a ‘sect’ and ‘everywhere spoken against’ (Acts 28: 22). Before we speak of the benefits of controversy, I note three examples of controversies that marked turning points in history.

1. The great Reformation of the sixteenth century. There are those today who think that the Reformation, and the division that gave rise to the Protestant churches, were things that might have been avoided. There ought, it is said, to have been more tolerance and less passion on both sides. The differences, they believe, were more over words than over fundamental issues. Such spokesmen concede that some Reformation of the church was necessary, but suggest that it might have been carried on peacefully had there been better mutual understanding. This argument overlooks something: there were people who thought in just that kind of way at the time of the Reformation. Erasmus, the Renaissance Dutch scholar, is their best representative. Erasmus believed in the need for the Bible to be translated and known; and he supported the reform of abuses in the church. At the same time he thought that all this might be achieved peacefully by a cautious policy of education. So he complained that Martin Luther was a threat to the peace and unity of the church; the German reformer was too dogmatic—he treated opinions, and ‘doubtful and unnecessary’ beliefs, as though they were certainties. Erasmus blamed Luther for his ‘delight in assertions’.

It was to this thinking of Erasmus that Luther replied in The Bondage of the Will, a book which showed that Erasmus was not a real believer in the doctrines of the Bible at all. The Dutchman’s thinking, Luther wrote, meant regarding ‘Christian doctrines as nothing better than the opinions of philosophers and men: and that it is the greatest folly to quarrel about, contend for, and assert them, as nothing can arise therefrom but contention and the disturbance of the public peace.’²

He replied to Erasmus:

Allow us to be assertors, and to study and delight in assertions: and do you favour your Sceptics and Academics until Christ shall have called you also. The Holy Spirit is not a Sceptic, nor are what he has written in our hearts doubts or opinions, but assertions more certain, and more firm, than life itself. ³

Erasmus, Luther says, made keeping peace of ‘greater consideration than salvation, than the word of God, than the glory of Christ’, and the cause of his mistake was that his viewpoint was fundamentally different from that of the Reformers. He saw the controversy over the Reformation as a difference between men. For Luther it was much more than that: it was a movement of the Spirit of God. Men were called to take part but God was the true agent. In the words of John Knox, ‘God gave his Holy Spirit to simple men in great abundance.’ In essence, the Reformation was a revival. God sent forth light and truth, and the hostility that erupted was exactly what Scripture warns us to expect. The uproar in the sixteenth century did not come about because of ‘opinions’; it came from enmity to the Bible and to God. ‘The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be’ (Rom. 8:7).

2. The Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth century, or as it became known in the American colonies, ‘The Great Awakening’. This also was attended by controversy, not now between Protestants and Roman Catholics but between Protestants themselves. Yet the issue was very similar to the main issue at the Reformation. The devil’s constant strategy is to seek to merge the church and the world so that the people of God lose their distinctiveness and be no longer as ‘a city set upon a hill’. The primary way for Satan to achieve this is to confuse what it means to be a Christian. He uses false prophets to make entrance into the kingdom of God broad and not narrow, and so becoming a Christian is just a matter of belonging to the institutional church. ‘Be baptized, profess Christianity, attend church’, and that is all. This was largely the position on both sides of the Atlantic in the eighteenth century, as it had been two centuries earlier. When Whitefield and Wesley began to preach the necessity of being born again people heard it as though it was a new religion. Typical was the testimony of Thomas Webb, a parish clerk in England, who had listened to many sermons in his lifetime, and yet confessed, ‘The new birth, justification by faith only, the want of free will in man to do good works without the special grace to God, was as it were, a new language to me.’⁴ Archibald Alexander, who was brought up among Presbyterians in the Shenandoah Valley, says the same thing. The day came in his life when, away from home, a Baptist millwright asked him

Whether I had experience the new birth. I hesitated and said, ‘Not that I know of.’ ‘Ah’, said he, ‘if you had ever experienced this change you would know something about it!’ Here the conversation ended; but it led me to think more seriously whether there were any such change. It seemed to be in the Bible; but I thought there must be some method of explaining it away; for among the Presbyterians I had never heard of anyone who had experienced the new birth, nor could I recollect ever to have heard it mentioned.’⁵

The fundamental controversy in the eighteenth-century revival was about the nature of vital, life-changing Christianity. The evangelicals appealed to the testimony of the New Testament on such truths as the power of the Holy Spirit in conviction of sin, and his work in giving assurance of salvation, and they were told such things were no longer necessary in ‘Christian’ countries. It was ‘fanaticism’ and highly offensive to preach to churchgoers as though they might not be Christians. Take one particular instance of this controversy. Jonathan Edwards, leader in the Awakening in colonial America, was dismissed from the church at Northampton which he had served for twenty-three years. The cause of his dismissal was that he had come to see the wrongness of allowing churchgoers to come to the Lord’s Table although they could give no testimony to their personal faith in Christ. When he sought to persuade his people that the Lord’s Table, and the purity of the church, needed to be guarded, there was such an outcry against him that it terminated his ministry.

3. The Modern Controversy over Scripture. In the last century practically all the historic denominations of the English-speaking nations, from America to New Zealand, fell into serious decline. Whole communities where light once burned brightly were left in darkness. This happened because the leadership in these churches took the wrong side in controversy over whether the whole Bible is God-given revelation which is to be obeyed in all it says. Now although this controversy continues to be contemporary, we are all aware that it did not begin yesterday. It came out into the light in the 1880s, and it was at its height until about the 1920s, when tragically the mainline churches in our countries gave in to the teaching that the Bible contains both truth and error. The majority argued that this change of belief was simply the inevitable result of a better understanding of the nature of the Bible. No one should be disturbed about this discovery, they said, because faith does not rest upon a Book but upon the living Christ. The claim was, ‘It is Christ we worship, not a book!’ Such was a common way in which falsehood was presented and it was promised that there was no danger in accepting it. After all, they said, there is a difference between believing the Bible and ‘believing in theories about the Bible’. The historic Christian belief in the inerrancy of all Scripture was only ‘a theory’ produced to explain its composition. Other possible explanations were not to be excluded. In 1888 a prominent English Baptist leader, John Clifford, defended this thinking in a major speech which he entitled ‘The Battle of the Sacred Books’.⁶ ‘Books’ in the plural was central to his thesis. There are other ‘sacred books’; Christianity cannot be exclusive in its claim to have revelation from heaven. The Bible is only ‘superior revelation’, but in saying this, he added, ‘Let me carefully note that we speak of the Bible ITSELF, and not of any human theories concerning its composition.’ Without stating whom he was attacking, Clifford referred to those of orthodox belief as ‘scholastic system-builders, and priest-bitten ecclesiastics’. They are people, he said, who think ‘geography and statistics as equally vital with redemption and ethics’—a veiled way of saying that if matters of fact are wrong in the Bible that should not trouble us. It is, he said, ‘fatal’ to forget ‘that our faith does not rest, in its last support, upon the qualities and forces of the Scriptures, but on God . . . Jesus did not say to His disciples, “Go, preach to everybody, everywhere, and lo, a book is with you; but, lo, I am with you.” Our trust is in a living Leader; not in a book we read.’

Clifford was only repeating an idea already becoming popular and supposedly the result of the progress of scholarship. It was thirty-six years after his speech that a document called the Auburn Affirmation was published in the United States, signed by 150 Presbyterian ministers and then by others until the number grew to about 1,300. This Affirmation claimed that men of liberal belief in their theology had the same right to be in pulpits as traditionalists. They all ‘believed the Bible’, it was just ‘certain theories concerning the inspiration of the Bible’ over which they differed.

But by the 1920s the distinction between the Bible and ‘theories’ was worked out more widely. It was now said that one could believe in the cross of Christ without accepting any ‘theory’ of the atonement. Or one could believe in ‘the resurrection of Christ’ without determining whether it was a bodily resurrection. Bodily resurrection was only a ‘theory’, and the liberals were equally entitled to their theories.⁷

In some great controversies the leaders on the side of truth are not always seen to win in their lifetimes. It was so in this controversy. The two foremost leaders in opposition to liberal theology were C. H. Spurgeon in Britain, and J. Gresham Machen in America. Both men saw the tide go against them. Spurgeon saw a majority failing to support his call for subscription to a definite creed, and Machen was suspended by the Presbyterian Church, after a heroic defence of the faith. Both men died in their mid-fifties. Books by other faithful men have since demonstrated that the position defended by Spurgeon and Machen is the position taken by Scripture itself. Yet these books were largely ignored. What cannot be ignored is the providence of God in bringing spiritual desolation in all the denominations where the unbelief of liberalism was accepted. Once fruitful churches became a wilderness. Disbelief cannot coexist with the sanction of the Holy Spirit.

The benefits of controversy

That great blessings may result from controversies is an evident lesson of history.

1. Controversy leads to closer and clearer definitions of the truth. The great creeds and confessions of the churches have been born out of controversies. Heresies that might have ended Christian testimony have been overruled to establish the truth more brightly.

In the year 1555 error had come in like a flood in England, and those who opposed it were being put to death in numbers. Yet when Hugh Latimer died at the stake, October 16, 1555, he could say to his fellow martyr, ‘Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out.’ His belief that controversy and persecution would be overruled for good was correct. ‘There must be divisions among you’, Paul told the church at Corinth, ‘that those approved may become more manifest’ (1 Cor. 11:19). As Charles Hodge says: ‘It is a great consolation to know that dissensions . . . are not fortuitous, but are ordered by the providence of God, and are designed, as storms, for the purpose of purification.’ Or, in the words of the Puritan, Samuel Bolton: ‘God suffers errors to arise to bring us back to the original word of God, that there we might rectify all. If there had not been such clashing and disputing in former ages, our way had not been clear to us, in many glorious truths.’⁸

Jonathan Edwards’ sufferings at Northampton had the same consequence. They were not in vain. More attention came to be given to the need for a credible evidence of a change of heart in order to permit admittance to the Lord’s Supper, and this led to a very general change in practice of many churches.⁹

Judged in purely numerical terms, the decline of the mainline churches into liberalism a hundred years ago was a tragedy, but it prompted many faithful men and women at home and on the mission fields to take a stronger stand on the inerrancy of Scripture.

2. Controversy has brought divisions that are a blessing to the world. There are times in history when the call of Hebrews 13:13 is again appropriate: ‘Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.’ First-century Christians were to leave a dead Judaism; they belonged to the Jerusalem ‘which is above,’ outside the Jerusalem which ‘is in bondage with her children’ (Gal. 4:25, 26). The call to separation is sometimes the call of God.

It is true that there have been times when earnest resistance to error in a denomination has been owned of God for its recovery, but there are also times when believers have to find spiritual life outside churches that are dead. There are religious institutions where believers have remained even after all attempts at recovery have proved futile.¹⁰ Those who did not leave the Presbyterian Church with Machen were to find this. Henry Coray, a witness of the 1930s’ controversy, commented on that point fifty years later: ‘One is constrained to look back and ask the question, “How goes the battle?” The answer had to be: the battle is over and the mopping up process is going on. The warriors have sheathed their swords. Where is there in the (now) United Presbyterian Church a single rallying point, a stalwart uncompromising post where the conflict is raging?’¹¹

Certainly, as I will argue, divisions arising out of controversy are not always beneficial, but both the Reformation and the eighteenth-century Awakening demonstrate the great blessings that have come to nations in times of disruption. It is not romanticising history to say that vast benefits, spiritual, moral, and economic, followed the Reformation: society was uplifted, tyrannies put down, and freedom of speech established.

Dangers

1. The danger of Christians not recognising when serious controversy is justified and when it is not. I believe that the three controversies noted above warranted controversy and division. The truths involved were fundamental and worth suffering for. We are commanded to ‘contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints’. But that does not mean we are to contend over every difference that arises. There are fundamental truths, lesser truths and matters which belong more to the sphere of speculation. If the line between these is not correctly drawn then great damage is liable to be done. The understanding of the best of men remains imperfect, and that means that a determination to secure or insist on unanimity in all things, will only multiply disputes and divisions. There are many instances where this has happened in church history, when the kingdom of God has been injured by believers engaging in disputes among themselves on issues not fundamental. This was part of the reason why the Puritan movement in England lost its ascendency. Men like-minded on the gospel fell out over the issue of how the church is to be governed. Now that is not a trivial subject. The Bible speaks on church government. But godly men differ on how parts of the biblical teaching are to be interpreted. The difference between those of Presbyterian and Independent views weakened their whole cause. In the last sermons Puritans preached before they were put out of their churches in 1662, there are pleas for more brotherly love, but by that date much damage had been done.¹²

Or consider what happened among Bible-believing Presbyterians in the United States in the 1930s. Those who rallied round Machen formed a new denomination, but it was to split over such questions as unfulfilled prophecy, and whether the wine drunk at the Lord’s Supper should be alcoholic. Again these points are not incidental, but they were claimed to justify the breaking of fellowship between men who had stood together on fundamental truths.

If good men, as these men were, failed to draw the distinction between first and secondary truths, and between mistakes which are tolerable and errors which are not, it underlines the difficulty that often enters into controversy. One lesson to be drawn is that not all Christians are called to be engaged in controversy. To play a useful part in a controversy means being a teacher of others, and Scripture is clear, not all Christians are called to teach: ‘Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren’ (James 3:1). For a start that rules out women taking any lead in controversies. Others are also ruled out. While all are called to be faithful, not even all teachers are gifted for controversy. Some may be eminent in one sphere but not in this one. It was an old Methodist who once said that the Methodists are good for leading sinners to Christ but no good in controversy. John Duncan, speaking about the early church Fathers, said, ‘The primitive Fathers were very poor divines. I don’t think Polycarp could have stood a theological examination by John Owen; but he was a famous man to burn.’ That is to say, God qualified Polycarp for what he was called to be, a martyr for Christ.¹³ This is not an argument to justify theological pacificism, yet it needs to be said that not all are called to be leaders in controversy. Unhappily it has too often been that men of a contentious spirit have taken this role for themselves.¹⁴

2. The danger of being distracted from what is of first importance. Potential controversies are ever present and it is easy to become participants. The warnings of Scripture are relevant to this phenomenon: we are told not ‘to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies’ that lead to ‘fruitless discussion’ (1 Tim. 1:4, 6). ‘Avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Law, for they are unprofitable and worthless’ (Titus 3:9). The nature of the controversies to which Paul refers is not clear; what is clear is the continuing existence of many debatable subjects which are not fundamental to the work of the gospel ministry. The Puritans used to say, ‘The devil never lets the wind of error blow long in the same direction.’ His purpose is to keep side-tracking Christian leaders from their main work.
Professor John Frame has listed twenty-one controversies which he believes have engaged evangelical Reformed Christians among themselves in the last seventy years.¹⁵ Whatever one thinks of the issues Frame covers, it is surely a sad thing how much time was taken up in these disputes. Ministers of the gospel are called to awaken sinners and to lead them to Christ and glory. The time is short in which to do it. Our strength is small. Unless we are watchful, precious time will go to little purpose and opportunities for greater things be lost forever.

Matthew Henry gave this wise counsel:

Ministers should avoid, as much as may be, what will occasion disputes; and would do well to insist on the great and practical points of religion, about which there can be no disputes; for even disputes about great and necessary truths draw off the mind from the main design of Christianity, and eat out the vitals of religion.¹⁶

In eighteenth-century Scotland a Secession took place from the Established Church of Scotland that incorporated numbers of the best people and preachers in the land. The Secession was an evangelistic and missionary force for good. But the congregations which adhered to it were drawn into repeated controversies among themselves and with others. One of their most eminent ministers, John Brown of Haddington, left this testimony: I look upon the Secession as indeed the cause of God, but sadly mismanaged and dishonoured by myself and others. Alas! for that pride, passion, selfishness, and unconcern for the glory of Christ and spiritual edification of souls, which has so often prevailed. Alas! for our want of due meekness, gentleness. Alas! that we did not chiefly strive to pray better, preach better, and live better, than our neighbours.¹⁷

3. The danger of treating matters of belief as the only priority. Truth is indeed a priority. Error is to be resisted. False teachers are to be exposed. But it is not the only priority. If one asks the question, What should be the chief features of Christian behaviour according to the New Testament, it would be hard to argue that contending for the faith stands alone at the top of the list. Consider how much is said in Scripture on the believer as a peacemaker. ‘Peacemakers’, says our Lord, ‘shall be called the children of God’ (Matt. 5:9). ‘If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men’ (Rom. 12:18). ‘Pursue peace with all men’ (Heb. 12:14). Within the church, the duty is ‘being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ (Eph. 4:3). ‘Have peace one with another’, is the command of Christ (Mark 9:50); ‘Be at peace among yourselves’ (1 Thess. 5:13).

Or consider the biblical emphases on brotherly love. ‘A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another’ (John 13:34, 35). But what if a fellow-Christian sins against you? The answer is, ‘forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you’ (Eph. 4:32). What such texts teach us is that the Christian life is more than a matter of knowledge and correct thinking. Spiritual life does not reside only in the intellect. A person can hold the right beliefs and not be a Christian at all. Where there is the new birth there is not only light to the mind, but love in the heart and grace in the spirit. Orthodox belief is not the only mark of true Christianity. When controversies begin between Christians they are tempted to forget this and attention may begin to turn solely on the points of difference. This was one of the problems of the church at Corinth. Knowledge was being treated as if it alone mattered. Some believed that they had got better knowledge and opinions than others, and there was something fundamental missing in their controversies. ‘Knowledge makes arrogant’—‘puffeth up’— ’but love edifies’ (1 Cor. 8:1). ‘Though I have all knowledge . . . and have not love, I am nothing’ (1 Cor. 13:2). The truth defended without love is not genuine Christianity. When disputes and differences arise they are not likely to be solved only by argument. Supernatural aid is needed. Thomas Manton wrote: ‘In our contests about religion, God must especially be sought unto for a blessing . . . disputing times should also be praying times. Prejudices will never vanish till God “send out his light and truth”, Psa. 43:3; and if the devil be not prayed down, as well as disputed down, little good cometh of our contests.’¹⁸

4. The danger of underestimating how much combustible material there is still in the best of Christians. Controversy can easily be the spark that ignites pride, conceit, ambition, and thus gives scope to the worst in human nature. It is sadly clear that some controversies in the churches show little concern for the glory of God. Archibald Alexander wrote: ‘It has long been remarked, that no spirit is more pungent and bitter than that of theologians in their contentions with one another; and it has often happened, that the less the difference, the more virulent the acrimony.’¹⁹ How is such a thing possible if there are Christians on both sides? It is because in the heat of controversy the weakness and imperfection which beset us all are ignored. And we have an adversary who is well able to tempt us to wrong judgments and suspicions about other Christians. ‘Satan knows that nothing is more fit to lay waste the kingdom of Christ than discord and disagreement among the faithful’ (Calvin). One temptation of the devil is to lead Christians to think that so long as they are defending the truth, and ‘upholding the church’, then other duties may be temporarily suspended. Who does not know that in controversy there are duties which almost pass out of sight? Christ’s ‘Golden Rule’, ‘Whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them’ (Matt. 7:12), is laid aside.²⁰ So is the royal law, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself ’, and the apostolic command, ‘Let each esteem other better than themselves’ (Phil. 2:3).

When controversies start brotherly love can degenerate into meaning loving those who agree with me, or loving those who belong to the same party or denomination as I do. Robert Candlish has the evidence of church history supporting him when he writes of how brotherly love can turn into sectarianism and partisanship:

You love as brethren those who happen to agree with you in holding certain opinions, pursuing certain ends. But if your unity is simply the result of your unanimity, it may make you strong as an ecclesiastical corporation; it may make you proud and happy as a select spiritual company, dwelling apart, nearer the throne than many. But it does not enlarge or elevate the heart. It is of the earth. It breeds earthly passions,—censoriousness, superciliousness, the bigot’s mean intolerance. Such brotherly love has been the bane and curse of the Church in all ages, the scandal of Christianity, the fruitful mother of strife among its professors.²¹

5. The danger of not foreseeing what desolations controversy can cause in the churches. The evidence of church history is that times of controversy between Christians have commonly been followed by times of much deadness and lack of evangelistic success. That is not surprising, for contentions between Christians and churches grieve the Holy Spirit and encourage unbelief in the world. Unbelievers commonly may not understand the points of difference in controversies, but they can understand a worldly spirit, and when they see that operating among Christians they judge there is nothing supernatural in the faith.

Charles J. Brown, Free Church of Scotland leader of the nineteenth century, says this on Paul entreating the Christians at Philippi to unity: ‘He knew that contention at once eats into the vitals of the Church itself, and exposes it to the ridicule and scorn of the world, stops the progress of the Gospel in Christians themselves and paralyses all their efforts to make it known to others. Therefore is he so intensely desirous to crush this evil in the bud.’²² Henry Coray, a witness to the divisions among men of Reformed persuasion after the death of Machen in 1937, left this testimony in 1981:

In retrospect, there is probably not a person living who passed through those tumultuous years who does not look back on the fragmentation with sorrow and regret. Unfortunately in controversy emotions too often color principles, feelings run high, statements are tossed off that should never be voiced, personality clashes with personality, and scars of battle will be carried to the cemetery.²³

How often we miss the warning of Scripture: ‘The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water’ (Prov. 17:14), on which Charles Bridges writes: ‘One provoking word brings on another. Every retort widens the breach. Seldom, when we have heard the first word, do we hear the last. An inundation of evil is poured in, that lays desolate peace, comfort, and conscience. Does not grace teach us the Christian victory, to keep down the expression of resentment, and rather bear provocation, than to break the bond of unity?’

John Newton as an example

John Newton was a peace maker. He lived at a time when there were some sharp disputes between evangelical Christians, and he stressed the catholicity that should mark all who belong to Christ:

I profess myself to be of no party, and to love all of every party who love the Lord in sincerity. If they preach the truth in love, live as they preach, and are wise and watchful to win souls, and to feed the flock, I care not much whether they are called, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Churchmen, Kirkmen, or Methodists . . . In some of the great shops of London, there are several counters; and servants at each attend the customers. If these servants are faithful and have their master’s interests at heart, they will not be jealous of each other, they will not affront the customers by saying ‘Why do you not come to be served on my side of the shop?’ If they are all well served and pleased, it signifies not to which counter they come. Now what are we but servants of one great master? What are our denominations and distinctions but as the several counters? ²⁴

Newton was not the kind of easy-going pacifist who did not believe in controversy at all. But he has a good deal to say to gospel ministers, and especially to young ministers, on being drawn into controversy. We find him, for example, in correspondence with John Ryland Jr, a young preacher who has recently escaped from hyper-Calvinism. He now believed, as Newton believed, that the gospel is to be offered to all people. But his father, a veteran preacher, still leant on the side of hyper-Calvinism and put his belief into print. The son writes to Newton and asks whether he should go into print with his views, contrary to those of his father. In reply Newton grants the father has some failings, and then comments: ‘He has not left many equal to him, in some respects. I would no more write against such a man, though he is not my father, than I would use my right hand to wound my left.’ Newton gently suggests that Ryland Jr was too ready to get into combat, and writes: ‘It seems errors are breaking out in the several places you mention, and you are on the point of writing to suppress them. But if there was a fire in all these towns, must they be burned to ashes, unless you can go with your bucket of water to quench the flames?’ He urges him to concentrate on preaching the truth and to take ‘less pains to combat and confute error’.²⁵ Elsewhere Newton writes of the need for an earnest defence of the faith, but while he underlines that such work is praiseworthy and honourable, he says it is also dangerous: ‘We find but very few writers of controversy who have not been manifestly hurt by it. Either they grow in a sense of their own importance, or imbibe an angry contentious spirit. . . . What will it profit a man if he gains his cause, and silences his adversary, if at the same time he loses that humble, tender frame of spirit in which the Lord delights, and to which the promise of his presence is made!’²⁶ If a Christian is convinced of his duty to enter into dispute with men teaching errors, then, Newton says, first, commend your opponent by earnest prayer ‘to the Lord’s teaching and blessing’. Then consider whether the opponent is to be regarded as a believer. In that case the Lord loves him, is patient with him, and ‘you must not despise him, or treat him harshly. . . . In a little while you will meet in heaven; he will then be dearer to you than the nearest friend you have upon earth is to you now. Anticipate that period in your thoughts; and though you may find it necessary to oppose his error, view him personally as a kindred soul, with whom you are to be happy in Christ forever.’

But supposing you think the opponent is unconverted (a conclusion not to be reached without good evidence), then, ‘He is a more proper object for your compassion than your anger. If God in his sovereign pleasure, had so appointed, you might have been as he is now. You were both equally blind by nature. If you attend to this, you will not reproach or hate him, because the Lord has been pleased to open your eyes and not his. Of all people who engage in controversy, we, who are called Calvinists, are most expressly bound by our own principles to the exercise of gentleness and moderation. If, indeed, they who differ from us have a power of changing themselves, if they can open their own eyes, then we might with less inconsistency be offended at their obstinacy.’²⁷ In addition to Newton’s letters, we have valuable information from another source on how he sought to practise his principles. The Rev. Thomas Scott served a parish not far from Newton’s at Olney. When they first met, Scott did not believe in the Trinity and treated evangelical beliefs as matters for amusement. ‘Once’, Scott writes, ‘I had the curiosity to hear him [Newton] preach; and, not understanding his sermon, I made a very great jest of it.’ Yet he was drawn to Newton, and when Newton gave him an evangelical book, he wrote to him in the hope of engaging him in ‘a controversial discussion of our religious differences’. ‘My arguments’, he believed ‘would prove irresistibly convincing’. Accordingly about nine or ten letters passed between the two men, but to Scott’s annoyance Newton would not debate theological points with him; instead he wrote of such things as the nature of true faith and how it is to be sought and obtained. For an interval of sixteen months this correspondence was dropped, but Newton treated his proud critic as a friend, and at length, when personal discouragements drove Scott to Olney for help, that friendship became one of the means God used to make Thomas Scott a new man and a leading evangelical writer. The whole story is told by Scott in a piece of autobiography, The Force of Truth, An Authentic Narrative.²⁸

Conclusions

1. Men need to know themselves. Some by temperament are inclined to be pacifists in all disputes, and to decline controversy even when it is necessary. In that way errors and evils are often allowed to take root in churches unopposed. But much damage is also done by those who are too ready to take up issues, and even to enjoy strife. Thomas Scott, after his conversion, reflected on this problem, when he wrote, ‘Mr Newton is, I think, too much afraid of controversy; others are too fond of it.’²⁹ Certainly all preachers should be very sparing in taking up current controversies in the pulpit; a diet of criticism regularly delivered will produce a censorious people.

2. It is essential that time and energy be given to the main things. As Baxter wrote: ‘Unholiness is the great point of difference . . . our towns and countries have two sorts of people in them; some are converted and some unconverted; some holy and some unholy; some live for heaven and some are all for earth; some are ruled by the word of God and some by their own flesh and wills.’³⁰ ‘It is the principles and fundamental truths that life and death doth most depend upon, in which the essentials of Christianity do consist . . . Get well to heaven, and help your people thither, and you shall know all these things in a moment.’³¹

3. In all controversy unnecessary adverse comment on persons is to be avoided, and likewise the use of pejorative names and titles. After his early ministry, Spurgeon stopped describing fellow evangelicals as ‘Arminians’, while he continued to indicate his disagreement with their thinking. The use of offensive labels is more calculated to alienate brethren than to help them.

4. Brotherly love and humility are the great antidotes to wrong controversies. It is for the exercise of these graces that Paul entreats the disagreeing Christians at Philippi (Phil. 2:1-4). On which verses Charles J. Brown observed:

There would be very little fear indeed, of Christians differing from each other, in anything of material consequence,—anything which they would find it necessary to make a matter of controversy in the Church,—if only they were thoroughly joined together in love and mutual affection. No doubt even the most attached and endeared Christian friends might differ in minor shades of opinion. But they would infallibly come to an agreement in things important and vital, so as to be, to all practical purposes, ‘perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment’. It will be found to be the failure of love that principally, and in the first instance, gives rise to all formal and avowed differences and oppositions of sentiment among Christians.³²

5. This subject enforces our need of repentance. How great is the unrecognized damage done in this area! We may be looking for spiritual success and yet at the same time be grieving the Spirit of God in God-dishonouring controversies. We too often treat contention with brethren as though it were contention against the world, forgetting the words of Samuel Rutherford; ‘Why should we strive? For we be Brethren, the sons of one father, the born citizens of one mother Jerusalem . . . We strive as we are carnal, we dispute as we are men, we war from our lusts, we dispute from diversity of star-light and day-light.’³³ How much damaging, discouraging strife can be found alongside a profession of faith in Christian unity! We confuse man’s wisdom with the wisdom which is ‘first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated’ (James 3:17). How many of our words will be found as ‘wood, hay, stubble’ when ‘the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is’ (1 Cor. 3:12, 13)? Boldness in opposing serious error is a need of the hour, but prayer for peace makers has surely taken too low place in our priorities, and we suffer for it.

6. Wrong words arise from wrong thinking. Hence the concluding exhortation of the apostle to believers whose unity was in danger. After reminding them of how prayer is indispensable for the possession of the peace of God, he tells them what they are to do with their minds—some things are always to be thought about, to be pondered: ‘Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things . . . and the God of peace will be with you’ (Phil. 4:8, 9). ‘Finally, brethren . . . be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you’ (2 Cor. 13:11).

Featured Photo by Miguel Henriques on Unsplash

The post The Benefits and Dangers of Controversy – Iain Murray appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

That conviction of sin is a necessary part of experimental religion, all will admit; but there is one question respecting this matter, concerning which there may be much doubt; and that is, whether a law-work, prior to regeneration, is necessary; or, whether all true and salutary conviction is not the effect of regeneration.

I find that a hundred years ago this was a matter in dispute between the two parties into which the Presbyterian church was divided, called the old and new side. The Tennents and Blairs insisted much on the necessity of conviction of sin by the law, prior to regeneration; while Thompson and his associates were of opinion that no such work was necessary, nor should be insisted on. As far as I know, the opinion of the necessity of legal conviction has generally prevailed in all our modern revivals: and it is usually taken for granted, that the convictions experienced are prior to regeneration. But it would be very difficult to prove from Scripture, or from the nature of the case, that such a preparatory work was necessary.

Suppose an individual to be, in some certain moment, regenerated; such a soul would begin to see with new eyes, and his own sins would be among the things first viewed in a new light. He would be convinced, not only of the fact that they were transgressions of the law, but he would also see that they were intrinsically evil, and that he deserved the punishment to which they exposed him. It is only such a conviction as this that really prepares a soul to accept of Christ in all His offices; not only as a Saviour from wrath, but from sin. And it can scarcely be believed, that that clear view of the justice of God in their condemnation, which most persons sensibly experience, is the fruit of a mere legal conviction on an unregenerate heart. For this view of God’s justice is not merely of the fact that this is His character, but of the divine excellency of His attributes, which is accompanied with admiration of it, and a feeling of acquiescence or submission. This view is sometimes so clear, and the equity and propriety of punishing sin are so manifest, and the feeling of acquiescence so strong, that it has laid the foundation for the very absurd opinion, that the true penitent is made willing to be damned for the glory of God. When such a conviction as this is experienced, the soul is commonly nigh to comfort, although at the moment it is common to entertain the opinion, that there is no salvation for it. It is wonderful, and almost unaccountable, how calm the soul is in the prospect of being for ever lost.

An old lady of the Baptist denomination was the first person I ever heard give an account of Christian experience, and I recollect that she said that she was so deeply convinced that she should be lost, that she began to think how she should feel and be exercised in hell; and it occurred to her, that all in that horrid place were employed in blaspheming the name of God. The thought of doing so was rejected with abhorrence, and she felt as if she must and would love Him, even there, for His goodness to her; for she saw that she alone was to blame for her destruction, and that He could, in consistence with His character, do nothing else but inflict this punishment on her. Now surely her heart was already changed, although not a ray of comfort had dawned upon her mind. But is there not before this, generally, a rebellious rising against God, and a disposition to find fault with His dealings? It may be so in many cases, but this feeling is far from being as universal as some suppose. As far as the testimony of pious people can be depended on, there are many whose first convictions are of the evil of sin, rather than of its danger, and who feel real compunction of spirit for having committed it, accompanied with a lively sense of their ingratitude. This question, however, is not of any great practical importance; but there are some truly pious persons who are distressed and perplexed, because they never experienced that kind of conviction which they hear others speak of, and the necessity of which is insisted on by some preachers. Certainly that which the reprobate may experience – which is not different from what all the guilty will feel at the day of judgment – cannot be a necessary part of true religion; and yet it does appear to be a common thing for awakened persons to be at first under a mere legal conviction.

Though man, in his natural state, is spiritually dead, that is, entirely destitute of any spark of true holiness, yet is he still a reasonable being, and has a conscience by which he is capable of discerning the difference between good and evil, and of feeling the force of moral obligation. By having his sins brought clearly before his mind, and his conscience awakened from its stupor, he can be made to feel what his true condition is as a transgressor of the holy law of God. This sight and sense of sin, under the influence of the common operations of the Spirit of God, is what is usually styled conviction of sin. And there can be no doubt that these views and feelings may be very clear and strong in an unrenewed mind. Indeed, they do not differ in kind from what every sinner will experience at the day of judgment, when his own conscience will condemn him, and he will stand guilty before his Judge. But there is nothing in this kind of conviction which has any tendency to change the heart, or to make it better. Some indeed have maintained, with some show of reason, that under mere legal conviction the sinner grows worse and worse; and certainly he sees his sins to be greater in proportion as the light of truth increases. There is not, therefore, in such convictions, however clear and strong, any approximation to regeneration. It cannot be called a preparatory work to this change, in the sense of disposing the person to receive the grace of God. The only end which it can answer is to show the rational creature his true condition, and to convince the sinner of his absolute need of a Saviour. Under conviction there is frequently a more sensible rising of the enmity of the heart against God and His law; but feelings of this kind do not belong to the essence of conviction. There is also sometimes an awful apprehension of danger; the imagination is filled with strong images of terror, and hell seems almost uncovered to the view of the convinced sinner. But there may be much of this feeling of terror, where there is very little real conviction of sin; and on the other hand, there often is deep and permanent conviction, where the passions and imagination are very little excited.

When the entrance of light is gradual, the first effect of an awakened conscience is, to attempt to rectify what now appears to have been wrong in the conduct. It is very common for the conscience, at first, to be affected with outward acts of transgression, and especially with some one prominent offence. An external reformation is now begun: for this can be effected by mere legal conviction. To this is added an attention to the external duties of religion, such as prayer, reading the Bible, hearing the Word, etc. Every thing, however, is done with a legal spirit; that is, with the wish and expectation of making amends for past offences; and if painful penances should be prescribed to the sinner, he will readily submit to them if he may, by this means, make some atonement for his sins. But as the light increases, he begins to see that his heart is wicked, and to be convinced that his very prayers are polluted for want of right motives and affections. He, of course, tries to regulate his thoughts and to exercise right affections; but here his efforts prove fruitless. It is much easier to reform the life than to bring the corrupt heart into a right state. The case now begins to appear desperate. The sinner knows not which way to turn for relief and, to cap the climax of his distress, he comes at length to be conscious of nothing but unyielding hardness of heart. He fears that the conviction which he seemed to have is gone, and that he is left to total obduracy. In these circumstances he desires to feel keen compunction and overwhelming terror, for his impression is that he is entirely without conviction. The truth is, however, that his convictions are far greater than if he experienced that sensible distress which he so much courts. In this case, he would not think his heart so incurably bad, because it could entertain some right feeling, but as it is, he sees it to be destitute of every good emotion and of all tender relentings. He has got down to the core of iniquity, and finds within his breast a heart unsusceptible of any good thing. Does he hear that others have obtained relief by hearing such a preacher, reading such a book, conversing with some experienced Christian? He resorts to the same means, but entirely without effect. The heart seems to become more insensible, in proportion to the excellence of the means enjoyed. Though he declares he has no sensibility of any kind, yet his anxiety increases; and perhaps he determines to give himself up solely to prayer and reading the Bible; and if he perish, to perish seeking for mercy. But however strong such resolutions may be, they are found to be in vain; for now, when he attempts to pray, he finds his mouth as it were shut. He cannot pray. He cannot read. He cannot meditate. What can he do? Nothing. He has come to the end of his legal efforts; and the result has been the simple, deep conviction that he can do nothing; and if God does not mercifully interpose, he must inevitably perish. During all this process he has some idea of his need of divine help, but until now he was not entirely cut off from all dependence on his own strength and exertions. He still hoped that, by some kind of effort or feeling he could prepare himself for the mercy of God. Now he despairs of this, and not only so, but for a season he despairs, it may be, of salvation – gives himself up for lost. I do not say that this is a necessary feeling, by any means, but I know that it is very natural, and by no means uncommon, in real experience. But conviction having accomplished all that it is capable of effecting, that is, having emptied the creature of self-dependence and self-righteousness, and brought him to the utmost extremity – even to the borders of despair, it is time for God to work. The proverb says, ‘Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity’: so it is in this case; and at this time, it may reasonably be supposed, the work of regeneration is wrought, for a new state of feeling is now experienced. Upon calm reflection, God appears to have been just and good in all His dispensations; the blame of its perdition the soul fully takes upon itself, acknowledges its ill-desert, and acquits God. ‘Against thee, thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.’ The sinner resigns himself into the hands of God, and yet is convinced that if he does perish, he will suffer only what his sins deserve. He does not fully discover the glorious plan according to which God can be just and the Justifier of the ungodly who believe in Jesus Christ.

The above is not given as a course of experience which all real Christians can recognize as their own, but as a train of exercises which is very common. And as I do not consider legal conviction as necessary to precede regeneration, but suppose there are cases in which the first serious impressions may be the effect of regeneration, I cannot, of course, consider any particular train of exercises under the law as essential. It has been admitted, however, that legal conviction does in fact take place in most instances, prior to regeneration; and it is not an unreasonable inquiry, why is the sinner thus awakened? What good purpose does it answer? The reply has been already partially given; but it may be remarked, that God deals with man as an accountable, moral agent, and before he rescues him from the ruin into which he is sunk, he would let him see and feel, in some measure, how wretched his condition is; how helpless he is in himself, and how ineffectual are his most strenuous efforts to deliver himself from his sin and misery. He is therefore permitted to try his own wisdom and strength. And finally, God designs to lead him to the full acknowledgment of his own guilt, and to justify the righteous Judge who condemns him to everlasting torment. Conviction, then, is no part of a sinner’s salvation, but the clear practical knowledge of the fact that he cannot save himself, and is entirely dependent on the saving grace of God.

The post Is a ‘Law-work’ Necessary in Conversion? – Archibald Alexander appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

It is an interesting question whether now there are any persons sanctified from the womb. If the communication of grace ever took place at so early a period of human existence, there is no reason why it should not now sometimes occur. God says to Jeremiah, ‘Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee.’ And of John the Baptist, Gabriel said to Zacharias, his father, ‘And he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.’ The prophet Samuel also seems to have feared the Lord from his earliest childhood. In later times, cases have often occurred in which eminently pious persons could not remember the time when they did not love the Saviour and experience godly sorrow for their sins; and as we believe that infants may be the subjects of regeneration, and cannot be saved without it, why may it not be the fact that some who are regenerated live to mature age? I know, indeed, that many conceive that infants are naturally free from moral pollution and, of course, need no regeneration; but this opinion is diametrically opposite to the doctrine of Scripture, and inconsistent with the acknowledged fact that, as soon as they are capable of moral action, all do go astray and sin against God. If children were not depraved, they would be naturally inclined to love God and delight in His holy law; but the reverse is true.

Perhaps one reason why so few are regenerated at this early age is, lest some should adopt the opinion that grace came by nature, or that man was not corrupt from his birth. Some have opposed the idea that any are sanctified from their birth, for fear that mere moralists and those religiously educated should indulge the hope that they were born of God, although they have experienced no particular change in any part of their lives, as far back as memory reaches. But allowing that some may improperly make this use of the doctrine, it only proves that a sound doctrine may be abused. All the doctrines of grace have been thus abused, and will be, as long as ‘the heart is deceitful above all things’. There is, however, no ground for those who are still impenitent to comfort themselves with the notion that they were regenerated in early infancy, for piety in a child will be as manifest as in an adult, as soon as such a child comes to the exercise of reason; and in some respects, more so, because there are so few young children who are pious, and because they have more simplicity of character and are much less liable to play the hypocrite than persons of mature age. Mere decency of external behaviour, with a freedom from gross sins, is no evidence of regeneration; for these things may be found in many whose spirit is proud and self-righteous, and entirely opposite to the religion of Christ: and we know that outward regularity and sobriety may be produced by the restraints of a religious education and good example, where there are found none of the internal characteristics of genuine piety.

Suppose then, that in a certain case grace has been communicated at so early a period that its first exercises cannot be remembered, what will be the evidences which we should expect to find of its existence? Surely, we ought not to look for wisdom, judgment, and the stability of adult years, even in a pious child. We should expect, if I may say so, a childish piety – a simple, devout, and tender state of heart. As soon as such a child should obtain the first ideas of God as its Creator, Preserver, and Benefactor, and of Christ as its Saviour, who shed His blood and laid down His life for us on the cross, it would be piously affected with these truths, and would give manifest proof that it possessed a susceptibility of emotions and affections of heart corresponding with the conceptions of truth which it was capable of taking in. Such a child would be liable to sin, as all Christians are, but when made sensible of faults, it would manifest tenderness of conscience and genuine sorrow, and would be fearful of sinning afterwards. When taught that prayer was both a duty and a privilege, it would take pleasure in drawing nigh to God, and would be conscientious in the discharge of secret duties. A truly pious child would be an affectionate and obedient child to its parents and teachers; kind to brothers and sisters, and indeed to all other persons; and would take a lively interest in hearing of the conversion of sinners, and the advancement of Christ’s kingdom in the world.

We ought not to expect from a regenerated child uniform attention to serious subjects, or a freedom from that gaiety and volatility which are characteristic of that tender age; but we should expect to find the natural propensity moderated, and the temper softened and seasoned, by the commingling of pious thoughts and affections with those which naturally flow from the infant mind. When such children are called, in Providence, to leave the world, then commonly their piety breaks out into a flame, and these young saints, under the influence of divine grace, are enabled so to speak of their love to Christ and confidence in Him, as astonishes, while it puts to shame aged Christians. Many examples of this kind we have on record, where the evidence of genuine piety was as strong as it well could be. There is a peculiar sweetness, as well as tenderness, in these early buddings of grace. In short, the exercises of grace are the same in a child as in an adult, only modified by the peculiarities in the character and knowledge of a child. Indeed, many adults in years who are made the subjects of grace are children in knowledge and understanding, and require the same indulgence, in our judgments of them, as children in years.

To those who cannot fix any commencement of their pious exercises, but who possess every other evidence of a change of heart, I would say: Be not discouraged on this account, but rather be thankful that you have been so early placed under the tender care of the great Shepherd, and have thus been restrained from committing many sins to which your nature, as well as that of others, was inclined. The habitual evidences of piety are the same, at whatever period the work commenced. If you possess these, you are safe. And early piety is probably more steady and consistent when matured by age, than that of later origin, though the change, of course, cannot be so evident to yourselves or others.

If piety may commence at any age, how solicitous should parents be for their children, that God would bestow His grace upon them, even before they know their right hand from their left; and, when about to dedicate them to God in holy baptism, how earnestly should they pray that they might be baptized with the Holy Ghost – that while their bodies are washed in the emblematical laver of regeneration, their souls may experience the renewing of the Holy Ghost, and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. If the sentiments expressed above be correct, then may there be such a thing as baptismal regeneration; not that the mere external application of water can have any effect to purify the soul; nor that internal grace uniformly or generally accompanies this external washing, but that God, who works when and by what means He pleases, may regenerate by His Spirit the soul of the infant, while in His sacred name, water is applied to the body. And what time in infancy is more likely to be the period of spiritual quickening, than the moment when that sacred rite is performed which is strikingly emblematical of this change? Whether it be proper to say that baptism may be the means of regeneration depends on the sense in which the word means is used. If in the sense of presenting motives to the rational mind, as when the Word is read or heard, then it is not a means, for the child has no knowledge of what is done for it. But if, by means, be understood something which is accompanied by the divine efficiency, changing the moral nature of the infant, then, in this sense, baptism may be called the means of regeneration when thus accompanied by divine grace. The reason why it is believed that regeneration does not usually accompany baptism, is simply because no evidences of spiritual life appear in baptized children, more than in those which remain unbaptized.

The education of children should proceed on the principle that they are in an unregenerate state, until evidences of piety clearly appear, in which case they should be sedulously cherished and nurtured. These are Christ’s lambs – ‘little ones, who believe in Him’ – whom none should offend or mislead upon the peril of a terrible punishment. But though the religious education of children should proceed on the ground that they are destitute of grace, it ought ever to be used as a means of grace. Every lesson, therefore, should be accompanied with the lifting up of the heart of the instructor to God for a blessing on the means, ‘Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.’

Although the grace of God may be communicated to a human soul at any period of its existence in this world, yet the fact manifestly is, that very few are renewed before the exercise of reason commences; and not many in early childhood. Most persons with whom we have been acquainted grew up without giving any decisive evidence of a change of heart. Though religiously educated, yet they have evinced a want of love to God, and an aversion to spiritual things. Men are very reluctant, it is true, to admit that their hearts are wicked and at enmity with God. They declare that they are conscious of no such feeling, but still the evidence of a dislike to the spiritual worship of God they cannot altogether disguise; and this is nothing else but enmity to God. They might easily be convicted of loving the world more than God, the creature more than the Creator; and we know that he who will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God. Let the most moral and amiable of mankind, who are in this natural state, be asked such questions as these: Do you take real pleasure in perusing the sacred Scriptures, especially those parts which are most spiritual? Do you take delight in secret prayer, and find your heart drawn out to God in strong desires? Do you spend much time in contemplating the divine attributes? Are you in the habit of communing with your own hearts, and examining the true temper of your souls? No unregenerate persons can truly answer these, and suchlike questions, in the affirmative.

It is evident, then, that most persons whom we see around us and with whom we daily converse, are in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity, and, continuing in that state, where Christ is they never can come. And yet, alas! they are at ease in Zion, and seem to have no fear of that wrath which is coming. Their case is not only dangerous, but discouraging. Yet those who are now in a state of grace, yea those of our race who are now in heaven, were once in the same condition. You, my reader, may now be a member of Christ’s body and heir of His glory; but you can easily look back and remember the time when you were as unconcerned about your salvation as any of the gay, who are now fluttering around you. The same power which arrested you is able to stop their mad career. Still hope and pray for their conversion. But tell me, how were you brought to turn from your wayward, downward course? This, as it relates to the external means of awakening, would receive a great variety of answers. One would say, ‘While hearing a particular sermon, I was awakened to see my lost estate, and I never found rest or peace until I was enabled to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.’ Another would answer, ‘I was brought to consideration, by the solemn and pointed conversation of a pious friend who sought my salvation.’ While a third would answer, ‘I was led to serious consideration, by having the hand of God laid heavily upon me in some affliction.’ In regard to many, the answer would be, that their minds were gradually led to serious consideration, they scarcely know how.

Now in regard to these external means or circumstances, it matters not whether the attention was arrested and the conscience awakened, by this or that means, gradually or suddenly. Neither do these things at all assist in determining the nature of the effect produced. All who ever became pious must have begun with serious consideration, whatever means were employed to produce this state of mind. But all who, for a season, become serious, are not certainly converted. There may be  solemn impressions and deep awakenings which never terminate in a saving change, but end in some delusion, or the person returns again to his old condition, or rather to one much worse; for it may be laid down as a maxim, that religious impressions opposed, leave the soul in a more hardened state than before; just as iron, heated and then cooled, becomes harder. In general, those impressions which come gradually, without any unusual means, are more permanent than those which are produced by circumstances of a striking and alarming nature. But even here there is no general rule. The nature of the permanent effects is the only sure criterion. ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’

Featured Picture: Edmund Bristow, 1787–1876, British, The Young Anglers, ca. 1845, Oil on panel, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B2001.2.173.

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‘In 1955, Kevan gave the Tyndale Lecture at Tyndale House. His subject was ‘The Evangelical Doctrine of Law’. The following year this was published as a Tyndale Monograph. 1955 also saw him at Keswick to give the Bible Readings once again. This time his subject was ‘The Law of God in Christian Experience: A Study in Galatians’. These addresses appear to have made a deep impression on those attending the convention; the Keswick Week for 1955 speaking of ‘upward of 4,000 people, of all ages, listening intently to the closely reasoned studies of the Rev. E. F. Kevan.’¹

We have already seen an evidence of his interest in the subject of God’s law, and it was one to which he gave a great deal of thought and study. This was the theme of studies which later led to a Doctorate of Philosophy degree from London University. For this he chose to look at the subject historically from the teaching of the Puritans. Several of the tutors in the College studied for a doctorate at around this time. Both Dermot MacDonald and Donald Guthrie received their PhD before he did.

Kevan’s choice of subject for his Bible Readings at Keswick raises the question whether he believed there was a particular need at that time to remind evangelicals of the law of God.

There is some evidence to suggest that he did. ‘Antinomianism’ is the name given to the view that the law is not a guide for the life of the Christian. In the published version of his PhD thesis he wrote of ‘the dispensationalist Antinomianism of certain schools of orthodoxy’, and ‘the evangelical Antinomianism of holiness movements’.² People influenced by dispensationalism and holding to varieties of holiness teaching were very likely to be present at Keswick.

In his second address, entitled, ‘Wherefore then serveth the law?’ he quoted from an older writer of the horrifying shock that the novelist George Eliot felt at the following incident. A woman, an evangelical, had told a lie and was confronted with it. ‘“Ah well,” she replied, “I do not feel that I have grieved the Spirit much.”’ Such an attitude was appalling to Kevan, too. He went on in his  sermon to apply each of the ten commandments, in a sentence or two, very directly to his hearers. For example: ‘What about our evangelical cliché, “God willing”? Do you mean it, or is this another taking of the name of God in vain?’³

It is, however, very important to understand precisely how he understood the believer’s relation to the law. In his final address, ‘So fulfil the law of Christ’, he said:

It cannot be said too often that law-keeping can never be the means of sanctification, but it will certainly be the result… The new life of the believer, expressed in a new and active obedience, is itself freedom. ‘For freedom did Christ set us free.’ ‘Oh how I love Thy law,’ cries the Christian. Love now binds him in a manner that legalism never could; but this ‘bondage’ is liberty itself. Love obligates him to an obedience to the will of God from which he has no desire to be released, and this is perfect freedom. As the liberty of a railway train is that it should keep to the track, and to jump the rails would bring nothing but disaster, so the believer, constrained by the love of God will run in the way of his commandments (Psa. 119:32). The Christian now does as he likes, but he has such a new and powerful set of likes that he is held to his Lord and Master in mightier ways than ever he had been held in his slavery to sin. His spiritual freedom is such as the musician experiences when the scales and exercises have become easy, and work has turned to play. The rules are lost in the delight of musical satisfaction.⁴‘

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THE PUBLISHED VERSION OF Dr Kevan’s thesis is a volume of just under three hundred pages. With its many quotations and footnotes it appears quite formidable. He goes into considerable detail and the reader is likely to concur with Francis Roberts, whom Kevan quotes, that the matter under discussion is ‘a knotty and difficult question, and learned men have rendered it the more intricate, by their cross disputes about it.’ Nevertheless it is an extremely valuable investigation of a vital subject. The issue is, in fact, of even greater importance in the present climate of opinion among evangelical Christians. The following is a very brief introduction, concentrating mainly on the positive teaching of the Puritans. In general one inverted comma indicates a quotation from Kevan, while two inverted commas introduce a quotation from a Puritan. I have, however, modernised the spelling, where necessary.

Kevan set out his purpose in this book in the following words: ‘The object of this work is to explore the Puritan teaching on the place which the Law of God must take in the life of a believer and to examine it for the contribution that it may make towards a true understanding of the Christian doctrine of sanctification.’ He says that among the Puritans: ‘one of the most keenly debated questions was whether the Law still possessed commanding authority over the believer. The majority of the Puritans answered this question affirmatively, and it may, not unreasonably, be claimed that the authority of Law as the principle of the life of the believer was central to the distinctively Puritan concept of Christian experience.’

At this point it needs to be said that both sides in the debate accepted that the moral law of God was expressed in the Ten Commandments. Kevan, therefore, does not seek to justify this understanding in the book. The whole question at that time was whether these commandments still had commanding force when a person became a believer or whether the believer was set free from obedience to them as the way for Christians to live. A modern treatment of the same issue would need to consider this preliminary question. However, though the relationship of the Ten Commandments to the moral law and the Christian is of great importance, whether the Christian is obligated to obey the will of God revealed in Scripture or not actually goes beyond that.

Kevan reviews the controversy as it took place throughout virtually the whole of the seventeenth century. In speaking of the books that he used he says: ‘In so far as the doctrine was a preached doctrine, and was one of immediate practical significance, only those writings which appeared in English, and for the guidance of the ordinary believer, are included’. This reminds us that the question was by no means a theoretical matter, nor simply a debate among theologians. The answers given directly impacted upon the congregation in the pew and shaped the lives of those who listened to the protagonists. Those who did not believe in the continuing authority of the Law over believers were known as ‘Antinomians’ (from the Greek, ‘against law’). Kevan speaks of the majority of Antinomians in this way: ‘The main object of the moderate Antinomians was to glorify Christ; but failing to understand the true relation between “law” and “grace”, they extolled the latter at the expense of the former. The issue raised by the Antinomians had its origin in the wide separation which they made between the Old and New Testaments… In some ways, it appears that the Antinomians brought themselves into difficulty by thinking of “Law” as if it were an entity to be done away, and of “Grace” as an entity taking its place.’ He acknowledges that many of them were ‘strict in their church discipline and virtuous in their personal conduct’ but adds this necessary caveat: ‘It cannot be denied, however, that many fanatical persons were found among the Antinomians.’ Moreover scholars and preachers whose own lives are unimpeachable may nevertheless present a message which leads to carelessness and disobedience on the part of those who listen to what they say.

Regrettably, the controversy led to some harsh and unfounded accusations, as all too frequently happens. ‘There were many irresponsible accusations of heresy, joined with colourful language. There was much point-scoring which did not materially advance the discussion.’ Both sides were guilty here. Thomas Edwards, for example, ‘charges the Antinomians with one hundred and seventy-six errors, ranging from denial of the Trinity to eating black-puddings’!

The place and purpose of the law

Behind the law is the One who gave it, God in his majesty. ‘God has the right to command, because He is the Source and End of all things. His sovereignty derives from the Creator-creature relation, and since man was made in the moral image of God “Moral obedience immediately becomes due, from such a creature to his Maker”.’ The law of God was written on man’s heart from the very beginning and since the fall all human beings have a conscience which bears witness to their continuing sense of moral obligation.

Kevan points out that: ‘It is one of the brighter aspects of the doctrinal outlook of the Puritans that they regarded the Law, not as burdensome in its original purpose, but as the essence of man’s delight… they were not aware of any extravagance when they affirmed that obedience to the Law of Nature was Adam’s highest joy and good. They held that the Law was designed for the true well-being of man; it was his “way of life”, and constituted his real liberty.’ In the words of Richard Baxter: “God commands us a course of duty or right action to this end, that we may be happy in his love… His very law is a gift and a great benefit. Duty is the means to keep his first gifts and to receive more. The very doing of the duty is a receiving of the reward; the object of duty being felicitating… Holiness is happiness, in a large part.”

To the Puritans the Law was ‘nothing less than the very transcript of the glory of God… Man has been made in God’s image, and so the moral Law written within him must be part of that very image itself… God could not be thought of as requiring from man anything less than that which accorded with the Divine character… The moral Law in man is a copy of the Divine nature, and what God wills in the moral Law is so “consonant to that eternal justice and goodness in himself”, that any supposed abrogation of that Law would mean that God would “deny his own justice and goodness”. “To find fault with the Law, were to find fault with God”, for “the original draft is in God himself”.’

The law, however, is not simply concerned with external behaviour; it is spiritual in its demands. This means that ‘unless… the heart be right, the endeavour to obey God’s Law is nothing more than a display of legalism. The words “before me” in the First Commandment indicate a worship that is “inward and spiritual before God”.’ This is crucial for the Puritan view. A believer has been set free from bondage to sin and now loves God in his heart and desires, out of gratitude and joy, to do all that pleases him.

This view of the law is fundamental to the Puritan – and to Kevan’s – contention that the law still stands as the way in which the believer should walk. What is right and good in God’s eyes does not change, nor does grace mean that the standard has been lowered or changed, the law is eternal. In the words of J. I. Packer: ‘To orthodox Calvinism, the law of God is the permanent, unchanging expression of God’s eternal and unchangeable holiness… God could not change this law, or set it aside, in His dealings with men, without denying Himself.’¹

‘No Moses now’

In Romans: Paul says that ‘Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth’. The Antinomians took this verse, and other similar verses such as Romans 6:14, ‘you are not under law but under grace’, to mean that the law was abrogated for believers, a view that could be summed up by the phrase used by John Saltmarsh, “no Moses now”! Kevan points out that though ‘the Antinomians made strong statements to the effect that the Law was abrogated… it is clear that, here and there, they qualified their assertions in ways that can be interpreted in a less unorthodox manner.’ He says, ‘They were most willing to concede the eternity of the matter of the Law, but they held that to serve God because of commandment to do so was legalistic and unspiritual.’ They tended to be confused in their arguments and to confound ‘the requirements of duty with the power to fulfil them’.

In general both the Antinomians and the Puritans held that Christ had fulfilled the law in two ways. Firstly, by what was termed his passive obedience he suffered death as the penalty of the law. Secondly, in his active obedience he obeyed his Father throughout his life, keeping the whole law perfectly and being in subjection to all that his Father willed for him. In Christ’s passive obedience the sins of his elect were imputed to him and he bore the wrath of God against them, consequently delivering his elect from condemnation. The majority of the Puritans, and certainly the Antinomians, also held that the active obedience of Christ, that is his righteousness, was imputed to the elect. In part it was this that led the Antinomians to teach that the law was abrogated so far as believers were concerned. The reasoning here would go like this. If Christ has kept the law for Christians and they are righteous in him, what need is there then for them to keep the law, but rather simply to be led by the Spirit in their living.

The Puritans, however, were insistent that all human beings are under an obligation to obey God and thus to keep his commandments. Says John Barret: “But I should think that believers as they are creatures, are bound to obey God in all things, and that Christ came not to take off the obligation to duty and obedience, but to take off the obligation to wrath and punishment.” Not only does obligation remain when people are converted but grace actually increases the sense of obligation. ‘Our freedom and deliverance from the rigour and curse of the Law, binds us strongly to the service of God. The liberty of the Christian man is not a freedom from the obedience of the Law, but from the disobedience of it; for “to be free from obedience, is to be servants of sin.”’

What the Antinomians so objected to, was the principle that ‘duties are to be done because commanded’. Kevan quotes one of the Puritans who says that it is the Christian’s “first virtue” when “we love, desire, and do any thing, especially because God commands” it. He continues: ‘Anything less than obedience because commanded is not holiness… The insistence on this truth carries the subject into the very

heart of the believer and into the citadel of his will. Only the heart that can say, “I delight to do thy will, O my God”, can be adjudged to be truly converted and godly.’ Duty and delight can belong together, and they do so in the life of the Christian.

‘The Antinomians had a great distaste for the use of the Law as a rule of life and held that the only rule for the believer was the impulse of the Spirit within him through the inclination of his own heart.’ Over against this the Puritans stressed the unity of Spirit and Word, the indwelling Spirit guides the believer through the Spirit-inspired written Word of God. Another bone of contention was the place of good works in assurance. ‘The Antinomians denied the evidential value of good works and regarded “all notes and signs of a Christian estate” as “legal and unlawful”. The believer must therefore obtain his assurance from the testimony of the Spirit who “gives such full and clear evidence” of his good estate that he has “no need to be tried by the fruits of sanctification”’. On the other hand the Puritans believed that obedience could have an evidential value. ‘Thomas Goodwin charmingly says that the believer’s graces and duties are “the daughters of faith”, who “may in time of need indeed nourish their mother.”’

Christian freedom and the law

The Puritans stressed that the law is written in the hearts of all the regenerate and this transforms the situation: ‘The heart within echoes and answers to the commandments without… An obedient heart is like a crystal glass with a light in the midst, which shines forth through every part thereof. So that royal law that is written upon his heart shines forth into every parcel of his life; his outward works do echo to a law within.’ There is nothing servile or legalistic about the believer’s obedience, he ‘is moved by a deep reverence for God, without any trace of a servile spirit, or of being driven to obedience “with terrors”. He keeps the Law, not “Legally” but “Evangelically”, and finds nothing irksome in any of the commandments.’

‘The Gospel… brings the spirit of power and life along with it; there goes a virtue together with the commands of the Gospel to strengthen the soul to obedience.’ The believer is united to Jesus Christ, so Walter Marshal says: “Another great mystery in the Way of Sanctification, is the glorious Manner of our Fellowship with Christ in receiving an holy Frame of Heart from him; it is by our being in Christ, and having Christ himself in us.” A Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit: ‘Samuel Slater says that the difference between Law-obedience and Gospel-obedience is that the former is attempted by natural abilities, but the latter is performed in the “strength of a renewing Spirit”.’

All this makes for a love for the law in the believer: ‘It is part of the reconciling work of Christ that believers are made “friends” with the Law, for “after Christ has made agreement betwixt us and the Law, we delight to walk in it for the love of Christ”.’ This means that obedience becomes spontaneous: ‘Love for God and His Law produces a new naturalness in obedience that amounts almost to spontaneity.’ ‘“Faith makes the soul active… to run in the way of Gods Commandments… and… it cannot run too fast.” Richard Sibbes says that a son does duties “out of nature” and like “water out of a spring”; they are not forced, but they have “a blessed freedom to all duties, an enlargement of heart to duties. God’s people are a voluntary people.”’

Conclusion

The Puritans held that Christian liberty freed the believer, not from the Law, but for the Law; so that although he is no longer under the Law, he is, nevertheless, still in the Law. This, they taught, was freedom itself. The Puritans believed that this freedom in the Law – a freedom dependent on the Law – was effected by the Holy Spirit who applied the saving merits of Christ’s death to the believer and then wrote the Law within his heart. Love for the Law thus gave power to keep it.

Featured Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

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Yet if we ask why God was moved to exercise his holiness and justice in such a manner, at such a cost, in the sacrifice of his own beloved Son for our sins, the answer is ‘God so loved the world.’ And it was love that led Jesus first to undertake his sufferings, and then to invite all men to enter into the love which his death proclaims. It is the Puritan Thomas Watson who quotes the words of Augustine, ‘The cross was a pulpit in which Christ preached his love to the world.’² On the same subject John Owen writes: ‘There is no property of the nature of God which he doth so eminently design to glorify in the death of Christ as his love.’³

This brings us inevitably to John 3:16, ‘God so loved the world …’ On this text Smeaton says: ‘These words of Christ plainly show that the biblical doctrine on this point is not duly exhibited unless love receives a special prominence. … If even justice were made paramount, the balance of truth would be destroyed.’⁴

But what is the love of God to which John 3:16 gives this prominence? Does it have reference to the elect only or to all men? Some have answered that its immediate purpose has to do with neither; because, they say, ‘the world’ here does not have numerical so much as ethical significance: it stands for ‘the evil, the darkness, the sinner.’⁵ God so loved those who are utterly contrary to himself that he gave his Son to die for them! As B. B. Warfield has written on the love of God in this text:

It is not that it is so great that it is able to extend over the whole of a big world: it is so great that it is able to prevail over the Holy God’s hatred and abhorrence of sin. For herein is love, that God could love the world—the world that lies in the evil one: that God who is all-holy and just and good, could so love this world that He gave His only begotten Son for it,—that He might not judge it, but that it might be saved.⁶

The same writer concludes: ‘The whole debate as to whether the love here celebrated distributes itself to each and every man that enters into the composition of the world, or terminates on the elect alone chosen out of the world, lies thus outside the immediate scope of the passage.’ But granting that the message of the cross is one of love to those who by nature are the enemies of God, we are still faced with the fact that the text provides no justification for limiting this love to elect sinners. For if the elect are the ‘world’ that God loves, why is it that only some out of that world (‘whosoever believes in him’) come to salvation? There is surely a distinction in the text between the larger number who are the objects of love and the smaller number who believe. It would be a strange reading of John 3:16 to make those who believe correspond exclusively with ‘the  world’ that God loves. Such a divine as John Calvin had no hesitation therefore in saying on John 3:16:

Although there is nothing in the world deserving of God’s favour, he nevertheless shows he is favourable to the whole lost world when he calls all without exception to faith in Christ, which is indeed an entry into life.⁷

If this is so, it is proof enough that there is a general proclamation of the love of God which comes to men in the preaching of the cross. Individuals everywhere may be directed, as Nicodemus was directed, to God’s love for the unworthy. We are by no means dependent on John 3:16 alone for this understanding. Surely the same truth shines throughout our Lord’s ministry. He, ‘the Friend of sinners,’ did not limit love to the disciples, nor yet to those whom he knew would become disciples. We read, ‘When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them’ (Matt. 9:36). Moreover we find this tender compassion individualized: of the rich young ruler, who turned away from Christ in unbelief, we are explicitly told, ‘Jesus, looking at him, loved him’ (Mark 10:21). What but that same love can explain such words as, ‘You will not come unto me that you might have life’ (John 5:40)? Or the tears that accompanied, ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!’(Luke 13:34; Matt 23:37)? ‘Love towards all mankind in general,’ John Owen wrote, is enforced upon us by the example of Christ’s ‘own love and goodness, which are extended unto all.’⁸ And Owen encouraged his hearers to dwell on the ‘love of Christ, in his invitations of sinners to come unto him that they may be saved.’⁹

Elsewhere the same writer says: ‘There is nothing that at the last day will tend more immediately to the advancement of the glory of God, in the inexcusableness of them who obey not the gospel, than this, that terms of peace, in the blessed way of forgiveness, were freely tendered unto them.’¹⁰

Some have sought to escape from the force of Christ’s example by referring it to his human nature and not to his divine. But as R. L. Dabney comments: ‘It would impress the common Christian mind with a most painful feeling to be thus seemingly taught that holy humanity is more generous and tender than God.’¹¹

Christ’s example, that reveals the very character of God, remains the permanent standard for the church. The same love of which he spoke to Nicodemus, and which he showed to the multitude, lies in his command that ‘repentance unto remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem’ (Luke 24:47). And the apostles understood it when they preached indiscriminately to the Jerusalem sinners, who had rejected the Son of God, the astonishing news that God has sent Jesus ‘to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities’ (Acts 3:26).¹²

Universal gospel preaching is proof of the reality of universal divine love. It is the same love of which we read in Ezekiel 33:11: ‘As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?’ When the Pharisees complained of Christ, ‘This man receives sinners, and eats with them,’ Jesus responded by speaking of the character of God: he is like the father of the prodigal son who ‘saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him’ (Luke 15:20).¹³ Christ’s unwillingness that men should be lost is the same as the Father’s. He desires that all men everywhere should turn and live. As John Murray has written:

There is a love of God which goes forth to lost men and is manifested in the manifold blessings which all men without distinction enjoy, a love in which non-elect persons areembraced, and a love which comes to its highest expression in the entreaties, overtures and demands of gospel proclamation.¹⁴

We conclude that the death of Christ is to be preached to all, and preached in the conviction that there is love for all. ‘In the gospel,’ said an eminent preacher of the Scottish Highlands, ‘the provision of God’s love for the salvation of sinners is revealed and offered…Faith is a believing God as speaking to me—a receiving of what is said as true, because it is the testimony of God, and receiving it as true in its bearing on my own case as a sinner because it is addressed by God to me.’¹⁵ Another Scots Calvinistic leader put it still more strongly in the words: ‘Men evangelized cannot go to hell but over the bowels of God’s great mercies. They must wade to it through the blood of Christ.’¹⁶

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“And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire
of the Lord, so shall ye say unto him, Thus saith the
Lord God of Israel concerning the words which thou
hast heard, Because thine heart was tender, etc.”
– 2 Chron. 34:26–27

THESE words are a part of the message which the prophetess Huldah sent to good King Josiah; for as the message was concerning him and his people, so his answer from her is exact, both for himself and them. That part which concerned his people is set down in the three foregoing verses; that which belongs unto himself is contained in the words now read unto you, ‘But to the king of Judah, etc.’ The preface to her message we see strengthened with authority from God, ‘Thus saith the Lord God of Israel’; which words carry in them the greater force and power from the majesty of the author. For if words spoken from a king carry authority, how much more then the word of the Lord of hosts, the King of kings? Here is her wisdom, therefore, that she lays aside her own authority, and speaks in the name of the Lord.

We see that waters of the same colour have not the same nature and effect, for hot waters are of the same colour with plain ordinary waters, yet more effectual; so the words of a man coming from a man may seem at first to be the same with others, yet notwithstanding, the words of God, coming from the Spirit of God, carry a more wonderful excellency in them even to the hearts of kings. They bind kings, though they labour to shake them off. They are arrows to pierce their hearts; if not to save them, yet to damn them. Therefore she speaks to the king, ‘Thus saith the Lord God of Israel concerning the words which thou hast heard, etc.’

Here we read of Josiah, that he was a man of an upright heart, and one who did that which was right in the sight of the Lord; and answerably we find the Lord to deal with him. For he, desirous to know the issue of a fearful judgment threatened against him and his people, sendeth to Huldah, a prophetess of the Lord, to be certified therein; whereupon he receiveth a full and perfect answer of the Lord’s determination, both touching himself and his people, that they being forewarned might be forearmed; and by a timely conversion to the Lord, might procure the aversion¹ of so heavy wrath. He in uprightness sends to inquire, and the Lord returns him a full and upright answer. Whence we may learn,

Doctrine 1. That God doth graciously fit prophets for persons, and his word to a people that are upright in their hearts. Where there is a true desire to know the will of God, there God will give men sincere prophets that shall answer them exactly; not according to their own lusts, but for their good. Josiah was an holy man, who, out of a gracious disposition, desirous to be informed from God what should become of him and his people, sends to the prophetess Huldah. It was God’s mercy that he should have a Huldah, a Jeremiah, to send to; and it was God’s mercy that they should deal faithfully with him. This is God’s mercy to those that are true-hearted. He will give them teachers suitable to their desires; but those that are falsehearted shall have suitable teachers, who shall instruct them according to their lusts. If they be like Ahab, they shall have four hundred false prophets to teach falsehood, to please their lusts (1 Kings 22:6); but if they be Davids, they shall have Nathans. If they be Josiahs, they shall have Huldahs and Jeremiahs. Indeed, Herod may have a John Baptist (Mark 6:17–27); but what will he do with him in the end when he doth come to cross him in his sin? Then off goes his head.

Use. This should teach us to labour for sincerity, to have our hearts upright towards God; and then he will send us men of a direct and right spirit, that shall teach us according to his own heart. But if we be false-hearted, God will give us teachers that shall teach us, not according to his will, but to please our own. We shall light upon belly-gods and epicures, and shall fall into the hands of priests and Jesuits. Where such are, there are the judgments of God upon the people, because they do not desire to know the will of God in truth. We see (Ezek. 14:3, 4), the people desired to have a stumblingblock for their iniquity. They were naught², and would have idols. Therefore they desired stumblingblocks. They would have false prophets, that so they might go to hell with some authority. Well, saith God, they shall have stumblingblocks: for thus saith the Lord God of Israel, ‘To every man that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet to inquire; I the Lord will answer him that cometh, according to the multitude of his idols; according to his own false heart, and not according to good.’ What brought the greatest judgment upon the world, next to hell itself, I mean antichrist—the terriblest judgment of all, that hath drawn so many souls to hell—but the wickedness of the place and people, and his own ambition? The sins of the people gave life to him. They could not endure the word of God or plain dealing; they thought it a simple thing. They must have more sacrifices, more ceremonies, and a more glorious government. They would not be content with Christ’s government which he left them, but were weary of this. Therefore, he being gone to heaven, they must have a pope to go before them and lead them to hell. Therefore let men never excuse those sins, for certainly God saw a great deal of evil in them and therefore gave them up to the judgment of antichrist. But let us magnify God’s mercies that hath not so given us up. Thus we see how graciously God deals with a true-hearted king: he sends him a true answer of his message.

Verse 27, ‘Because thine heart was tender, etc.’ Now here comes a comfortable message to good Josiah, that he should be taken away and not see the miseries that should befall his people; the cause whereof is here set down, ‘Because thy heart was tender and thou didst humble thyself before God’; which cause is double.

1. Inward.
2. Outward.

1. The inward is the tenderness of his heart and humbling of himself. 2. And then, the outward expression of it is set down in a double act: (1.) Rending of clothes. (2.) Weeping.

‘Because thou hast rent thy clothes, and wept before me.’ After which comes the promise, ‘I have also heard thee,’ saith the Lord; ‘behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be put in thy grave in peace, and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place, and upon the inhabitants of the same.’

I will first remove one doubt, before I come to the tenderness of Josiah’s heart.

Quest. What! may some say, Is there anything in man that can cause God to do him good?

Ans. No. One thing is the cause of another, but all come from the first cause. So tenderness of heart may be some cause of removal of judgment; but God is the cause of both, or they all come from the first cause: which is God. So that these words do rather contain an order than a cause. For God hath set down this order in things, that where there is a broken heart there shall be a freedom from judgment; not that tenderness of heart deserves anything at God’s hand, as the papists gather, but because God hath decreed it so, that where tenderness of heart is, there mercy shall follow; as here there was a tender heart in Josiah, therefore mercy did follow. God’s promises are made conditionally; not that the condition on our part deserves anything at God’s hand, but when God hath given the condition, he gives the thing promised. So that this is an order which God hath set down, that where there is grace, mercy shall follow. For where God intends to do any good, he first works in them a gracious disposition: after which he looks upon his own work as upon a lovely object, and so doth give them other blessings. God crowns grace with grace.

By ‘heart’ is not meant the inward material and fleshy part of the body; but that spiritual part, the soul and affections thereof. In that it is said to be ‘tender’ or melting, it is a borrowed and metaphorical phrase. Now in a ‘ tender heart’ these three properties concur:

1. It is sensible³. 2. It is pliable. 3. It is yielding.

1. First, A tender heart is always a sensible heart. It hath life and therefore sense. There is no living creature but hath life, and sense to preserve that life. So a tender heart is sensible of any grievance, for tenderness doth presuppose life, because nothing that hath not life is tender. Some senses are not altogether necessary for the being of a living creature, as hearing and seeing; but sensibleness is needful to the being of every living creature. It is a sign of life in a Christian when he is sensible of inconveniences. Therefore God hath planted such affections in man, as may preserve the life of man, as fear and love. Fear is that which makes a man avoid many dangers. Therefore God hath given us fear to cause us make our peace with him in time, that we may be freed from inconveniences; yea, from that greatest of inconveniences, hell fire.

2, 3. Again, A tender heart is pliable and yielding. Now that is said to be yielding and pliable, which yields to the touch of anything that is put to it, and doth not stand out, as a stone that rebounds back when it is thrown against a wall. So that is said to be tender which hath life, and sense, and is pliable, as wax is yielding and pliable to the disposition of him that works it, and is apt to receive any impression that is applied to it. In a tender heart there is no resistance, but it yields presently to every truth, and hath a pliableness and a fitness to receive any impression, and to execute any performance; a fit temper indeed for a heart wrought on by the Spirit. God must first make us fit, and then use us to work. As a wheel must first be made round, and then turned round, so the head must be first altered, and then used in a renewed way. A tender heart, so soon as the word is spoken, yields to it. It quakes at threatenings, obeys precepts, melts at promises, and the promises sweeten the heart. In all duties concerning God, and all offices of love to men, a tender heart is thus qualified. But hardness of heart is quite opposite. For, as things dead and insensible, it will not yield to the touch, but returns back whatsoever is cast upon it. Such a heart may be broken in pieces, but it will not receive any impression; as a stone may be broken, but will not be pliable, but rebound back again. A hard heart is indeed like wax to the devil, but like a stone to God or goodness. It is not yielding, but resists and repels all that is good; and therefore compared in the Scripture to the adamant stone. Sometimes it is called a frozen heart, because it is unpliable to anything. You may break it in pieces, but it is unframeable for any service, for any impression; it will not be wrought upon. But on the contrary, a melting and tender heart is sensible, yielding, and fit for any service both to God and man. Thus we see plainly what a tender heart is. The point from hence is,

Doct. 2. That it is a supernatural disposition of a true child of God to have a tender, soft, and a melting heart. I say that a disposition of a true child of God and the frame of soul of such an one, to be tender, apprehensive, and serviceable, is a supernatural disposition; and of necessity it must be so, because naturally the heart is of another temper—a stony heart. All by nature have stony hearts in respect of spiritual goodness. There may be a tenderness in regard of natural things; but in regard of grace, the heart is stony, and beats back all that is put to it. Say what you will to a hard heart, it will never yield. A hammer will do no good to a stone. It may break it in pieces, but not draw it to any form. So to a stony heart, all the threatenings in the world will do no good. You may break it in pieces, but never work upon it. It must be the almighty power of God. There is nothing in the world so hard as the heart of man. The very creatures will yield obedience to God; as flies, and lice, to destroy Pharaoh; but Pharaoh himself was so hard-hearted, that after ten plagues he was ten times the more hardened (Exod. 10:27). Therefore, if a man have not a melting heart, he is diverted from his proper object; because God hath placed affections in us, to be raised presently upon suitable objects. When any object is offered in the word of God, if our hearts were not corrupted, we would have correspondent affections. At judgments we would tremble, at the word of threatenings quake, at promises we would with faith believe, and at mercies be comforted; at directions we would be pliable and yielding. But by nature our hearts are hard. God, may threaten, and promise, and direct, and yet we insensible all the while. Well, all Josiahs, and all that are gracious, of necessity must have soft hearts. Therefore I will show you,

1. How a tender heart is wrought.
2. How it may be preserved and maintained.
3. How it may be discerned from the contrary.

Buy Josiah’s Reformation (Paperback, 176 pages, £5.00).

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Having made these remarks on the unity of God in its bearing on the mysterious subject of our present discussion, we now proceed to consider in the same connection the threefold plurality of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, by each of whom, according to the Scriptures, the attributes and prerogatives of divinity are alike possessed.

We cannot now attempt to set forth the scriptural grounds on which the equal divinity of these three ‘persons in the Godhead,’ as we are wont to call them, may be established. It must for the present suffice to say on this subject, that names and titles distinctive of God are in the same unqualified manner applied to them; that attributes which pertain to God alone, and works which God alone is able to accomplish, are severally ascribed to them without the least distinction; that the same divine worship is claimed for them and rendered to them; and that all the three are inseparably associated in the administration of the most solemn religious ordinances, as being alike the objects of confiding faith, supreme love, and reverent adoration to all believers.

But, as was formerly observed respecting the divine unity, so may we now observe respecting this divine plurality,— that it is not so much the fact of its existence, as the distinctive nature or mode of its existence, that we are now concerned with, our object being to determine whether it be of such a kind as may anyhow be reconciled with the oneness of the Godhead.

What, then, is the nature of this plurality? How is it constituted? Wherein does it consist? In what respect are these three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, numerically distinct from one another? In what sense or on what ground can we speak of them as more than one? How are we to define or denote the distinction between them?

Perhaps it may be thought that the wisest course to be adopted in dealing with such questions as these is simply to return them upon those by whom they may be proposed. For certainly it would be alike hazardous and presumptuous to lay down any affirmative definition of the nature of the plurality in the Godhead. At the same time, when we find that others have attempted in various ways to solve this great mystery, we may without presumption negative their solutions of it, in so far as these appear to us to be inconsistent with the clear testimony of Holy Scripture.

1. One such solution which we may negative on scriptural grounds is that which represents the Son and the Holy Spirit as merely the first and most exalted of God’s creatures,— possessed, indeed, of a like nature with him who made them, but wholly distinct from him, and essentially dependent on him. This in reality is not so much a solution as an absolute negation of the fact to be explained. For it recognizes the Father alone as truly and properly divine, and sets itself in utter opposition to those scriptural testimonies by which the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit may be conclusively established.

2. Another solution which may be negatived on scriptural grounds is that according to which the Father is represented as the only self-existent and independent Being; and the Scriptures are held to allude to him alone when they speak of ‘the one God,’ or of God by way of eminence; while the Son and the Holy Spirit, although of a like substance, are not believed to be of the same substance with the Father, and though existing with him from the beginning, are not regarded as self-existent, but as deriving their being and their attributes from him, and that, too, not by any necessity of nature, but by a sovereign exercise of the Father’s power and will.

This opinion we are warranted to set aside; for it evidently implies, that if the Father had so willed, the Son and the Holy Spirit might never have existed at all, or might not have possessed those attributes which distinguish them; and in this respect it is at variance with those statements of Holy Writ which speak of them as equal in power and glory with the Father. Besides, it is inconsistent with the unity of God, and with his exclusive claim to the worship and homage of his rational creatures; for it recognizes one supreme God and two subordinate gods that are not necessarily connected with him; ascribes to the latter the same divine attributes, with the single exception of self-existence, as to the former; and claims for them the same divine honours and prerogatives.

3. We are equally warranted to negative a third solution, according to which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are merely three names given to one and the same divine Person, indicative of three several aspects in which he presents Himself, three several relations which he sustains to us, or three several offices or functions which he discharges. Thus, as our Creator he is ‘the Father,’ as our Redeemer he is ‘the Son,’ and as our Sanctifier he is ‘the Holy Spirit.’ This representation of the matter has certainly the advantage of strictly maintaining and clearly exhibiting the unity of God. But on scriptural grounds it is altogether indefensible. For in the New Testament we have evident indications of some farther distinction as subsisting between the sacred Three than any mere diversity of names assigned to the same Person, or of aspects presented, or of relations sustained, or of operations conducted by him, will account for. We there find the Father saying ‘thou’ to the Son, the Son saying ‘thou’ to the Father, and both the Father and the Son employing the pronouns ‘he’ and ‘him’ in reference to the Spirit. The Father is said to ‘give the Son,’ and to ‘send him into the world.’ The Son undertakes the Father’s work, and ‘comes to do, not his own will, but the will of the Father that sent him.’ The Son ‘was in the bosom of the Father,’ and ‘had glory with the Father before the world was,’ and while as yet there were no creatures in existence to whom any relations could be sustained by him. The Spirit, again, is spoken of as ‘another Comforter’ whom the Father is to give in compliance with the prayer of the Son. The Spirit ‘proceeds from the Father,’ and ‘testifies of the Son;’ and ‘through the Son we both [i.e., Jews and Gentiles] have access by one Spirit unto the Father.’ Now these and suchlike scriptural statements are utterly irreconcilable with the supposition that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are only three names for one and the same divine Person presenting Himself in different aspects or relations, or executing different offices or functions.

Besides, if this were all that is meant by the plurality in the Godhead, there seems to be no assignable reason for restricting a plurality of this description to a trinity. There ought, one should think, to be as many such distinctions as there are different modes of divine manifestation. And these are not only threefold, but manifold. God manifests Himself in one way as the Creator, in another way as the Preserver of his creatures, in a third as the Lawgiver and Moral Governor of the human race, in a fourth as the Redeemer, in a fifth as the Sanctifier, in a sixth as the Judge. Thus might it be easy to specify with respect to God a great number of distinctions of a relative or functional nature, which are just as capable of being clearly and sharply defined as those in consideration of which some would have us to distinguish him as exhibiting Himself in no other than the threefold capacities of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

On these grounds we hold ourselves warranted to deny that the plurality in the Godhead can be resolved into a mere plurality of aspects, offices, relations, or modes of action. And it is with the view simply of negativing this erroneous opinion that Trinitarians are accustomed to speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as ‘persons’ and not with the view of affirming anything in the way of precise and accurate description, respecting the nature of the distinction between the three. We use this expression, as I observed in a former lecture, in the way only of approximation or analogy, as the most convenient term which the poverty of language can supply to indicate the existence of real distinctions in the Godhead, without precisely defining wherein they exactly consist. And we are careful to accompany our use of it with a certification, that it is not to be understood in the same sense which it ordinarily bears when applied to human persons; and in particular, that it is not to be regarded as conveying any positive information (such as we freely admit we do not possess and therefore cannot convey) respecting the manner in which the divine plurality are metaphysically distinguishable from one another.

4. I need only further observe with reference to the question before us, that we are warranted to negative the supposition of Tritheism—that is to say, of three distinct and separate Gods. Although mention is made of this notion as having been entertained by one or two individuals, it has never been avowedly held by any considerable body of Christians. But, inasmuch as the charge of Tritheism has been pertinaciously advanced against Trinitarians by those who are opposed to them, it is necessary that we negative or disclaim it. And that we are warranted and bound to do so, on scriptural grounds, is undeniable. For if there be one truth more plainly declared in Scripture than another, it is the numerical unity of God. And therefore, whatever plurality may be implied in the ascription of divine attributes to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it cannot be such as would constitute them three Gods.

The ancient Trinitarians sought to repel the charge of Tritheism by laying down two positions. The first was, that the Father is the fountain of Deity, from whom the Son and the Holy Spirit were eternally derived,—not as the Arians supposed, by an act of the Father’s will, but by an absolute necessity in the divine nature. Their second position was, that the three persons in the Godhead are necessarily and inseparably joined together, insomuch that the Father never existed without the Son and the Holy Spirit, and these were not separated from him when produced out of his substance. And in order to mark the indissoluble connection of all the three, they used a Greek word, περιχώρησις (perikhōrēsis), which they defined as meaning ‘that union by which one being exists in another, not only by a participation of its nature, but by the most intimate presence with it; so that, although the two beings are distinct, they dwell in and interpenetrate one another.’

It must be confessed that the principles thus enunciated are not very easily, if at all, to be apprehended. But this only proves, as Dr Hill has shrewdly observed, that ‘it is a vain attempt to apply the terms of human science to the manner of the divine existence; and that the multiplication of words upon such a subject does not in any degree increase the stock of our ideas.’ It is not necessary, however, to have recourse to any such subtleties in order to repel the imputation of Tritheism. All that is necessary is strictly to adhere to that negative course which we have hitherto adopted. For, so long as we do not hazard anything affirmatively, either with respect to the internal unity of the Godhead, or with respect to the distinctions that subsist in it, there is evidently no possibility of involving us in any collision or contrariety between the two. The precise nature of both would need to be much more specifically defined than we have either capacity or authority to define them, before it can be alleged that they are inconsistent with one another.

Thus have we endeavoured to give a negative answer to the question, What is the plurality in the Godhead? Or, to speak more correctly, we have negatived certain attempts to answer this question, which do not appear to us to be in accordance with the doctrine of Scripture. If it be here asked, ‘What have you to substitute in the room of those tentative solutions of the question which you would set aside? You have given us a sufficiency of negations as to this matter; but what have you now to state affirmatively respecting it?’—our answer is a very short and simple one,—that we have nothing. The Scriptures have not told us, positively or affirmatively, what is the precise nature of that plurality which they nevertheless reveal as subsisting in the Godhead. And where Scripture is silent, it becomes us to be silent also, lest, by intruding into things which are not revealed, we ‘darken counsel by words without knowledge.’ Thus much we may venture to say (speaking still in the way of negation), that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit cannot be three in the same sense in which they are one. But, as we before observed, it is perfectly conceivable that they should be three in one sense, and one in another. In what sense they are three, and in what sense they are one, the Scriptures have not affirmatively defined. And were we to attempt an affirmative definition of matters so far beyond the reach of human intellect, we should probably fall into the same or similar errors with those which we have endeavoured to expose.

Nor have we any reason to feel ashamed of our inability to give more than a negative answer to the proposed question. The fact is, that we are exactly in the same predicament with reference to many other things pertaining to God, of which, notwithstanding, we have the most assured conviction. Take, for example, his underived existence. There is nothing in the universe to which we can liken it; for all other beings have an origin or cause. It is only by negations that we can approach towards a conception of it. We can say what it is not—namely, that ‘it is not derived;’ but we cannot define what it is.—Or take his eternity. If asked to define it, we may say that there never was a time when he did not exist, and there never shall be a time when he will  not exist. But this too is only a negative definition. It is simply denying certain things concerning God, and then averring that, in respect of such denial, he is eternal.—Or take his unity. The only conceptions we can frame of it are indivisibility, simplicity, solitariness, and the like,—which amount to no more than a negation of divisibility, a negation of foreign, heterogeneous, or discordant elements, and a negation of the existence of other gods besides him. Thus there is nothing exceptional or unexampled in our inability to give a positive or affirmative definition of the plurality in the Godhead. For we labour under the same inability with reference to some of the most fully ascertained and most universally acknowledged attributes of the divine nature.

On the whole, then, it appears that the doctrine of the Trinity may truly be represented as a great mystery, in respect not only of the unsearchably profound and transcendental nature of the subject to which it relates, but also of the limited extent of the disclosures of it which God has been pleased to give us in his revealed word.

In regard to the threefold plurality in the Godhead, the Scriptures enable us negatively to define it, to the extent of saying that it is not a plurality either of three separate and equal Gods, or of one supreme and two subordinate Gods; and farther, that it is not a plurality of mere names, relations, offices, or modes of action. But anything like an affirmative definition of what it exactly is has not been supplied to us.

In regard to the unity of God, on the other hand, the Scriptures have left us in precisely the same position. In teaching us that ‘there is no God besides him,’ they merely negative the existence of all other gods, and decide nothing as to what the one only living and true God may in Himself be. And if their statements upon this subject can be viewed as referring at all to the oneness of God as an essential attribute of the divine nature, it is certain that they do not define it or explain it, so as to enable us positively to affirm anything as to what it really is, or wherein it exactly consists.

Such, then, being the position in which we stand in respect of the nature and extent of the information which Scripture has given us on this mysterious subject, you will readily see that by closely adhering to this position, and not venturing in the way of unauthorized conjectures to advance a single step beyond it, our doctrine is perfectly unassailable by those assertions which have frequently been brought against it, of its being in its very nature contradictory and incredible. It is above our reason. The Scriptures have not taught us, and we have no independent means of ascertaining, wherein consists either the divine unity or the divine plurality. And hence it is impossible for any man to show that they are incompatible with one another, or that it is against reason to affirm their coexistence. For what is it that is to be shown to be against reason? It is something we know not what,—something of the nature of which we are not able to form any definite conception. To a certain extent we can say what it is not, by negativing some attempted definitions of it, which do not accord with the teaching of Holy Scripture, our only source of information upon the subject. But we are quite unable to state affirmatively what it is. And so long as this is the case, we are evidently incompetent and unwarranted to pronounce any judgment in regard to it. It is above our reason, and on that very account our reason is incapacitated to deal with it to any effect whatsoever, and specially to the effect of proving that it is contrary to reason.

Let it not be thought that this negative position, which alone appears to be warrantable and defensible respecting the unity and plurality in the Godhead, has anything in common with that ‘negative theology’ which shrinks in all cases from definite opinions and articulate statements in matters of revealed doctrine. A negative position is certainly to be maintained in regard to ‘secret things’ which God has not disclosed to us. But whatever his word has positively affirmed, it is our clear duty broadly and distinctly to utter. We must not ‘shun to declare all the counsel of God,’ or give out any ‘uncertain sound’ respecting it. It is only where the Scriptures have revealed nothing affirmatively that it becomes us to withhold our affirmations, lest, by affecting a knowledge which we do not possess, we darken or pervert instead of faithfully expounding the truth.

Further reading:

‘The Mysteries of Christianity’: A Book Review – David Campbell

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‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord.’

—Deut. 6:4.

‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost.’

—Matt. 28:19.

The observations I have made in five preceding lectures are, I trust, sufficient to establish the general position, that doctrines which have mystery connected with them are not to be regarded as incredible on that account, or as unworthy of a place in a revealed religion. It seems proper now to consider how far the arguments by which this general position is supported, are applicable to some of those essential articles of the Christian faith which have been commonly objected to on the ground of their mysteriousness. To these articles, indeed, we have had occasion to make incidental reference in our previous discussion. But they are worthy, by reason of their great importance, of a more particular consideration than they have yet received.

We begin with that great doctrine of Holy Scripture respecting the existence in the unity of the Godhead of a threefold plurality—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in some respects distinct from one another, but all alike possessed of divine attributes and prerogatives.

The use of the word ‘Trinity’ to indicate this doctrine has been very much objected to by some persons, on the ground that it is not a scriptural expression. There seems to be no real force, however, in this objection. The word simply means ‘three in unity,’ and is therefore as suitable a word as could be thought of for expressing, in a brief and compendious manner, the truth which it is intended to denote. If this truth be either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence deducible therefrom, in that case, the invention of a short and convenient term, albeit not a scriptural one, to give expression to it, is surely altogether reasonable and legitimate (provided the term be sufficiently definite and intelligible), and ought not, one should think, to give offence to any who are well affected to the truth which it conveys.

It is with this truth, however, and not with any expression of it in words of human invention, that we are now concerned—the truth, namely, that there is but one God, and yet that these three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are each of them possessed of the attributes and prerogatives of God.

It will not be alleged that the doctrine, as thus stated, is liable to any objection in point of phraseology, whatever exception may be taken to it in other respects. It consists of two propositions, which alike admit of being established by the clearest scriptural testimonies, and on which, in their relation to each other, we now humbly venture to make a few remarks.

Respecting the first of these two propositions, anyone who reflects on the prevalence of polytheism wherever the light of revelation has been withheld, will probably regard it as matter of serious question, whether the unity of God can be clearly ascertained and conclusively established by the unassisted powers of the human mind. There can be no doubt, however, that this doctrine, when revealed, is found to be entirely consistent with the dictates of our rational faculties, and receives from them a considerable measure of support and confirmation.

There is some plausibility even in those metaphysical arguments by which it has been attempted to show that the unity of God is an unavoidable inference from his necessary existence, his infinity, his eternity, his independence, and other high attributes essential to our conceptions of him; although it must be owned, the deductions of the human intellect cannot be very confidently relied on respecting matters so far transcending our comprehension. There seems to be still greater force in the consideration, that to suppose more than one God is altogether unnecessary, inasmuch as one Being possessed of divine attributes is sufficient to account for the origin of all other beings. And then, when we come to a survey of the divine works in all the varied departments of the universe, we find these pervaded by a unity of plan, a regularity of order, and an exactness of adaptation, which, if it does not amount to absolute proof, supplies at least the strongest presumptive evidence, that all are the productions of the same intelligent and designing agent.

It need scarcely be added, that the doctrine of the unity of God, while thus in full harmony with the dictates of enlightened reason, is one of the fundamental truths of revelation. When we read the Old Testament, we cannot fail to see that one main design of God in the calling of Abraham, in the establishment of the Mosaic law, and in his whole subsequent dealings with the race of Israel, was to preserve to Himself a peculiar people, devoted entirely and exclusively to his worship in the midst of prevailing idolatry and polytheism. And when we look into the New Testament, it is equally obvious that, to whatever other and more special purposes the Christian dispensation was meant to be conducive, its divine Author had certainly this object in view when commanding his disciples to preach the gospel among all nations, that men in every place should be instructed in the knowledge and worship of the one only living and true God.

It is not, however, the fact of the unity of God, so much as the nature or import of it, that we are now concerned with, in order to ascertain whether it be compatible with any such plurality in the Godhead as that which is implied in the doctrine of the Trinity.

I may observe, then, that there are two senses which ought to be carefully distinguished from each other, in which ‘unity’ may be ascribed to any object. An object may be said to be either ‘one in number’ or ‘one in nature.’ When we speak of it as being ‘one,’ we may refer to its numerical unity, or, in other words, to its solitariness or singularity— our purpose being, not to indicate any internal quality of the thing itself, but simply to exclude the existence, in addition to it, of any other things the same in kind. But, on the other hand, when we speak of an object as being ‘one,’ we may refer to its ‘unity of nature’—as, for example, to its symmetry, its congruity, its completeness, its entireness, its homogeneousness; our purpose being to indicate something that is characteristic of the internal constitution of the thing itself, without necessarily excluding the existence, exterior to it, of any supposable number of other things alike constituted.

Now there can be no doubt that in the former of these two senses unity is attributable to the Supreme Being. God is numerically one, exclusive of all other gods. The light of nature affords, if not a full proof, at least a very strong presumptive evidence, which the light of revelation has fully and expressly confirmed, that there is one only God, and none else. In this sense, however, the unity of God has no reference to any essential property of the divine nature. It is simply exclusive of the existence of other gods, without determining anything as to what the only true God may in Himself be. There is nothing in this numerical unity that is in any way incompatible with the distinctions of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Godhead. It merely amounts to this, that whatever God may be in respect of these internal distinctions, there is no other God besides him.

As regards the other use of the word ‘unity,’ to indicate some internal quality of an object, it seems impossible for us to assign any definite signification to the expression, when applied to the unsearchable nature of the Deity. We can understand what is implied in such ‘unity’ in the case of material, finite, and created objects. When attributed to these, it may be held as indicating some such properties as symmetry of form, simplicity of structure, congruity of purpose, connection and coherence of parts. But no such notions as these can be attached to it when used with respect to a purely spiritual being, and least of all with respect to such a spiritual Being as the self-existent, infinite, and eternal God. When we try to speculate metaphysically on the unity of God as one of his essential attributes, still more when we venture to affirm that this attribute so pertains to him as to exclude any such plurality in the Godhead as the scriptural doctrine of the Trinity must be held to imply,—we evidently seem to have gone beyond our depth, and to be assuming a farther knowledge of the divine nature or mode of subsistence than the human mind is capable of attaining. For aught that we know, there may be internal distinctions in the unsearchable essence of Deity which are in no respect incompatible with the divine unity. That the Godhead cannot be three in the same sense in which it is one, is indeed a self-evident proposition. But that it may be three in one respect and one in another respect is perfectly conceivable. And though it could be confidently affirmed that in no other spiritual being that we know of is there any such combination of unity with plurality, this would be no valid objection; because in God the combination may not arise from anything which created spirits are capable of having in common with him, but from something that is peculiar to Himself alone. It may be one of the unique and incommunicable properties of the Deity, which, like those equally incomprehensible attributes of self-existence, infinity, and eternity, distinguish the mode of his existence from that of all other beings in the universe.

But farther, as regards the statements of Holy Scripture concerning the divine unity, it is by no means clear that they have any reference whatsoever to unity as pertaining to the nature of God. They rather seem to have an exclusive reference to his numerical unity, as opposed to the ‘gods many and lords many’ whom the heathens worshipped. They are simply to be considered as negativing the existence of all other gods besides that one God who is revealed in his own word as the sole object of faith and homage. And they do not appear to express or imply anything as to what this only God may in himself be.

At all events, if these statements of Holy Scripture can be viewed as referring in any way to the oneness of God as an essential attribute of the divine nature, it is most certain that they do not define it or explain it so as to enable us to form any distinct conception of what it really is, or wherein it exactly consists; and hence we are evidently not in a position to affirm anything definitively with respect to it. Assuredly we are not in a position to decide that this undefined attribute ascribed in Scripture to the Deity, is inconsistent with any other peculiarity in the divine nature or mode of subsistence which Scripture may have revealed.

But this is not all. For in those Hebrew Scriptures in which the divine unity has been most frequently and emphatically declared, there is a remarkable peculiarity of expression often occurring, which seems to indicate a plurality in the Godhead. The usual Hebrew appellation of the Deity is ‘Elohim,’ which is constantly translated ‘God’ in our English version, but which is in reality the plural of the word ‘Eloah’ or ‘Elah,’ which also occurs, though much less frequently than in the plural form, and is similarly translated. This plural appellation is generally used in agreement with singular verbs, pronouns, and adjectives; but occasionally it is construed with verbs, pronouns, and adjectives in the plural number. And it is proper to remark that a like peculiarity of expression is found in some passages in which the name ‘Elohim’ is not employed. Thus the Psalmist says, ‘Israel shall rejoice in his maker;’ and Isaiah says of Israel, ‘thy maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts is his name;’ in which passages the words translated ‘maker’ and ‘husband’ are in the plural number. Perhaps there is no passage in which this peculiar phraseology of the Hebrew Scriptures is more remarkable than in Deuteronomy 6:4, in which this declaration occurs,— ‘Hear, O Israel: Jehovah, our God [Elohim], is one Jehovah;’ the plural name ‘Elohim’ being used at the very time when it was the purpose of the inspired lawgiver pointedly and solemnly to affirm the unity of Jehovah. I may add that God is frequently represented in Scripture as speaking of Himself in the first person plural: as when it is written, ‘God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’¹; ‘The Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us;’ ‘Come, we will go down, and there we will confound their language.’ Some have indeed affirmed that God in these passages is to be considered as using the language of majesty, or expressing Himself after the manner of earthly potentates. It has been fully ascertained, however, by the most learned oriental critics, that the monarchical first person plural was not in use in ancient times and among Eastern nations. There is no instance of it to be met with in the Old Testament. The ordinary style of the kings of Egypt, Babylon, and Persia, when issuing their authoritative mandates is, on the contrary, the use of the singular number—as, for example: ‘See, I [Pharaoh] have set thee over all the land of Egypt;’ ‘I, Nebuchadnezzar, made a decree to bring in all the wise men of Babylon before me;’ ‘I, Darius, have made a decree; let it be done with speed.’ There is much plausibility, therefore, in the supposition that this and the other peculiar expressions before noticed as applied in the Hebrew Scriptures to the Almighty may be held as referring to that mysterious truth which the Scriptures of the New Testament have fully brought to light, of the existence of a plurality in the unity of the Godhead. At the very least we may venture to affirm, that these remarkable expressions would in all probability have been avoided, if it had been intended to ascribe to the divine nature such a unity as is absolutely exclusive of every modification of plurality.

Without insisting, however, on this argument, we may confidently fall back on our former position, respecting which there can be no dispute—namely, that the scriptural affirmations of the unity of God, if they have any reference at all to oneness as an essential attribute of the divine nature, do not define or explain this oneness so as to afford us any distinct conception of it; and hence that, being left in ignorance of what it really is, or wherein it exactly consists, we cannot be warranted to say that it is incompatible with any such plurality in the Godhead as is implied in the doctrine of the Trinity.

Further reading:

‘The Mysteries of Christianity’: A Book Review – David Campbell

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Before we can meditate on heavenly things, we must have right ideas of them. We are to ‘look at the things which are not seen’ (2 Cor. 4:18). Faith is the means by which we can receive heavenly things for we ‘walk by faith and not by sight.’ But faith cannot embrace heavenly things unless the mind has a right understanding of them. Faith only assents to and embraces what the mind puts to it. The greatest part of mankind deceive themselves with their own ideas of heavenly things, and so they feed faith on ashes. So when Paul bids us to ‘set our minds on things above,’ he goes on to say, ‘where Christ sits at the right hand of God’ (Col. 3:1, 2).

The general idea men have of heaven is that it is a place which is free of all those things which are destructive to human nature. In heaven, there will be no punishment, no sickness, no sorrow, no pain, and no death. This is indeed true (2 Thess. 1:7; Rev. 7:17; 21:4). But for those who are truly spiritually minded, heaven is the place where there is no more sin. Sin is the cause of all outward troubles and all burdens, sorrows, and distresses of the soul. To be delivered from the presence of sin, then, makes heaven so desirable to all true believers.

So, if we would have right ideas of heaven, we must think of it as a state in which we shall be eternally freed from the presence of sin. He that truly hates sin, whose chief desire and aim in life is to be freed from sin, who is burdened with memories of how many times sin has gained the victory, cannot but think much of that heaven in which he will for ever be freed from the presence of sin. This truth about heaven the mind can easily set its thoughts upon, and that to the great advantage and satisfaction of the soul.

Frequently thoughts and meditations on heaven as a state of freedom from sin, proves a man to be spiritually minded. A spiritually minded person finds sin a burden and a sorrow. He longs to be delivered from it and all its effects. No thoughts are more welcome to him than those of that state in which sin shall be no more.

Although men are troubled by their sins and desire to be freed from them, yet if they do not meditate much on heaven as the place where they shall be for ever freed from sin, I fear they are not as troubled with sin as they ought to be. Those who have no longing desires for that heavenly state when sin shall be no more,  prove that they are not spiritually minded.

But for sincere believers it is quite otherwise. What makes the remains of sin in them more grievous and burdensome is their awareness of the grace and love of God, of the blood of Christ shed to save them from their sins, of the purity and holiness of the good Spirit who has come to live in them to deliver them from the power of sin and to renew them into the image of God, and of the light, grace, and mercy which they have received through the promises of the gospel.

What breaks the hearts of those who are truly spiritually minded and makes them go mourning all day long is that there is something in them which God hates. The evidence that they are truly spiritually minded is that, together with spiritual watchfulness and daily mortification of sin, they also meditate much on that heavenly state when sin shall be no more.

So if you cannot think clearly about invisible things, dwell on this great truth, that in heaven you will be freed for ever from the presence of sin.

To be freed for ever from the presence of sin is a negative blessing of the heavenly state. We must now see what are the positive blessings that we can usefully set our minds on.

The positive blessings of heaven

Many have great ideas of what the positive blessings of heaven will be. But the majority of their thoughts come to nothing except that it will be a glorious place. But the unspiritual nature of men can never have any idea of the true spiritual glory of heaven, or what it is to enjoy God for ever. They imagine a heaven that does not exist in reality. So, because they cannot appreciate the true heaven, their imagined heaven does not exist, they never really think of heaven at all. Muslims see heaven as the place where their sensual lusts and pleasures are fully satisfied. This proves that their religion has no power to effectively change their hearts from the love of sin, for Muslims place their happiness in fulfilling the desires of the flesh.

Even true believers are mostly ignorant about the true nature of heaven and eternal glory. They have no clear idea of that heavenly state and so find it difficult to think of heaven.

Ancient philosophers taught that the blessedness of man in another world lay in the goodness and beauty of the divine nature. By the light of Scripture, they describe the attributes of God as the ‘beatific vision.’ By beatific vision, they mean all the ways by which God can and does communicate himself to the souls of  men. He heightens the intellectual capacities of men to receive these beatific communications. These communications give such an intellectual understanding of the divine nature and perfections as fills the soul with indescribable love, bringing it to the utmost rest and blessedness it can arrive at in this world.

Nevertheless, these intellectual ideas of God are beyond the mental capacities of ordinary Christians. But Scripture gives us another revelation of heaven and eternal glory which is much better suited to the faith and experience of all true believers and which alone can convey a true and useful understanding of heaven to finite minds.

The revelation which Scripture gives us of heaven is that what we have now received by faith, we shall one day see in eternal glory (2 Cor. 5:17). This great truth can easily be understood and meditated on by every believer.

The difference between our present and future state is that sight shall replace faith (1 John 3:2). Now if sight replaces faith, then what is seen must be the same as what we now believe (1 Cor. 13:9, 10, 12). Those things, which we now see darkly by faith, shall be seen clearly and perfectly in glory.

What is the chief present object of evangelical faith which will one day be seen in heaven? It is the revelation of the glory of the infinite wisdom, grace, love, kindness, and power of God in Christ. It is the revelation of the eternal counsels of God’s will and how they are accomplished to the eternal salvation of the church, in and by Christ. It is the glorious exaltation of Christ himself. All this we now receive by faith and so only see them darkly. But in heaven they shall be openly and fully displayed.

The infinite, incomprehensible excellences of the divine nature are not the immediate objects given to faith in Scripture and nor will they be seen directly by us in heaven. They are revealed to faith in and through Christ and so shall only be seen in heaven as they are revealed in and through him. Only through the revelations of the divine glories in Christ are we led to embrace these glorious excellences of the divine nature by faith, as we shall in heaven be led by love to cling to them with great delight. So as Christ is the chief object of faith here on earth, so also he will be the chief object of sight in heaven.

Therefore, think much of heaven as that state which will give you a perfect sight and understanding of the wisdom, love, and grace of God in Christ. To have the eternal glory of God in Christ with all the fruits of his wisdom and love perfectly revealed and made known to us in a divine and glorious light, our souls, being enabled to see and perfectly to understand them, is the heaven which, according to God’s promise, we are to eagerly anticipate.

But in order to enjoy the sight of this glory, a great change must be wrought in our souls. Grace which has been wrought in us must be brought to perfection.

What soul could joyfully look forward to going to heaven if he must lose all his present understanding, faith, and love of God, even though he is told that he will receive something more excellent, but something of which he has no experience and which he cannot understand while in this world?

When the saints enter into rest, their good works follow them. But how can their good works follow them if those graces which gave birth to them do not also follow them? The perfection of our present graces, which are now weak and easily hindered from bringing forth good works, will be a source of great wonder in heaven.

Faith will be gloriously perfected in sight. This does not destroy the nature of faith. It only means that faith no longer has to make invisible things real to the soul. A man has a weak, little faith in this world, with little evidence of being born again and with no assurance of salvation. He is full of doubts and questionings and has no comfort from what he believes. Now if, through grace, his faith rises to full assurance of the things he believes, filling him with joy and peace in believing, do we say that he now has a different kind of faith? No! His weak faith has been raised to a higher state of perfection. When Christ cured the blind man and gave him sight, at first he saw all things obscurely and imperfectly. He saw men ‘like trees walking.’ But when Christ put his hands on his eyes again and made him look up, his eyes were perfectly restored and ‘he saw everyone clearly’ (Mark 8:22-26). Christ did not give him another way of seeing, but only perfected that which at first was imperfect. Nor will our perfect vision of things in heaven be another kind of grace than the light of faith which we now have. What will happen is that what is now imperfect in faith will be done away, and faith will be perfected and enabled to see perfectly those things which we now see imperfectly.

Love also will be perfected. There is nothing that should excite us more to grow and increase in love to God in Christ than to realize that love will be the same for all eternity. But in heaven, our love to God in Christ will be perfect and glorious. The soul will, by love, be enabled to cleave to God unreservedly and unchangeably, and that with eternal delight and satisfaction.

Hope will be perfected in enjoyment. This is all the perfection hope is capable of. The perfection of our inward nature is part of our eternal blessedness. Nor can we be blessed without it. All heaven’s glories would not make us blessed and happy if our natures were not made perfect, freed from all depravity and weakness. It is grace alone that perfects our nature. Regeneration began the work of renewing the image of God in us, and the perfection of that image in us is the perfection of our natures. And we shall be kept eternally in that state of perfection by that perfect love, joy, and delight our souls shall have in cleaving to God. God will never tear himself away from us, and because we shall never be willing, we shall never be able, to tear ourselves away from him. This is that true heaven which those who are spiritually minded ought to fix their thoughts on. Like ignorant men who throw away rough diamonds because they do not know what a little polishing will do, so the unspiritual cast away rough, unwrought grace, not realizing what lustre and beauty the polishing of the heavenly hand will give to it.

It is generally thought that however men differ about religion here, yet they agree about heaven. They think that all want to go to the same heaven. But nothing could be more wrong. All do not want to go to the same heaven. How few value the heavenly state we have been describing! How many understand that eternal blessedness lies only in the enjoyment of this heaven? But it is this heaven, and no other, that we wish to enter. Others may have their own ideas of heaven invented by their own imaginations, which only lead men to grow more worldly and superstitious. But spiritual thoughts of the true heaven in which there is freedom from all sin, the perfection of all grace, the vision of the glory of God in Christ, and all excellencies of the divine nature as revealed in Christ will greatly strengthen and perfect our faith, hope, love, and all other spiritual graces in us.

The great test of spiritual-mindedness

Having arrived at right ideas about heaven, it is our duty to meditate much on these things. This is the great test of whether we are spiritually minded or not. If we are risen with Christ, we will set our mind on things above (cf. Col. 3:1). This is the way that we are changed more and more into the image of the glory of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:18). This is the great evidence that we have real treasure in heaven, for ‘where our treasure is, there will our hearts be also.’

This will prove that ‘we count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Phil. 3:8). This is the great evidence that a person has a heavenly character, fit to enjoy heavenly things as a true child of God. As yet it does not appear what we shall be, but we know that when Christ appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. The truly spiritually minded person has this hope in him and meditates on this hope and so purifies himself as Christ is pure (cf. 1 John 3:2, 3).

But if we neglect this duty, then either we are not convinced of the truth and reality of these things, or we have no delight in them because we are not spiritually minded. Why are men so stupid? They all want to go to heaven. Nobody wants to go to hell. Most, like Balaam, would ‘die the death of the righteous’ and have their ‘latter end like his.’ Yet few make any effort to get right ideas of heaven, to see if the true heaven really would satisfy them and make them eternally happy. They are stupidly content with vague ideas of heaven or deceive themselves with their own ideas of heaven. But those who have been taught heavenly truths and who profess that their chief desires lie in these truths, yet who neglect to meditate on them, show that, whatever they claim to be, they are still earthly and carnal.

We must meditate on, and think of, the glory of heaven in comparison to the opposite state of death and eternal misery. Few care to think of, and meditate on, hell and the everlasting torments of the damned, especially those who are in most danger of going there. Some deny altogether the existence of hell. Others scoff at it as though a future judgment was but a fable. Some say that the goodness of Christ will not allow any to suffer in hell, even though they have learned more about hell from him than all the rest of Scripture. It is the height of folly for men to hide themselves for a few moments from that which is unavoidably coming upon them to eternity.

But I speak only of true believers. The more they think about the future state of eternal misery, the greater evidence they have for continuing and persevering in the life of faith. Remember that we were once ‘children of wrath.’ Remember that the wages of death we have deserved by our sins. Remember that Jesus has delivered us from ‘the wrath to come.’ In this way, we shall keep up a hatred of sin, which will enable us to walk in humility, continually praising divine mercy and grace. When we compare the state of blessedness and eternal glory, as the free gift of God’s grace in and through Jesus Christ, with that state of eternal misery which we deserve, if there is any spark of grace in us, we shall be stirred up to continual gratitude in our hearts. And I would encourage those who find the work of meditation on these things hard to make every effort to abide in spiritual thoughts. Let your mind rise toward them every hour, yes, a hundred times a day in all situations, under a continual sense of duty (cf. Rom. 8:23-26). Take care you do not go backwards and lose what you have won. If you neglect these thoughts for a while, you will quickly find yourselves neglected by them.

Buy the John Owen Puritan Paperback, Spiritual-Mindedness, here.

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The third exclamation of the conscious sin-bearer was the cry, “My God, My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46.) It was like all His sayings, according to truth; and it becomes us carefully to investigate its import and significance. Though it does not fall within my present object to refer to the several sayings on the cross in their order, it is noteworthy, that when Christ had given utterance to certain sayings that had reference to others, when He had uttered the comforting promise to the penitent thief, and had prayed for His persecutors, and had commended His mother to the care of the beloved disciple, He next turned to God alone, as if He had now done with man. The remaining space was to be specially occupied with God alone, as if His work with men was now done.

No sooner were His mind and attention turned away from His relation to men around Him, than a striking phenomenon presented itself. Darkness all of a sudden enveloped the face of nature, and eternal death seemed to seize hold of Him. Whatever view may be given of that darkness, it doubtless stood connected with the chief figure in this whole scene, and with the mental state through which the substitute of sinners was now to pass; and it must plainly be held to be symbolical as well as miraculous. We have not, it is true, any authoritative explanation of its meaning in the Scripture. But as the inner darkness of Christ’s soul and that darkness on the face of the earth were simultaneous, no explanation has so much probability as that which regards the menacing gloom, as meant to intimate that our sin had separated between God and the surety, and that our iniquities had hid the Father’s face from Him (Isa. 59:2). That is every way a better explanation than the more current one, that it was meant to convey an impression of the divine displeasure for the indignity offered and the crime committed by the Jewish nation against the Christ. But however we interpret the meaning of this mysterious darkness, it certainly seems to have had one effect. Under the awe which it produced, there seems to have been diffused among the bystanders a death-stillness, which for the time freed the sufferer from the scoffs and mockery of the mad multitude, and left Him alone, and comparatively undistracted, with God. The silence was broken at last, after an interval, by these words of awful import, “My God, My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?” What the Lord Jesus thus uttered was His actual experience; and as it was from the faithful witness, it was according to truth. He who was the light of the world was under the hiding of His Father’s face.

The inquiry into the causes of this peculiar mood of mind, substantially the same as in the two former exclamations, need not occupy our minds so long. The question is much more narrowed in this case; nor is there so much difference of opinion among divines and expositors. The words to which our Lord gave utterance are plainly a quotation from the 22rd Psalm, which is unquestionably Messianic, whether it had any immediate reference to the Psalmist or not. As to the interpretation, much depends on the question whether we take the word forsake in its full significance, or whether we tone down its meaning to the mere notion of “delay to help.” Some even of those who admit that the death of Christ was a propitiatory sacrifice, object to the interpretation that our Lord must be understood as uttering this language as an expression of real desertion, and in a moment of real desertion. And according to them, the words will only mean, “Why leavest Thou Me?” or, “Why delayest Thou to free Me from My suffering?” The word why is thus an expression of complaint, but involving a petition. In favour of this interpretation, it is argued that God is said “to forsake” one, or to be far from one, when He does not send help, and to “be near” when He delivers. Thus, according to this interpretation, there will be no particular emphasis on the word forsake. The whole import of the exclamation becomes flat and meaningless, according to this exposition. And the supporters of it, while they do not deny the atoning sacrifice of Christ, hold merely by one side of the truth, namely, that the Father surely loved the Son with unabated love, and could not withdraw His favour from His Son; nay, that the Son deserved it all the more when He was bringing His obedience through the deepest humiliation to its highest elevation. All that is true, and not to be questioned in any quarter.

But all this is one-sided, and argues much confusion of idea. It loses sight of the distinction, to which we have already alluded, between the personal and official capacity of our Lord; and it argues as if the supporters of the penal infliction of the divine wrath on Jesus as the sin-bearer also maintained the removal or withdrawal of the divine favour from Him in a personal point of view. That desertion undoubtedly involved the privation of the sweet sense of divine love and of the beatific vision of God, but no loss of the divine favour, and no withdrawal of the grace resulting from the personal union. It was not accompanied with a dissolution of the principle of joy, though it was accompanied with a suspension of the present experience of joy. It was for a time, not for ever. It was not attended with despair or doubt, but with the full confidence of faith, as is expressed in the words, “My God.” To sum up all in a few words: it was borne in our name, and not for Himself, in the capacity of the sin-bearer or surety, and not in that of the beloved Son. It was voluntary, and not enforced; by the imputation of our sin, and not for anything of His own. It was not because He had no power to remove it, but out of love to us. And in that desertion He encountered all the elements of eternal death, as far as they could fall on such a sufferer. It involved the removal not merely of the tokens of divine love, but the privation of God, or that loss of God, which is the very essence of the second death, awaiting the finally lost. Though this departure of God is accompanied, in the case of the sinner, with despair and with the worm of an evil conscience, it could be executed in a somewhat different way on our sinless Lord. But it must needs be executed, if He was to occupy the place of a real substitute and surety for sinful men.

The Lord asks why, with a force and significance which bring us to the margin of the inscrutable. It may be wiser to stand and adore than to grope our way into the meaning of this why. The language certainly does not mean that the cause of the desertion was unknown to Him as the conscious sin-bearer, who was passing through the flaming fire of the divine wrath for our salvation. But the inquiry, so put, seems to utter a desire that He may not be uninformed, but fully acquainted with the absolute necessity of all these pangs and agonies of desertion. He seems desirous to be assured subjectively, or convinced within His inmost soul, that all this must needs be so. He wishes to rest or anchor His mind in that conviction of its indispensable necessity; and He reminds His Father that it was all endured by a substitute for others, and for the glory of the Father.

The vicarious position of Christ during all these exclamations cannot, therefore, be doubtful to any one who has duly understood them. He bore (1) the soul-trouble, that His people might not bear it; (2) He drank the cup of the garden, that they might not drink it; (3) He was forsaken on the cross, that they might never know that desertion. He felt what sin is, and what it is to be severed from God, that we might never taste it; and He proclaimed with a loud voice the inconceivable agonies of that desertion, that He might convey to those who heard Him, or who should afterwards peruse His sufferings to the end of time, a due impression of the infinite weight of sin, and of the penal desertion it entails. As to the mental condition of the Son of God during this penal loss of God, and retribution for the sin which He made His own, it may be safely affirmed that He then experienced the essence of eternal death, or that sense of abandonment which will form the bitterest ingredient in the cup of the finally impenitent. This was the meaning of the sentence, “Thou shalt surely die.”

Had the second Adam been a mere man, there could have been no such vicarious work, because He would have been bound to full obedience on His own account, and that obedience could not have extended to others. But the second man, being the Son of God, rendered a vicarious obedience, and encountered a vicarious suffering, not necessary for Himself, and of infinite value. And, because of His divine person, the brief period of His agony was a fully adequate and perfect satisfaction for the sins of His people, from the infinite dignity and infinite merit of the sufferer.

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First Objection. But many will be ready to object and say, We have much business upon our hands, and we cannot spare time for private prayer; we have so much to do in our shops, and in our warehouses, and in public with others, that we cannot spare time to wait upon the Lord in our closets.

Now to this objection I shall give these eight answers, so that this objection may never have a resurrection more in any of your hearts.

First, what are all those businesses that are upon your hands, to those businesses and weighty affairs that lay upon the hands of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Daniel, Elijah, Nehemiah, Peter, Cornelius¹? And yet you find all these worthies exercising themselves in private prayers. And the king is commanded every day to read some part of God’s word, notwithstanding all his great and weighty employments (Deut. 17:18–20). Now certainly, sirs, your great businesses are little more than zeros compared with theirs. And if there were any on earth that might have pleaded an exemption from private prayer, upon the account of business, of much business, of great business, these might have done it; but they were more honest and more noble than to neglect so choice a duty, upon the account of much business. These brave hearts made all their public employments stoop to private prayer; they would never suffer their public employments to tread private prayer underfoot. But,

Secondly, I answer, No men’s outward affairs did ever more prosper than theirs did, who devoted themselves to private prayer, notwithstanding their many and great worldly employments.

Witness the prosperity and outward flourishing estates of Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Nehemiah, David, Daniel, and Cornelius. These were much with God in their closets, and God blessed their blessings to them (Gen. 22:17). How their cups overflowed! What signal favours did God heap upon them and theirs! No families have been so prospered, protected, and graced, as theirs who have maintained secret communion with God in a corner (1 Chron. 11:9). Private prayer best expedites our temporal affairs. He that prays well in his closet, shall be sure to speed well in his shop, or at his plough, or whatever else he turns his hand to (1 Tim. 4:8). It is true, Abimelech was rich as well as Abraham, and so was Laban rich as well as Jacob, and Saul was a king as well as David, and Julian was an emperor as well as Constantine; but it was only Abraham, Jacob, David, and Constantine, who had their blessings blessed unto them; all the rest had their blessings cursed unto them (Prov. 3:33; Mal. 2:2). They had many good things, but they had not ‘the good will of him that dwelt in the bush’ with what they had; and therefore all their mercies were but bitter-sweets unto them. Though all the sons of Jacob returned laden from Egypt with corn and money in their sacks, yet only Benjamin had the silver cup in the mouth of his sack. So though the men of the world have their corn and their money, etc., yet it is only God’s Benjamins that have the silver cup, the grace cup, the cup of blessing, as the apostle calls it, for their portion (1 Cor. 10:16). O sirs! as ever you would prosper and flourish in the world; as ever you would have your water turned into wine, your temporal mercies into spiritual benefits, be much with God in your closets. But,

Thirdly, I answer, it is ten to one but that the objector every day fools away, or fritters away, or idles away, or sins away, one hour in a day, and why then should he complain of a lack of time²?

There are none that toil and moil and busy themselves most in their worldly employments but do spend an hour or more in a day to little or no purpose, either in gazing about, or in dallying, or toying, or courting, or in telling of stories, or in busying themselves in other men’s matters, or in idle visits, or in smoking a pipe, etc.35 And why then should not these men redeem an hour’s time in a day for private prayer, out of that time which they usually spend so vainly and idly? Can you, notwithstanding all your great worldly employments, find an hour in the day to catch flies in, as Domitian the emperor did? and to play the fool in? and cannot you find an hour in the day to wait on God in your closets?

There were three special faults of which Cato professed himself to have seriously repented: one was travelling by water when he might have gone by land; another was trusting a secret in a woman’s bosom; but the main one was spending an hour unprofitably. This heathen will one day rise up in judgment against them who, notwithstanding their great employments, spend many hours in a week unprofitably, and yet cry out with the Duke of Alva ‘that they have so much to do on earth, that they have no time to look up to heaven’. It was a base and sordid spirit in King Sardanapalus, who spent much of his time amongst women in spinning and carding, which should have been spent in ruling and governing his kingdom. So it is a base, sordid spirit in any to spend any of their time in toying and trifling, and then to cry out that they have so much business to do in the world, that they have no time for closet prayer, they have no time to serve God, nor to save their own precious and immortal souls. But,

Fourthly, I answer, no man dares plead this objection before the Lord Jesus in the great day of account (Eccles. 11:9; Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10). And why then should any man be so childish and foolish, so ignorant and impudent to plead that before men which is not pleadable before the judgment seat of Christ? O sirs! as you love your souls, and as you would be happy for ever, never put off your own consciences nor others’ with any pleas, arguments, or objections now, that you dare not own and stand by when you shall lie upon a dying bed, and when you shall appear before the whole court of heaven. In the great day of account, when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, and God shall call men to a reckoning before angels, men, and devils, for the neglect of private prayer, all guilty persons will be found speechless: there will not be a man or woman found, that shall dare to stand up and say, ‘Lord, I would have waited upon you in my closet, but that I had so much business to do in the world that I had no time to enjoy secret communion with you in a corner.’ It is the greatest wisdom in the world, to plead nothing by way of excuse in this our day, that we dare not plead in the great day. But,

Fifthly, I answer, that it is our duty to redeem time from all our secular businesses for private prayer³. All sorts of Christians, whether bond or free, rich or poor, high or low, superiors or inferiors, are expressly charged by God to redeem time for prayer, for private prayer, as well as for other holy exercises: Col. 4:2, 3, ‘Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds.’

But here some may object and say, We have so much business to do in the world that we have no time for prayer. The apostle answers this objection in verse 5, ‘Walk in wisdom towards them that are without, redeeming the time.’ So Eph. 5:16, ‘Redeeming the time, because the days are evil’; ἐξαγοραζόμενοι τὸν χαιρόν, or buying out, or gaining the time. The words are a metaphor taken from merchants, who prefer the least profit that may be gained before their pleasures or delights, closely following their business whilst the markets are at best. A merchant when he comes to a mart or fair, takes the first season and opportunity of buying his commodities; he takes no risk in putting it off to the evening, or to the next morning, in the hope of getting a better bargain, but he makes the most of the present time, and buys before the market is over.

Others understand the words thus: ‘Purchase at any rate, all occasions and opportunities of doing good, that by doing so you may, in some way, redeem that precious jewel of time which you have formerly lost.’ Like travellers that have loitered by the way, or stayed long at their inn, when they find night coming upon them, they mend their pace, and go as many miles in an hour as they did before in many. Though time let slip is physically irrecoverable, yet in a moral consideration, it is accounted as regained, when men double their care, diligence, and endeavours to redeem it. The best Christian is he who is the greatest monopoliser of time for private prayer; who redeems time from his worldly occasions and his lawful comforts and recreations, to be with God in his closet. David having tasted of the sweetness, goodness, and graciousness of God, cannot keep his bed, but will borrow some time from his sleep, that he might take some turns in paradise, and pour out his soul in prayer and praises when no eye was open to see him, nor no ear open to hear him, but all were asleep round about him, Psa. 63:6; Psa. 119:62, ‘At midnight will I arise to give thanks unto thee.’ Verse 147, ‘I have prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried.’ David was up and at private prayer before daybreak. David was no sluggish Christian, no slothful Christian, no lazy Christian: he used to be in his closet when others were sleeping in their beds. So verse 148, ‘Mine eyes prevent the night-watches, that I might meditate in thy word.’ So Psa. 130:6, ‘My soul waiteth for the Lord, more than they that watch for the morning; I say, more than they that watch for the morning.’ Look, as the weary sentinel in a dark, cold, wet night, waits and peeps, and peeps and waits for the appearance of the morning; so David did wait and peep, and peep and wait for the first and fittest season to pour out his soul before God in a corner. David would never suffer his worldly business to jostle out holy exercises; he would often borrow time from the world for private prayer, but he would never borrow time from private prayer to bestow it upon the world.

John Bradford, the martyr, counted that hour lost in which he did not do some good, either with his pen, tongue, or purse.

Ignatius, when he heard a clock strike, used to say, ‘Now I have one more hour to answer for.’

So the primitive Christians would redeem some time from their sleep, that they might be with God in their closets, as Clemens observes. And I have read of the emperor Theodosius that after the variety of worldly employments relating to his civil affairs in the day time were over, he was wont to consecrate the greatest part of the night to the studying of the Scriptures and private prayer; to which purpose he had a lamp so cleverly made, that it supplied itself with oil, that so he might not be interrupted in his private retirements.

That time ought to be redeemed is a lesson that has been taught by the very heathens themselves. It was the saying of Pittacus, one of the seven wise men, ‘Know time, lose not a minute.’ And so Theophrastus used to say, ‘Time is of precious cost.’ And so Seneca: ‘Time is the only thing’, says he, ‘that we can innocently be covetous of; and yet there is nothing of which many are more lavishly and profusely prodigal.’ And Chrestus, a sophist of Byzantium in the time of Hadrian the emperor, was much given to wine; yet, he always counted time so precious, that when he had misspent his time all the day, he would redeem it at night.

When Titus Vespasian, who revenged Christ’s blood on Jerusalem, returned victor to Rome, remembering one night as he sat at supper with his friends, that he had done no good that day, he uttered this memorable and praiseworthy apophthegm, Amici, diem perdidi, ‘My friends, I have lost a day.’

Chilo, one of the seven sages, being asked what was the hardest thing in the world to be done, answered, ‘To use and employ a man’s time well.’ Cato held that an account must be given, not only of our labour, but also of our leisure. And Aelian gives this testimony of the Lacedaemonians, ‘that they were hugely covetous of their time, spending it all about necessary things, and suffering no citizen either to be idle or play.’ And, another says, ‘We trifle with that which is most precious, and throw away that which is our greatest interest to redeem.’

Certainly, these heathens will rise in judgment, not only against Domitian the Roman emperor, who spent much of his time in killing flies; nor only against Archimedes, who spent his time in drawing lines on the ground when Syracuse was taken; nor against Artaxerxes, who spent his time in making handles for knives; nor only against Sulaiman the great Turk, who spent his time in making notches of horn for bows; nor only against Eropas, a Macedonian king, who spent his time in making lanterns; nor only against Hyrcanus the king of Parthia who spent his time in catching moles; but also against many professors who, instead of redeeming precious time, do trifle and fool away much of their precious time at the glass, the comb, the lute, the viol, the pipe, or vain sports, and foolish pastimes, or by idle jestings, immoderate sleeping, and superfluous feasting, etc.

O sirs! Good hours, and blessed opportunities for closet prayer are merchandise of the highest value and price; and therefore, whosoever has a mind to be rich in grace, and to be high in glory, should buy up that merchandise, they should continually redeem precious time.

O sirs! we should redeem time for private prayer out of our eating time, our drinking time, our sleeping time, our buying time, our selling time, our sinning time, our sporting time, rather than neglect our closet communion with God, etc. But,

Sixthly, I answer, Closet prayer is either a duty or it is no duty. Now that it is a duty, I have so strongly proved, I suppose, that no man nor devil can fairly or honestly deny it to be a duty. And therefore, why do men cry out of their great business? Alas! duty must be done whatever business is left undone; duty must be done, or the man who neglects it will be undone for ever. It is a vain thing to complain of business, when a required duty is to be performed; and, indeed, if the bare objecting of business, of much business, were enough to excuse men from duty, I am afraid that there are but few duties of the gospel, but men would try to evade under a pretence of business, of much business. He who pretends business to evade private prayer, will be as ready to pretend business to evade family prayer; and he that pretends business to evade family prayer, will be as ready to pretend business to evade public prayer.

Well, sirs! remember what became of those that excused themselves out of heaven, by their carnal apologies, and secular businesses: Luke 14:16–24. ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it; I pray thee, have me excused,’ says one. ‘I have bought’, says another, ‘five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them; I pray thee, have me excused.’ And, ‘I have married a wife’, says another, ‘and therefore I cannot come.’ The true reason why they would not come to the supper that the King of kings had invited them to was, not because they had bought farms and oxen, but because their farms and oxen had bought them. The things of the world and their carnal relations had taken up so much room in their hearts and affections, that they had no stomach for heaven’s delicacies; and therefore it is observable what Christ adds at the end of the parable, ‘He that hateth not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also’, much more his farm and oxen, ‘he cannot be my disciple,’ verse 26. By these words, it is evident, that it was not simply the farm nor the oxen, nor the wife, but a foolish, inordinate, carnal love and esteem of these things, above better and greater blessings, that made them refuse the gracious invitation of Christ. They refused the grace and mercy of God offered in the gospel, under a pretence of worldly business; and God peremptorily concludes, that not one of them should taste of his supper.

And indeed what can be more just and righteous, than that they should never so much as taste of spiritual and eternal blessings, who prefer their earthly business before heaven’s dainties, prefer a country commodious for the feeding of their cattle, before an interest in the land of promise. Private prayer is a work of absolute necessity, both to the bringing of the heart into a good frame, and to the keeping of the heart in a good frame. It is of absolute necessity, both for the discovery of sin, and for the preventing of sin, and for the purging away of sin. It is of absolute necessity, both for the discovery of grace, and for a full exercise of grace, and for an eminent increase of grace. It is of absolute necessity to arm us, both against inward and outward temptations, afflictions, and sufferings. It is of absolute necessity to fit us for all other duties and services. For a man to glorify God, to save his own soul, and to further his own everlasting happiness, is a work of the greatest necessity. Now private prayer is such a work; and therefore why should any man plead business, great business, when a work of such absolute necessity is before him? If a man’s child or wife were dangerously sick, or wounded, or near to death, he would never plead, ‘I have business, I have a great deal of business to do, and therefore I cannot stay with my child, my wife; and I have no time to go or send for the physician’, etc. Oh no! but he would rather argue thus: ‘It is absolutely necessary that I should look after the preservation of the life of my child, my wife, and this I will attend whatever becomes of my business.’ O sirs! your souls are of greater concern to you than the lives of all the wives and children in the world; and therefore these must be attended to, these must be saved, whatever business is neglected. But,

Seventhly, I answer, That God did never appoint or design any man’s ordinary, particular calling to throw private prayer out of doors⁴.

That it is a great sin for any professing Christian to neglect his particular calling under any religious pretence is evident enough by these Scriptures – Exod. 20:9, ‘Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work’; 1 Cor. 7:20, ‘Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called’; 2 Thess. 3:10–12, ‘For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread’; 1 Thess. 4:11, 12, ‘And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing’; Eph. 4:28, ‘But rather let him labour, working with his own hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth’; 1 Tim. 5:8, ‘But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.’ Yes, our Lord Jesus Christ was a plain, downright carpenter, and was worked hard in that particular calling till he entered upon the public ministry, as all the old writers do agree (Mark 6:3; Matt. 13:55, 56). And we read also that all the patriarchs had their particular callings. Abel was a keeper of sheep (Gen. 4:2); Noah was a husbandman (Gen. 5:29); the sons of Jacob were shepherds and keepers of cattle (Gen. 46:34), etc.; and all the apostles, before they were called to the work of the ministry, had their particular callings. By the law of Mohammed, the great Turk himself is bound to exercise some manual trade or occupation.

Solon made a law⁵, that the son should not be bound to relieve his father when old, unless he had set himself in his youth to some occupation. And at Athens, every man gave a yearly account to the magistrate by what trade or course of life he maintained himself, which, if he could not do, he was banished. And it is by all writers condemned as a very great vanity in Dionysius that he must be the best poet, and Caligula, that he must be the best orator; and in Nero, that he must be the best fiddler; and so became the three worst princes, by minding more other men’s business than their own particular calling.

But for a man to evade or neglect private prayer under pretence of his particular calling, is agreeable to no Scripture, but is contrary to very many Scriptures, as is evident by the many arguments formerly cited. Certainly no man’s calling is a calling away from God or godliness. It never entered into the heart of God that our particular callings should ever drive out of doors our general calling of Christianity. Look, as our general calling must not eat up our particular calling, so our particular calling must not eat up our general calling. Certainly our particular calling must give place to our general calling. Did not the woman of Samaria leave her water-pot, and run into the city, and say, ‘Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ’ (John 4:28, 29)? Did not the shepherds leave their flocks in the field, and go to Bethlehem, and declare the good tidings of great joy that they had heard of the angel, viz. ‘That there was born that day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which was Christ the Lord’ (Luke 2:8–21)? And did not Christ commend Mary for that holy neglect of her particular calling, when she sat at his feet, and heard his word (Luke 10:38ff.)? And what do all these instances show, but that our particular callings must give the right hand to the general calling of Christianity? Certainly the works of our general calling are far more great and glorious, more eminent and excellent, more high and noble, than the works of our particular callings are; and therefore it is much more tolerable for our general calling to borrow time of our particular calling than it is for our particular calling to borrow time of our general calling. Certainly those men are very ignorant or very profane, that either think themselves so closely tied up to follow their particular callings six days in the week, as that they must not intermeddle with any religious services, or that think their particular callings to be a gulf or a grave designed by God to swallow up private prayer in. God, who is the Lord of time, has reserved some part of our time to himself every day. Though the Jews were commanded to labour six days of the week, yet they were commanded also to offer up morning and evening sacrifice daily (Deut. 6:6–8; Exod. 29:38, 39; Num. 28:3).

The Jews divided the day into three parts:
The first, to prayer;
The second, for the reading of the law;
And the third, for the works of their lawful callings.

As bad as the Jews were, yet they every day set a part of the day apart for religious exercises. Certainly they are worse than Jews that spend all their time about their particular callings, and shut closet prayer quite out of doors. Certainly that man’s soul is in a very ill case, who is so entangled with the encumbrances of the world, that he can spare no time for private prayer. If God be the Lord of your mercies, the Lord of your time, and the Lord of your soul, how can you, with any equity or honour, put off his service under a pretence of much business? That man is lost, that man is cursed, who can find time for anything, but none to meet with God in his closet. That man is doubtless upon the brink of ruin, whose worldly business eats up all thoughts of God, of Christ, of heaven, of eternity, of his soul, and of his soul concerns. But,

Eighthly, and lastly, I answer, the more worldly business lies upon your hand, the more need you have to keep close to your closet.

Much business lays a man open to many sins, and to many snares, and to many temptations. Now, the more sins, snares, and temptations a man’s business lays him open to, the more need that man has to be much in private prayer, that his soul may be kept pure from sin, and that his foot may not be taken in the devil’s trap, and that he may stand fast in the hour of temptation. Private prayer is so far from being a hindrance to a man’s business, that it is the way of ways to bring down a blessing from heaven upon a man’s business (Psa. 1:2, 3; 127:1, 2; 128:1, 2); as the first-fruits that God’s people gave to him brought down a blessing from heaven upon all the rest (Deut. 26:10, 11). Whet is no let⁶; prayer and provender never hinders a journey.

Private prayer can be likened to Jacob, who brought down a blessing from heaven upon all that Laban had (Gen. 30:27, 30). Private prayer gives a man a sanctified use, both of all his earthly comforts, and of all his earthly business; and this David and Daniel found by experience; and therefore it was not their great public employments that could take them off from their private duties. Time spent in heavenly employments, is no time lost from worldly business (Deut. 28:1–8).

Private prayer makes all we take in hand successful.  Closet prayer has made many rich, but it never made any man poor or beggarly in this world. No man on earth knows what may be the emergencies, or the occurrences of a day: Prov. 27:1, ‘Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.’ Every day is, as it were, a heavily-pregnant day; every day is as it were with child of something, but what it will bring forth, whether a cross or a comfort, no man can tell; as when a woman is with child, no man can tell what kind of birth it will be.

No man knows what mercies a day may bring forth, no man knows what miseries a day may bring forth; no man knows what good a day may bring forth, no man knows what evil a day may bring forth; no man knows what afflictions a day may bring forth, no man knows what temptations a day may bring forth; no man knows what liberty a day may bring forth, no man knows what bonds a day may bring forth; no man knows what good success a day may bring forth, no man knows what bad success a day may bring forth; and therefore, a man had need be every day in his closet with God, that he may be prepared and fitted to entertain and improve all the occurrences, successes, and emergencies that may attend him in the course of his life. And let thus much suffice for answer to this first objection.

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The Holy Spirit has many names and titles. The word Spirit in Hebrew is ruach and in Greek it is pneuma. In both languages the words serve as the term for ‘wind.’ These words were used metaphorically to express many ideas (Eccles. 5:16; Mic. 2:11); any part or quarter of the compass (Jer. 52:23; Ezek. 5:12; 1 Chron. 9:24; Matt. 24:31); anything which is not material (Gen. 7:22; Psa. 135:17; Job 19:17; Luke 23:46); desires of the mind and soul (Gen. 45:27; Ezek. 13:3; Num. 14:24); angels (Psa. 104:4; 1 Kings 22:21, 22; Matt. 10:1). In Scripture, however, a clear distinction is made between these uses and the Spirit of God. While the Jews say he is the influential power of God and the Muslems say that he is an eminent angel, the name ‘Spirit’ refers to his nature or essence which is pure, spiritual, immaterial substance (John 4:24). He is the breath of the Lord (Psa. 33:6; 18:15; John 20:22; Gen. 2:7). He is called the Holy Spirit (Psa. 51:11; Isa. 63:10, 11; Rom. 1:4). He is the Spirit of God (Psa. 143:10; Neh. 9:20; Exod. 31:3; 35:31; 1 Cor. 12:6, 11; 2 Sam. 23:2 with 2 Pet. 1:21).  He is the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the Lord (Gen. 1:2; John 20:17). He is the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Christ (Gal. 4:6; 1 Pet. 1:11; Rom. 8:9). He proceeds from the Son and was promised by the Son (Acts 2:33).

The Trinity

The being and nature of God is the foundation of all true religion and holy religious worship in the world (Rom. 1:19- 21). The revelation that he gives us of himself is the standard of all true religious worship and obedience. God has revealed himself as three persons in one God (Matt. 28:19). Each person in the Godhead is distinct from the other two, and each has particular works attributed to him. The Father gives the Son. The Son comes and takes our nature, and both the Father and the Son send the Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is, in himself, a distinct, loving, powerful, intelligent, divine person, for none other could do what he does. He is one with the Father and the Son. Our Lord’s words at the institution of Christian baptism show us that it is our religious duty to own the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in all our worship of God and in all our faith and obedience (cf. Matt. 28:19, 20).

The personal activity of the Holy Spirit

The appearance of the Holy Spirit under a visible sign suggests that he is a person (Matt. 3:16; Luke 3:22; John 1:32). He has personal attributes such as understanding and wisdom (1 Cor. 2:10-12; Isa. 40:28; Psa. 147:5; 2 Pet. 1:21; Rom. 11:33, 34; Isa. 40:13; Psa. 139:23; 1 Cor. 12:8; Isa. 11:2). He acts according to his own will (1 Cor. 12:11). He has power (Job 33:4; Isa. 11:2; Mic. 2:7; 3:8; Eph. 3:16). He teaches (Luke 12:12; John 14:26; 1 John 2:27). He calls to special work (Acts 13:2, 4) – an act of authority, choice and wisdom. He called Barnabas and Saul. He commanded them to be set apart. He sent them out. All this shows his authority and personality. He appointed men to positions of authority in the church (Acts 20:28). He was tempted (Acts 5:9). How can a quality, an accident, a power from God be tempted? Ananias lied to him (Acts 5:3). Peter tells Ananias that he had lied to God (Acts 5:4). The Holy Spirit can be resisted (Acts 7:51). He can be grieved (Eph. 4:30). He can be rebelled against, annoyed and blasphemed (Isa. 63:10; Matt. 12:31, 32). Clearly, the Holy Spirit is not merely a quality to be found in the divine nature. He is not simply an influence or power from God. He is not the working of God’s power in our sanctification. He is a holy, intelligent person.

The deity of the Holy Spirit

He is clearly called God (Acts 5:3, 4; Lev. 26:11, 12 with 2 Cor. 6:16; 1 Cor. 3:16, 17; Deut. 32:12 with Isa. 63:14; Psa. 78:17, 18 with Isa. 63:10, 11). Divine characteristics are attributed to him: eternity (Heb. 9:14); immensity (Psa. 139:7); omnipotence (Mic. 2:7; Isa. 40:28); foreknowledge (Acts 1:16); omniscience (1 Cor. 2:10, 11); sovereign authority over the church (Acts 13:2, 4; 20:28). He is the third person of the Godhead (Matt. 28:19; Rev. 1:4, 5).

Everything God does he does as the triune God. Each person of the Trinity is involved in every action of God. Yet at the same time each person has a special role to fulfil in that work. In this sense, creation is the special work of the Father, salvation is the special work of the Son, and the special work of the Holy Spirit is to bring salvation to sinners, enabling them to receive it. The Father begins, the Son upholds, and the Holy Spirit completes all things (Rom. 11:36; Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3). Thus the Holy Spirit is active in everything God plans and does. We see this in creation.

The works of nature

God created all things out of nothing (Gen. 1:1). The Spirit of God ‘was hovering over the face of the waters’ (Gen. 1:2), ‘was hovering,’ as birds do over their nests. The Hebrew word ruach means the ‘wind’ of God. ‘Hovering’ signifies an easy, gentle movement like birds hovering over their nests (Deut. 32:11; Jer. 23:9). But there is no information in Genesis 1:1-2 about the creation of this wind. It can only be the Spirit of God and his work that is being described here.

The natural creation of man (Gen. 2:7)

The material used by God to create man was the ‘dust of the earth.’ The life-giving principle which made man a living soul was ‘the breath of God.’ The result of the union of the material with the breath of God, that which was spiritual, was that man became a living soul. Here the ‘breath’ of God is a vivid description of the Spirit. So God is seen in his glorious power and wisdom. He takes such humble material as dust and out of it creates a glorious creature. Man, being reminded that he is merely dust of the earth, is kept humble and dependent on the wisdom and goodness of God.

The moral creation of man (Gen. 1:26, 27; Eccles. 7:29)

It is not for nothing that God tells us that he breathed the spirit of life into man (Gen. 2:7; Job 33:4). It was the work of the Holy Spirit to give life to man by which man became a living soul, for the Holy Spirit is the breath of God. Man was given a mind and a soul in order that he might obey God and enjoy him, and there were three things necessary to fit man for life with God. He must be able to know the mind and will of God so that he may obey and please him. He must have a heart that gladly and freely loves God and his law, and he must be able to carry out perfectly all that God requires of him. All these are the works of the Spirit in man. And all these abilities were lost by sin. They can be restored only by the Holy Spirit’s work of regeneration.

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The presentation of the gospel is a subject which is always important. It is always important because of the eternal consequences that depend upon our attitude towards the gospel. There is no need for me to argue that it is especially important at the present time, and for two reasons: because of the general apostasy, of the failure on the part of the churches to present the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the way in which it should be presented; and because of the consequent godlessness and the sheer materialism which, increasingly, characterize the life of the people. It is a subject of urgent importance also because of the nature of the times through which we are passing. Life is always uncertain, but it is exceptionally uncertain today. We who are Christians should always weigh our words and be careful how we present the gospel; surely, that ought to be impressed upon us more definitely than ever before as we come into contact with men and women in the Services, who may lose their lives at any moment, and as we live daily in a world where bombs are dropped, and where death comes suddenly to people. So we are met to consider what I venture to affirm is the most important question that men can ever consider. And as we do so, we must be struck afresh by the remarkable way in which God has committed this all-important task of the presentation of the gospel to us. What a marvellous privilege it is, what a striking honour, that the Lord God Almighty should have entrusted this work of propagating and preaching the gospel to men like ourselves! It is a wonderful privilege, but, at the same time, it is a terrifying responsibility; it is a responsibility that devolves upon us all, and it devolves upon the leaders of the Crusaders’ Union in a very special manner. You are in contact with boys; your position as leaders of these young lives makes your work one of great seriousness.

This subject is so large and important that it is obviously impossible to deal with it adequately in one address. All I can do is select what I regard as some of the most important principles in connection with it; and I shall try to be as practical as I can. There are two main things I wish to emphasize: first, the positive principles which govern this work; and second, some of the dangers which are ever ready to threaten us as we engage in this ministry. We shall not only deal with this subject in general, but also in terms of work among boys. That is an important distinction, and one also, unless we are very careful, which we can turn into a very dangerous distinction. There has been a marked tendency in the last years or so to divide up Christian work according to age groups. I have never been very enthusiastic about these divisions into age groups – old age, middle age, youth, children, and so on. By that I mean that we must be careful that we do not modify the gospel to suit various age groups. There is no such thing as a special gospel for the young, a special gospel for the middle-aged, and a special gospel for the aged. There is only one gospel, and we must always be careful not to tamper and tinker with the gospel as a result of recognizing these age distinctions. At the same time, there is a difference in applying this one and only gospel to the different age groups; but it is a difference which has reference only to method and procedure.

The Nature of the Gospel

Now were I asked to speak on this subject in certain circles, my first business would be to attempt to define the nature of the gospel, and I would go on to ask, What is the gospel? In many circles people have gone astray; they have fallen into heresies; they preach a gospel that, to us, is no gospel at all. To such I would need to define the content of the gospel, but with you here that is unnecessary. I take it for granted that we are all agreed about the great fundamentals, the foundation principles of the Christian faith. What we are especially concerned about is the presentation of that gospel to the boys with whom we come into contact. There may be some of you who may ask, ‘Is it necessary that we should thus spend time in considering the presentation of the gospel? Is that not something that we can take for granted? If a man believes the gospel he is bound to present it in the right way. If a man is orthodox and believes the right things, his application of what he believes is something which will take care of itself.’ That, to me, is a very grave error; and anyone who is tempted to speak in that way ignores not only his own weakness, but, still more, the adversary of our souls, who is always attempting to frustrate the work of God.

This is a contention which I think I can prove in two ways. I am concerned to show you how you cannot take it for granted that a man who believes the right thing is of necessity one who can present that right thing in the right way. There are, for instance, men who are sound evangelicals in their belief and doctrine; they are perfectly orthodox in their faith, yet their work is utterly barren. They never get any results; they never hear of a convert as a result of their work and ministry. They are as sound as you are, yet their ministry leads to nothing. On the other hand – and this is my second proof – there are those who seem to get phenomenal results to their work and efforts. They take a campaign, or preach a sermon, and as a result, there are numbers of decisions for Christ, or what are called ‘conversions’. But many of these results do not last; they are not permanent; they are merely of a temporary or passing nature. What is the explanation of these two cases? It seems to me that the only explanation is that, somehow or other, there is a gap between what the man believes and what he actually presents in his teaching or preaching. The danger in regard to the first type is the danger of just talking about the gospel. This man believes the truth, he exults in it; but instead of preaching the gospel, he praises it, he says wonderful things about it. The whole time he is simply talking about the gospel instead of presenting the gospel. The result is, that though the man is highly orthodox and sound, his ministry shows no results whatsoever.

The danger in regard to the second man is the danger of being so interested in, and so concerned about the application of the gospel and with getting results that he allows a gap to come in between what he is presenting (and what he believes) and the actual obtaining of the results themselves. As I have said, it is not enough that you believe the truth; you must be careful to apply what you believe in the right way.

Methods of Study

There are two main ways in which we can study this subject of the presentation of the gospel. The first is to study the Bible itself, with special reference to the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of the New Testament. That must always be put first if we would know how this work is to be done. We must go back to our textbook, which is the Bible. We must go back to the primitive pattern, to the norm, to the standard. In the Acts and in the Epistles we are told, once and for all, what the Christian church is, what she is like, and how she is to do her work. We must always make certain that our methods conform to the teaching of the New Testament.

The second method is a supplementary one; it is to make a study of the history of the Christian church subsequent to the New Testament times. We can concentrate especially on the history of revivals and the great spiritual awakenings; and we can read also the biographies of men who have been greatly honoured by God in the past in their presentation of the gospel. But here we must notice a principle of the greatest importance. When I say that it is a good thing to go back and read the history of the past and the biographies of great men whom God has used in the past, I hope that we are all clear in our minds that we need to go back beyond the last seventy years. I find so many good evangelicals who seem to be of the opinion that there was no real evangelistic work until about 1870. There are those who seem to think that evangelistic work in Great Britain was unknown until Moody came to this country. While we thank God for the glorious work of the last seventy years, I do plead with you to make a thorough study of the history of the church in the past. Go back to the eighteenth century. Go back to the time of the Puritans and even further back still, to the Protestant Reformation. And go back even beyond that, and study the history of those groups of evangelical people who lived on the Continent at the time when Roman Catholicism held supreme sway. Go right back to the time of the Early Fathers who held evangelical ideas. It is a history which can be traced back unbroken even to the primitive church itself. Such a study is of vital importance, lest we tend to assume, through taking a false view of history, that evangelistic work can only be done in a certain way, and by the application and the use of certain methods. I would commend to you a very thorough study of that great American divine, Jonathan Edwards. It was a great revelation to me to discover that a man who preached in the way he did could be honoured of God as he was, and could have such great results to his ministry. Jonathan Edwards was a great scholar and philosopher who wrote out every word of his sermons. He was very short sighted, and he used to stand in his pulpit with his manuscript in one hand, and a candle in the other hand, and as he read his sermon men were not only converted, but some of them literally fell to the ground under conviction of sin and the power of the Spirit. When we think of evangelistic work in terms of the popular evangelism of the last seventy years, I think we might be tempted to say that a man who preached like that could not possibly get conversions. Yet he was a man who was used of God in the Great Awakening on the American continent in the eighteenth century. So I would plead with you to be thorough in your study of church history and of the great things which God has done in various eras and periods. Those, therefore, are the two main lines along which we approach this subject – the study of the Bible and a study of the Christian church.

Having done that, we shall find that the following great foundation principles stand out very clearly as governing this whole subject.

I. The supreme object of this work is to glorify God. That is the central thing. That is the object that must control and override every other object. The first object of preaching the gospel is not to save souls; it is to glorify God. Nothing else, however good in itself, or however noble, must be allowed to usurp that first place.

2. The only power that can really do this work is the Holy Spirit. Whatever natural gifts a man may possess, whatever a man may be able to do as a result of his own natural propensities, the work of presenting the gospel and of leading to that supreme object of glorifying God in the salvation of men, is a work that can be done only by the Holy Spirit. You see that in the New Testament itself. Apart from the Spirit, we are told, we can do nothing. You read in the Bible of men attempting to do things in their own strength, but they fail completely. In the subsequent history of the Christian church you find men who cease to be the instruments of the Holy Spirit, and their ministry at once becomes barren. There was no change in their natural powers, proving, therefore, that the work is a work which ultimately can only be achieved by the Holy Spirit Himself.

3. The one and only medium through which the Holy Spirit works is the Word of God. That is something which I can prove quite easily. Take the sermon which was preached by Peter at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. What he did really was to expound the Scriptures. He did not get up and give an account of his own personal experiences. He unfolded the Scriptures; that was always his method. And that is also the characteristic method of Paul, that ‘he reasoned out of the Scriptures’ (Acts 17:2). When he dealt with the Philippian jailer you find that he preached unto him Jesus Christ and the Word of the Lord. You will remember his words in the First Letter to Timothy, where he says that it is the will of God that all men should be saved, and brought to a knowledge of the truth (I Tim. 2:4). The medium which is used by the Holy Spirit is the truth.

4. The fourth principle, therefore, is that the true urge to evangelization must come from apprehending these principles, and, therefore, from a zeal for the honour and glory of God and a love for the souls of men.

5. There is a constant danger of error and of heresy, even among the most sincere, and also the danger of a false zeal and the employment of unscriptural methods. There is nothing to which we are exhorted more frequently in the New Testament than the need for a constant self-examination and a return to the Scriptures themselves.

There, I think, you have five foundation principles which are taught very clearly in the Word of God, and which are confirmed abundantly in the subsequent history of the Christian church.

The Application of the Principles

This brings me to the second main division of our subject, which is the application of these principles to the actual work of the presentation of the gospel. This is a subject which divides itself up quite naturally into two main sections. There is first the work of evangelism, and then the work of edification and instruction in righteousness.

EVANGELISM AND ITS DANGERS

As we engage in evangelistic work, it is of vital importance that we ask ourselves before we begin: What am I out to do? What am I going to attempt? What do I want to achieve? What is my real objective? I suggest that there is only one true answer to these questions, and it is this: I am anxious that souls should be reconciled to God, because, being what they are, they are dishonouring God, and because, being in a state in which they dishonour God, they are in danger of perdition. That is the purpose of all evangelistic work – to bring those souls into a state of reconciliation with God. That is the object. It is not merely to get boys to make a decision; it is not simply to get them to live another way of life; it is not simply to get them to join a class or a church. Your object in presenting the gospel to them is to put them right with God.

Now there are very grave dangers that have arisen, and will arise, in connection with this work of evangelism. There is, first of all, the danger of exalting the decision as such, and this is a danger especially when you are working among the young. I have not time to enlarge upon it, though I must use the term – the psychological difference between children and adults. I think we all know enough about psychology to realize that children are very much more impressionable than older people. There is a sense in which it is true to say you can influence children to do almost anything you like. You know the claim of the Roman Catholics, who say, ‘Give us a child until he is seven, and we have got him for life.’ The danger of exalting decision as such expresses itself in a number of ways. It shows itself sometimes in the use of music. There are people who talk about singing, and the use of music – and especially of choruses – as something which they use to ‘work up a meeting’. They rely upon music and the singing of choruses to produce the desired effect of bringing about decision. Others, perhaps, tend to make use of stories, rather than music, in much the same way. There are those who have the gift of telling stories in a moving and effective manner. Others seem to put their reliance upon the personal charm of the speaker. For instance, a man was telling me about a friend of his who was doing some work among the troops, and he described him in this way: ‘He is doing a grand work. He is just the right type of man; he is so cheery and breezy.’ There is none of that kind of thing in the New Testament. Would Paul, for instance, be described as being a particularly cheery and breezy kind of man?

Perhaps I may be allowed to digress at this point. Have you ever observed that some of the most honoured servants of God in evangelism have been extremely ugly men? Let me commend that to you as a study. There is a danger of the evangelist relying upon the attractiveness of his own personality to produce results. Then there are some who try to develop what I can describe most accurately as the cricket-team spirit. They seem to produce an atmosphere which is comparable to that of a football or cricket team. They stand for the idea of being all in it together, of playing the game. That is something which, of course, appeals very much to boys, and something which of itself is quite harmless, and can be very useful. My point is that there is a danger at times of stressing it to such an extent that decisions are produced by that team spirit rather than by an understanding of the truth. But the most serious of all dangers is that of seeking to produce decisions as a result of pressure brought to bear upon the wills of those who are listening. There is the danger of a man so using his personality, his will power, and his capacity to domineer over others as to force those who are listening to respond to his appeal.

These are some of the results which follow this undue exaltation of the decision as such. I could illustrate what I have been saying at very great length. For instance, I have heard repeatedly of a certain popular evangelist, who has an amazing gift for telling stories; he is quite a genius in this respect. His word-pictures are such that you can see exactly what he is describing. This man tells his stories and he seems almost to mesmerize his congregation. At the close of the meeting he invites people to go to the decision room, and they go there in flocks. But those who work in the decision room are agreed in saying that when they ask them why they have come, their reply is that they do not know, but that the speaker told them to come. It is not that the truth has convinced or convicted them. They are influenced by the stories to which they have listened, and then they seem to act in an automatic manner. Music can produce the same effect. You can so sing a chorus that eventually you become intoxicated. The power of music is such that that is the effect it has upon some people; and, in reality, they do not know what they are doing; they iust respond mechanically to any command or invitation given to them.

The second danger is that people may arrive at a decision from a false motive. Sometimes people decide for Christ simply because they are anxious for someone else’s experience. Here again is a danger to which boys and young people are particularly exposed. In other words, I am trying to warn you against the danger of basing your message upon the effect of your own experience, or that of someone else. The boy who is listening to you may be anxious to be like you, to have what you have, or to be like someone of whom you have spoken, and to have what that someone else has got. While we think he is deciding for Christ he is simply coveting another’s experience. Or it may be a desire to have this wonderful type of life of which he has been told. The gospel of Jesus Christ does give us a very wonderful life, and we praise God for it, but the true reason for becoming a Christian is not that we may have a wonderful life; it is, rather, that we may be in a right relationship with God. Again, Christ is sometimes presented as a hero. The heroic instinct is prominent in all of us, and especially in boys. If we over-emphasize that aspect of the gospel, it may be that the boys, or even older people, may join our Bible class or church simply because the message has appealed to their heroic instinct.

There is also a danger of people coming to a decision, and this again is very true of boys, as a result of what is called accepting the challenge of the Christian life. They regard it as a great adventure, as something to which they must aspire, as setting out upon a great crusade.

And then the last danger which I want to emphasize under this heading is the terrible fallacy of presenting the gospel in terms of ‘Christ needs you’ and giving the impression that if a boy does not decide for Christ he is a cad. These are not artificial points that I have made. I am drawing not only on my own experience, but on those things which I have discovered in my reading, and from the problems one meets in the Christian ministry as a result of the use of false methods. There is a measure of truth and value in many of the things I have mentioned, but the point I want to emphasize is that none of these things, good as they may be in themselves, must ever be allowed to take the supreme position. I do not mean by this that you must not sing at all in your meetings. Of course we may sing, but let us not rely too much upon our singing. Let us use these things so far as they are legitimate, but let us always regard them as aids and helps, rather than the actual thing which produces the results.

Well, says someone, all that is negative. How do you suggest the work should be done? I reply again, we simply go back to those five principles to which I have referred, and they can all be summarized in this: we must present the truth; it must be a positive exposition of the teaching of the Word of God. First and foremost we must show men their condition by nature in the sight of God. We must bring them (and I include boys here) to see that apart from what we do, and apart from what we may have done, we are all born the ‘children of wrath’; we are born in a state of condemnation, guilty in the sight of God; we are ‘conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity’ (Ps. 51:5). That is the first thing.

Having done that we must go on to show the enormity of sin. That does not just mean that we show the wrongfulness of certain sins. There is nothing so vital as the distinction between sin and sins. Far too often we spend our time in calling attention to particular sins, whereas our real business is to convict of sin, the thing itself which destroys us, and which shows itself in the form of particular sins. Then we must call upon our hearers to confess and acknowledge their sin in the sight of God and of men. After that we must go on to present the glorious and the wondrous offer of free salvation which is to be found only in Jesus Christ and in Him crucified. We must show that only He can remove the guilt and power of sin; that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, bore ‘our sins in his own body on the tree’ (1 Pet. 2:24), and that it is only as we yield and surrender ourselves entirely to Him that, at one and the same time, we are made right with God, and are enabled to live a life that is well-pleasing in His sight. The only decision which is of the slightest value is that which is based upon the realization of that truth. We may get men to decide as a result of our singing, as a result of the charm of our own personality, but our business is not to get personal followers. Our business is not simply to increase the size of Bible classes or organizations or churches. Our business is to reconcile souls unto God. I repeat that there is no value in a decision unless it is based on an acceptance of the truth.

EDIFICATION

My second subdivision in regard to the presentation of the gospel is the work of edification. This is a big subject and all I can do is simply to throw out certain principles. Nowhere is the danger of a false method more real than in this particular matter of edification, by which I mean teaching concerning sanctification and holiness. The danger is shown very clearly in the New Testament itself. You cannot read the New Testament without realizing at once that the early church bristled with problems and dangers and with incipient heresies. There were people, for instance, who said, ‘Let us continue  in sin that grace may abound.’ There were those who said that as long as you were a Christian it did not matter what you did, that as long as you were right in your beliefs, your body did not matter and you could sin as much as you liked. That is known as antinomianism. There were those who claimed that they were sinless. There were those who went in for ‘knowledge’, who claimed some special esoteric experience of which other, inferior Christians were ignorant. There were those who, the First Epistle to the Corinthians tells us, described themselves as the followers of Christ – some of Paul, others of Apollos, and others of Christ (1 Cor. 1:12) – the select few at the top. And there were those, clearly dealt with in the Epistle to the Colossians and 1 Timothy, who went in for some kind of asceticism forbidding people to marry or to eat meat. If you read the subsequent history of the Christian church you will find the same thing emphasized constantly. Take the monks, for instance, and the hermits, the people who said you could not really be a Christian while you were engaged in any ordinary vocation. And then various movements arose in the Christian church. The people who went in for those things were very earnest and quite honest; they all started by believing true doctrines, but they were subject to the danger of heresy and error, and wandered from the true path.

If I might summarize all these dangers, it is the danger of isolating a text or an idea and building up a system round it, instead of comparing Scripture with Scripture. It is the seeking of a short cut in the spiritual world. People attempt to arrive at sanctification in one move, and thus to forego the process described in the New Testament. The way to avoid that danger is to study the New Testament itself, and especially the Epistles. We must reject anything which is not based soundly upon the teaching of the Epistles. We must be very careful that we do not take an incident out of the Gospels, and weave a theory around it, when the incident which is described has not even the remotest connection with the subject of holiness or sanctification. We must realize that our standard in this particular matter is to be found in the Epistles. If you go to the Epistles I think you will find very clearly set out the principle that our life is not to be based upon some sudden experience, but rather upon certain deductions that we are to draw from the truth which we have believed. May I commend to your special study the word ‘therefore’ in the Epistles? It is a very important word. First of all the writer lays down the doctrine, and then he says, Therefore – in view of that, go on to do this. Our living of the Christian life must be a deduction from our doctrine.

What is the doctrine? Well, it is constantly repeated. The reason why we should live a holy and sanctified life is because of what we claim to believe concerning Christ, because God is holy, and because of the hope that is set before us. In other words, the New Testament does not invite us to live a holy and sanctified life in order that we might enjoy happiness; but it tells us to do so because Christ has offered Himself for us, and because He has shed His blood on Calvary. The New Testament tells us that we have been redeemed from our sins by the precious blood of Christ, and therefore we have no right to live a sinful life. It does not leave a gap between our believing on Christ as our Saviour and our receiving Him as our Lord: the two things are one. Sanctification of life arises directly out of the doctrine of the death of Christ on the cross. It teaches us that we are to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord. That is what we get in every single New Testament Epistle. There is constant exhortation to those early believers to apply, and to put into practice in their lives, the truth which they claim to have believed and accepted.

Let me summarize all that I have been trying to say to you thus. If you want to be able ministers of the gospel, if you want to present the truth in the right and only true way, you must be constant students of the Word of God, you must read it without ceasing. You must read all good books that will assist you to understand it, and the best commentaries you can find on the Bible. You must read what I would call biblical theology, the explanation of the great doctrines of the New Testament, so that you may come to understand them more and more clearly, and may therefore be able to present them with ever increasing clarity to those who come to listen to you. The work of the ministry does not consist merely in giving our own personal experience, or talking about our own lives or the lives of others, but in presenting the truth of God in as simple and clear a manner as possible. And the way to do that is to study the Word and anything and everything which aids us in that supreme task.

You may say to me: Who is sufficient for these things? We have other things to do; we are busy men. How can we do this which you have asked us to do? My reply is that none of us is sufficient for these things, but God can enable us to do them if we are really anxious thus to serve Him. I am not much impressed by these arguments that you are busy men, that you have much to do in the world and therefore have no time to read these books on the Bible and to study theology and for this good reason: that some of the best theologians I have met, some of the most saintly, some of the most learned men, have had to work very much harder than any of you, and at the same time have been denied the advantages that you have enjoyed. ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way.’ If you and I are concerned about lost souls, we must never plead that we have no time to equip ourselves for this great ministry; we must make the time. We must equip ourselves for the task, realizing the serious and terrible responsibility of the work. We must learn, and labour, and sweat, and pray in order that we may know the truth ever more and more perfectly. We must put into practice in our own lives the words to be found in 1 Timothy 4:12-16. God grant us the grace and the power to do so, to the honour and glory of His holy name.

Further Resources on Evangelism and Ministering to Children:

• J. I. Packer on Puritan Evangelism, Part 1 (Podcast Episode)
• A Godly Father’s Counsel to His Children (Podcast Episode)

The post The Presentation of the Gospel – Martyn Lloyd-Jones appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

Nothing is more significant of the great change which has happened in the field of theology during the past twenty years than the place now afforded, and the attention given, to the great man of Geneva who is the subject of this address. Up to almost twenty years ago there was very little attention paid to John Calvin, and when someone spoke of him it was in order to heap insults on him scornfully. He was looked upon as a cruel, masterly, hard person. As for his work, it was said that he was the author of the most oppressive and iron-like theological system that had ever been seen. The main effects of his work in the field of religion, according to this belief, were to place and keep people in a state of spiritual bondage, and in a wider sphere, to open the way for capitalism. It was believed, therefore, that his influence was totally harmful and that he was of no apparent interest to the world apart from being a specimen, if not a monster, in the museum of theology and religion. But that is not the situation today. In fact, there is more mention of him than there has been for almost a century, and Calvin and Calvinism are the subjects of many an argument and debate in theological circles. Perhaps it is the theological revival that is connected with the name of Karl Barth, which chiefly accounts for this, if one looks at things outwardly. But one has to explain Barth and his standpoint also. What sent him back to Calvin? His own answer is that he could not find a satisfactory explanation of life, and especially of the problems of the twentieth century, anywhere else, nor an anchor for his soul and faith in the bitterness of the storm.

Whatever the explanation, the fact is that Calvinist societies have been formed in this country, in the United States and Canada, in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, apart from those that were formed in other countries in Europe before the war. Indeed, an International Calvinistic Congress was held in Edinburgh in 1938, and two similar conferences have been held in America during the war. As well as this, periodicals are published regularly to discuss topics and problems from the standpoint of Calvin’s teaching; and this year the textbook being studied in the theological classes at New College, Edinburgh is Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin. It would please me a great deal if I were able to add that there was a similar movement in Wales. The time is ripe, therefore, for us to cast another glance at this man who has influenced the life of the world to such an extent.

What of the man himself? He was born at Noyon in Picardy in 1509. We know very little of his father and mother, except that his mother was renowned for her godliness. Calvin showed from the beginning that he had exceptional mental capacities. His parents were Roman Catholics, of course, and their natural intention was to prepare their clever son for an eminent career in the Church. His fields of study, therefore, were philosophy, theology, law, and literature. Although he excelled in every field, his favourite sphere was literature, and we see him at twenty-two in Paris as a humanist scholar, his main ambition in life being to earn a name for himself as a writer. He was such an exceptional student that he would often lecture to his fellow students in place of their teachers, and as for his life-style and conduct in those days, he was renowned for his sobriety. Indeed, he was so keen to emphasize the moral note that he won for himself the nickname ‘The Accusative Case’. But as with Luther before him, and John Wesley and many others after him, morality was not enough to quench his thirsty soul. When he was twenty-three years old he experienced an evangelical conversion and the course of his life was altogether changed. Having seen the evangelical truth, and having experienced its power in his soul, he turned his back on the Church of Rome and became a Protestant. We have no time to follow his life story, but we know that he spent almost the whole of the rest of his life in Geneva as a minister of the gospel. He worked there from 1536 until his death in 1564 with the exception of the period from 1538 to 1541 when the Genevan authorities drove him out, and he went into ‘exile’ in Strasburg.

Calvin was a thin man, of average height, with a high forehead and piercing eyes. His health was very fragile throughout his life because he suffered from asthma. It was extremely difficult to persuade him to eat or to sleep. Although he had a masterly spirit, the evidence of those who knew him best suggests that there has never been such a humble and holy man. His chief aim in life was to glorify God, and he devoted himself to doing that completely, without any mercy on his body or on his resources. He liked to think of himself as a Christian writer, and if he had followed his own inclination, he would have confined his work solely to this field; but a friend threatened him with God’s judgment if he did not undertake to preach, and the result was, according to the chief authority on his life, that he preached on average every day, and often twice a day, in Geneva for twenty-five years. Because of the asthma he spoke slowly, and one could not describe him as an eloquent speaker. We must not think of him, either, as a preacher who appealed only to the mind and the intellect. A certain godly tenderness would often break upon the meetings, so that the congregation would be quite overpowered.

The world remembers him not so much as a preacher, but as the author of fifty-nine thick volumes. He wrote thirty commentaries on the books of the Bible, including the whole New Testament except for the Second and Third Epistles of John and the book of Revelation. On top of this Calvin was a constant letter-writer and 4,000 of his letters have been published. He had endless opportunity also in an age so fond of debates to use his incomparable ability as a debater. There was no-one ever like him in the use of the ‘rapier’ and when one adds to this his special gift in logic, we find possibly the greatest ‘controversialist’ which the world has ever seen. When we remember that he was perpetually involved in contentions or consultations with the authorities in Geneva concerning the moral and social state of the city, we are not surprised that he died when he was only fifty-five years old. The mystery is how he managed to accomplish so much in so little time. No-one knows where he is buried, but his main contribution to theological literature, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, stands as a memorial to him. He wrote this when he was about twenty-five years old, and it was first published in Basle in 1536, but Calvin worked on it, adding to it and republishing it all through his life. This is undoubtedly his masterpiece. Indeed, one could say that no book has had such an influence on man and on the history of civilization. It is not too much to say either that it was the Institutes which saved the Protestant Reformation for this was the summa theologica of Protestantism and the clearest declaration which the evangelical faith has ever had. In the Institutes we see Calvin’s place in the Protestant Reformation. He belongs to the second wave of reformers. Luther had virtually finished his work before Calvin began. Luther was the ‘Morning Star’; in God’s hand, he began the movement. Luther is the great hero of Protestants; he is characterized especially by his originality and his audacity, and the dynamic element in his life. Luther was a volcano, spewing out fiery ideas in all directions without much pattern or system. But ideas cannot live and last without a body, and the great need of the Protestant movement in the last days of Luther was for a theologian with the ability to arrange and to express the new faith within a system. That person was Calvin. It can be said, therefore, that it was he who saved Protestantism by giving it a body of theology within his Institutes; and it is from this that the faith and theology of most of the Protestant churches has sprung. This was the backbone of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England and of the Westminster Confession, which regulates the belief of the Presbyterian churches in Scotland, the United States, and every other country. On the Institutes was based the faith of the Puritans, and the history of Switzerland and Holland cannot be explained except in this context.

Just a word about his doctrine. Calvin’s main feature is that he bases everything on the Bible. He does not have a mixture of Aristotle’s philosophy and the Scripture, with the first practically as important as the second, as in the Summa of Thomas Aquinas. The Bible for Calvin is the only authority, and he does not wish for any philosophy apart from that which emanates from the Scripture. It is in the Institutes that one gets biblical theology for the first time, rather than dogmatic theology. Calvin does not reason in an inductive way like the Roman Catholics, but rather he draws conclusions and works out in a deductive way that which is taught in the Bible. Revelation is not an addition to reason and one cannot reason properly outside of revelation.

For him the great central and all-important truth was the sovereignty of God and God’s glory. We must start here and everything else issues from here. It was God, of His own free will and according to His infinite wisdom, who created the world. But sin entered and if it were not for God’s grace, there would be no hope for the world. Man is a fallen creature, with his mind in a state of enmity towards God. He is totally unable to save himself and to reunite himself with God. Everyone would be lost if God had not elected some for salvation, and that unconditionally. It is only through Christ’s death that it is possible for these people to be saved, and they would not see or accept that salvation if God through His irresistible grace in the Holy Spirit had not opened their eyes and persuaded them (not forced them) to accept the offer. Even after that, it is God who sustains them and keeps them from falling. Their salvation, therefore, is sure, because it depends, not on them and their ability, but on God’s grace. The church is a collection of the elect. It is, therefore, free and there is no king over it except the Lord Jesus Christ, and, because of that, it claims complete and perfect spiritual freedom. As for the world outside the church, it would quickly be destroyed by sin if God through common grace did not keep it and set bounds on the effects of sin. The world is still God’s world, and even sin and Satan are, ultimately, under the control of God. Before the foundation of the world, God had His infinite purpose, and this purpose can be seen being worked out gradually, but surely, through the Old Testament, and especially in the life of Israel; but chiefly it is seen in Jesus Christ, what He did while on earth, and what He continues to do through the centuries. Nothing can hinder His purpose, and in the fullness of time the kingdoms of the world will become the property of our Lord and His Christ; and He will reign evermore. In the meantime we must teach men that this world is God’s world, that every gift which man possesses is a gift from God, that men are all one as sinners before God, and that no king, nor any other, has a right to tyrannize his fellow men. We must have order, we must have discipline. Man has a right to freedom, but not to free licence. That is the essence of Calvin’s teaching. He worked it out minutely to cover every aspect of life. During his ministry in Geneva he persuaded the authorities to put these ideas into action, and there was never a town like it. Mark Pattison does not exaggerate when he says: ‘He was the means of concentrating in that narrow corner a moral force which saved the Reformation and indeed Europe. It may be doubted if all history can furnish another instance of such a victory of moral force.’ It is no wonder that far-seeing men today, in a world such as this, turn back to the prophet of Geneva. What apart from the gospel he taught can save the world? And this is the teaching: ‘The Lord reigneth; let the people tremble’ (Ps. 99:1). ‘The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice’ (Ps. 97:1). Soli Deo Gloria.

A Further Note:

The republication by James Clarke in 1949 of Calvin’s foremost work carried the following cover blurb by Dr Lloyd-Jones: The announcement that Messrs James Clarke & Co. are about to issue a new edition of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion is the best news I have heard for some time. That they are able to do so at the remarkably low price of thirty shillings, in these days, is astonishing. Someone may ask why a work like this, which was first issued over four hundred years ago should be reprinted and why anyone should read it. I would suggest the following answers as a minimum. The Institutes are in and of themselves a theological classic. No work has had a greater or a more formative influence on Protestant theology. It is not always realized, however, that in addition to its massive and sublime thought it is written in a style which is most moving, and at times thrilling. Unlike most modern theology, which claims to derive from it, it is deeply devotional. No book repays reading more than this, and especially so in the case of preachers of the Word. It is particularly appropriate that the new edition is appearing now. There has been a new interest in reformed theology during the past thirty years, and the name of Calvin is more frequently quoted than it has been for over half a century. It is in the Institutes that one finds the systematic and formulated statement of his essential position. It is imperative, therefore, that one should read the Institutes in order to understand much of the present-day theological discussion. The most urgent reason why all should read the Institutes, however, is to be found in the times in which we live. In a world which is shaking in its very foundations and which lacks any ultimate authority, nothing is so calculated to strengthen and to stabilize one’s soul as this magnificent exposition and outworking, of the glorious doctrine of the sovereignty of God. It was the ‘iron ration of the soul’ of the Reformation martyrs, of the Pilgrim Fathers, the Covenanters, and many others who have had to face persecution and death for Christ’s sake. Never was it more needed than today. Messrs James Clarke & Co. have placed us all greatly in their debt.

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THE narrative on which we are about to enter has always been regarded by true believers as a unique and most precious portion of the word of God. It is the record of the last moments spent by Jesus with his disciples before his passion. How was the Lord of glory employed? What was the work in which he was engaged during that solemn season? The beloved disciple, who leaned on his Master’s breast, does not indeed narrate all that took place in the upper room, during that ever-memorable night—such, for example, as the institution of the Lord’s Supper—but he does record incidents and utterances not mentioned by the other Evangelists, but of the most intensely interesting, instructive, and encouraging character, as revealing to us the Saviour’s love and tenderness. The narrative as a whole may be said to comprise the three following things: First of all, the wonderful act of Christ washing the disciples’ feet, with the warnings and indications, which he gave them in connection with it, as to the conduct of the traitor (13:2-30); secondly, the tender, consolatory discourse that ensued immediately after the traitor had left the supper-room (13:31-16:33); and then, thirdly, the sublime intercessory prayer just before entering the garden of Gethsemane (17:1-26). And the heading which John places on the forefront of the whole—not of the washing of the disciples’ feet merely, but of this whole section of the Gospel narrative—the inscription which he writes on the doorway that leads you to the devout consideration of it is: ‘Having loved his own that were in the world, he loved them unto the end.’ All that Jesus now does and says, John traces up to love—pure, unmingled love.

I have often regarded this divine sentence: ‘Having loved his own that were in the world, he loved them unto the end’, as one of the most tender and touching in the whole word of God. The statement will appear all the more so, when viewed in the light of the context. For the inspired Evangelist not only specifies the precise date—‘Before the feast of the passover’—but he also mentions a particular fact of a moral nature, of the utmost importance, as giving us an insight into the Saviour’s mind: ‘When Jesus knew’—or Jesus knowing—‘that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father,’ etc. The idea plainly is that just because he knew—not merely although, but just because he knew—that his hour was come that he should leave this world, and that, consequently, his disciples would be left alone in it—as he had always previously loved them, so he now manifested his love in a very peculiar manner, corresponding to their necessities; and this, too, under the most affecting circumstances, and to the utmost extent.

In addressing you, therefore, a little more particularly from these words, I intend to notice, first, the objects, the peculiar objects, of this love, secondly, some of those ways in which Jesus had always previously manifested his love to them; and then, thirdly, the steadfastness and unfailing faithfulness of this love under the most affecting circumstances—as in life so also in death, ‘He loved them unto the end’.

The objects of this love are described, in the first instance, more generally as being ‘his own’. It is true, indeed, that in one sense all things are his own, as being their creator and preserver—all things, from the highest archangel to the meanest insect that crawls upon the ground. But his people are his own in a sense peculiar to themselves—his own in a sense in which others are not; his own, as given him by the Father, as purchased with his precious blood, and as being called by his Spirit; ‘his own,’ as being the members of his mystical body, and therefore standing in a nearer relation to him than angel or archangel. Oh, happy people, whom the Lord of glory regards as his own, his jewels, his peculiar treasure, his crown of rejoicing!

But the objects of this love are described not only as his own, but more particularly as his own that were in the world. Jesus had many of ‘his own’ that were now in glory; and doubtless these were objects of peculiar complacency and delight. Oh! see them in their white robes, as they shine so bright! Listen to their melodious songs! But still the precious truth for us is, that it was his own that were in the world, that he is here said to have loved. And why were they singled out from the rest? Why, but because of the peculiar difficulties and dangers to which they were exposed. Ask that tender-hearted mother which of her many children recurs oftenest to her memory—those of them who are safe at home under the parental roof, or the one that is far away at sea? And she will tell you, with tears in her eyes, that, while she loves them all, it is her sailor-boy who is exposed to so much danger. And just so, only in an unspeakably higher sense, while Jesus loves all his own, he regards with peculiar care, corresponding to their necessities, those of them that are still in the world. It is in this connection, that we see the full meaning of the contrast between his position and theirs. Jesus was now to depart out of the world, but they were to be left in it; and therefore his heart turned in love towards them.

And who can fail to recognise here, the close connection between the words of John and those of Christ himself in the intercessory prayer: ‘And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee’ (17:11). It is clear enough that the inspired Evangelist derives this part of his description from the words of his divine Master.

But without dwelling further on this idea here, is it not a most delightful and encouraging truth that, though Jesus is now in glory, yet he still regards his own that are in the world with peculiar care suited to their circumstances and necessities? Oh! think of this, you that go out and in amongst ungodly companions and that see and hear so many things that may well shock you if you have any spiritual life and tenderness. Jesus loves his own that are in the world still. But methinks, I hear some one say, ‘Alas! I feel that I am in the world, not only because of the sins of others, but because I sin myself; because I have “a body of death” within me, and often it breaks out in word and action’. Yes, indeed, but Jesus loves his own that are in the world still; he sees and knows all the sin and imperfection that you have to contend against, and yet he loves his own notwithstanding. ‘But, oh!’ says some one, ‘my case is of a different kind still: I have come hither today, burdened with a heavy heart’. It may be that it is some dear relative that is sick, and apparently near to death. All this proves that you are still in a world of sorrow. But then Jesus loves his own still and looks down upon them with ever watchful eye. This is the comfort of the Christian’s heart and the balm of his sorrow; and I call upon his own to lay hold of it, to keep to it, and not to let Satan deprive you of it. Jesus loved his own that were in the world, while he was here on earth, and he loves his own that are in the world still, though he is now in heaven.

But I come now, in the second place, to mention some of those ways in which Jesus had always previously manifested his love to them. For the sentence is so constructed and compacted as to imply that the Saviour’s whole previous history had been one of love: ‘Having loved his own that were in the world’—having always and previously loved them.

And here I might take occasion to speak somewhat of the great redeeming love of Christ to his own—those of them that were now in heaven, as well as those who were on earth—in undertaking our cause in the councils of peace; in the delight with which he looked forward, from all eternity, to the accomplishment of his work, ‘rejoicing in the habitable parts of God’s earth, and his delights with the children of men’ (Prov. 8:30, 31); and in his appearing in the fullness of the times to discharge the great engagement (Psa. 40:11). But clearly the inspired Evangelist is speaking here of Christ’s love to his own that were then in the world, as distinct from that part of the one great family that had already gone home to glory; and to this point, therefore, our attention must for the present be confined.

What, then, were some of those ways in which Jesus had specially manifested his love to his own that were then in the world as distinct from those who had already gone home? Indeed, his whole conduct towards them may be briefly summed up in these words: ‘He loved them’. He always loved them; and there was not a single word that he ever spake to them, or a single Jesus Loving His Own that were in the World action that he ever performed towards them, but it emanated from his love to them.

But more particularly here. See, for example, how, having once chosen them in his love, he ever afterwards proved his love by continual companionship with them. He sought no other company than theirs among the sons of men; unless it be that he often went to seek some strayed sheep, to bring it back into the fold. ‘My beloved is mine, and I am his; he feedeth among the lilies.’ See, too, how tenderly, how graciously he instructed them. His instructions were always very simple, because he loved them so well. They were exceedingly dull scholars, like you and me. There is no teacher on earth that would have borne with them as Jesus did; but their Lord and Master’s love remained always the same; his love was stronger than their unbelief and ignorance. See, moreover, how ready  he was to sympathise with them, and to render them every kind of assistance. Whenever they were in trouble, he was their willing and able Friend. When the sea roared and was tempestuous, and he slept, for a while, hard by the helm, they had only to awake him, and he rebuked the winds and the waves, and suddenly there was a great calm. When Peter’s wife’s mother lay sick of a fever, he did but enter the house, and speak the word, and immediately the fever left her. And when one of his dearest friends had passed beyond the ordinary bounds of life, and was not only dead, but had been four days buried, even then did he interpose, and prove that he was ‘the resurrection and the life,’ by crying, ‘Lazarus, come forth.’ Everywhere, and at all times, he was at the call of his disciples, ever ready to help them in every difficulty.

And, oh, with what patience did he bear with them in all their weaknesses and infirmities! On one or two occasions, indeed, certain of them were guilty of great impertinence. It was surely no small trial to the Redeemer’s love, when Peter took him and began to rebuke him. What a sight—Peter rebuking his Master! Ah! surely thy Lord will have done with thee now, thou son of Jonas! But no, though he used a strong expression, to rebuke a temptation which was manifestly Satanic: ‘Get thee behind me, Satan’, yet his love to Peter remained unabated. Even when he rebuked him, he loved him. Oh yes, his love never faltered nor failed. And who can tell in how many ways Jesus loves his own that are in the world still—visiting them with his gracious presence, instructing and guiding them by his word and Spirit, preserving them in his providence, strengthening them by his grace, comforting them with his love, and maturing them for his eternal glory?

But what I wish you specially to notice now is the steadfastness of this love—its unfailing and unflinching faithfulness, as in life so also in death. ‘He loved them unto the end’—not only to the end of life, but to the utmost extent, and under the most affecting circumstances. The meaning plainly is that as he had always previously loved them, so now, on the very verge of Jesus Loving His Own that were in the World his final sufferings, when it might be supposed that he would be wholly taken up with his own awful prospects, he was even then, so far from forgetting them that he scarcely seems ever to think of himself, save in connection with them. Herein is love, not only enduring unto the end, but moreover, most wondrously and conspicuously displayed, when, judging by a human standard, it was least to be expected. Oh, surpassing love of Jesus, with the fire of justice and the furnace of divine wrath, and the sea of his own blood—all, all in vivid array before him—he yet spends the last moments before his final sufferings in words and deeds of love to his disciples!

And if he thus loved them, in the view of the agonies of Gethsemane and the death of Calvary, think you does he now forget them—now that he has passed within the veil? Ah! no, it is impossible. He whose love the many waters of his own suffering could not quench, nor the floods drown (Song of Sol. 8:7), shall never cease to love his own that cling to him. And yet, what a wonderful truth is this, when we look at what we are! When we think of our sins and shortcomings—of our blackness, sinfulness, and vileness—what a wonder that his love is not exhausted! But no, the love of Christ to his own knows no change. It is a golden chain, without a single link amissing. Whom he has once set his heart upon, he will never cease to bless. And though we continually sin against him, and provoke him to jealousy, yet he loves his own still. For has he not said: ‘For the  mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee’ (Isa. 54:10). And again, ‘Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?’ Can such a strange, unnatural thing as this happen? ‘Yea, she may forget’—this strange thing may happen—‘yet will not I forget thee.’ Oh! how can he forget them? ‘Behold, I have graven thee,’ says he—not merely stamped thee, but ‘graven thee upon the palms of my hands: thy walls are continually before me’ (Isa. 49:15, 16).

Oh! do not, therefore, child of God, get into the fainting fit of unbelief. For we have not to deal with a vacillating Saviour, who loves his people today and hates them tomorrow—a Saviour in whom I could have no confidence, and in whose existence I do not believe—but we have to deal with One who ‘is the same yesterday, today, and for ever,’ and who says: ‘I am Jehovah, I change not; therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.’

But I must also add, if Jesus Christ loved his own unto the end, then surely they ought to persevere in their love to him. Sometimes we become greatly warmed up, and we do a great deal very zealously. But, alas! how soon we grow cold again. Let some peculiar trial or cross come, and we soon give way. Surely it ought not to be so. It was not thus the blessed Master dealt with us; he remembered us in the hour of his trial. Oh, that his own love would constrain us to live upon him, and to live unto him!

But I have this also to say in closing, what misery must it be to be without such a Saviour! I scarcely know any words more terrible than these—to be without Christ. And yet I fear that, terrible as they are, they are applicable to some in this congregation. You have no interest in this heavenly friend, this mighty Saviour; your sins are still upon you: they are written down against you in the book of God’s remembrance; and you will soon have to appear in his presence. But yet there is hope; for Jesus is the friend of publicans and sinners. Come to him, ye weary; welcome to him, ye heavy laden. Oh that you would come to him now, and then shall you be able to sing of unchangeable and undying love.

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When the high priest under the law was about to enter the holy place on the day of atonement, he took in his hands sweet incense from the golden table of incense. He also had a censer filled with fire taken from the altar of burnt-offerings, where atonement was made for sin with blood. When he actually entered through the veil, he put the incense on the fire in the censer until the cloud of its smoke covered the ark and the mercy-seat (Lev. 16:12, 13). The reason why he did all this was to present to God, on behalf of the people, a sweet smell from the sacrifice of propitiation.

Corresponding to this mystical type, the great High Priest of the church, our Lord Jesus Christ, prayed when he was about to enter the holy place not made with hands (John 17). His glorious prayer, set alight by the blood of his sacrifice, filled the heavens above, the glorious place of God’s residence, with a cloud of incense, that is, the sweet smell of his blessed intercession. By the same eternal fire by which he offered himself a bloody sacrifice to make atonement for sin, he kindled in his most holy soul those desires, that all the benefits of his sacrifice should be given abundantly to his church.

The greatest desire that Christ expressed in his prayer was that his people might be with him to behold his glory ( John 17:24). It is clear that in this prayer the Lord Christ was referring to his own glory and the actual sight of it (John 17:4, 5). He is not concerned that his disciples should merely see how glorious he was, but that the beholding of his glory might bring encouragement, strength, satisfaction and blessedness to his disciples. This was the whole reason why his mediatory glory was given to him. When Joseph had revealed himself to his brothers, he charged them that they should tell his father of all his ‘glory in Egypt’ (Gen. 45:13). He did not do this to boast of his own glory, but because he knew how happy and satisfied his father would be when he knew in what a glorious position his son was. Similarly, the Lord Christ desired that his disciples should see his glory in order that they might be filled with joy and happiness for evermore.

Only a sight of his glory, and nothing else, will truly satisfy God’s people. The hearts of believers are like a magnetized needle which cannot rest until it is pointing north. So also, a believer, magnetized by the love of Christ, will always be restless until he or she comes to Christ and beholds his glory. The soul which can be satisfied without beholding the glory of Christ, that cannot be eternally satisfied with beholding the glory of Christ, is not a soul for whom Christ prays.

We can now lay down a great foundational truth: one of the greatest privileges the believer has, both in this world and for eternity, is to behold the glory of Christ. So Christ prays that ‘they may behold my glory.’ But this glorious privilege is not to be limited to the heavenly state only. It includes the state of believers in this world as I shall show. Unbelievers see no glory in Christ. They see nothing attractive about him. They despise him in their hearts. Outwardly they cry, like Judas, ‘Hail, Master,’ but in their hearts they crucify him. Thus they strip him of his glory, deny the ‘only Lord that bought us’ and substitute a false Christ. Others think little of Christ and his glory and see no use for his person in Christianity – as though there were anything in our religion which has any truth or reality apart from Christ!

In the early days of the church there were swarms of brain-sick persons who vomited out many foolish ideas culminating at length in Arianism, in whose ruins they now lie buried. The gates of hell in them did not prevail against the rock on which the church is built. As it was said of Caesar, ‘He alone went soberly about the destruction of the commonwealth,’ so many still oppose the person and glory of Christ under the pretence that nothing can be believed except that which reason can understand and accept. Indeed, unbelief in the Trinity, and the incarnation of the Son of God, the sole foundation of Christianity, is so spread about in the world, that it has almost demolished the life and power of true Christianity. And not a few who dare not let people know what they really believe lead people to think they love Jesus, when all the time they scorn, despise  and persecute those who truly desire to know nothing but Christ and him crucified.

But God, in his appointed time, will vindicate his honour and glory from the foolish attempts of sinful men who attempt to strip him of both. Meanwhile, it is the duty of all those who ‘love the Lord Jesus in sincerity’ to testify to his divine person and glory according to the ability God has given to each of us, and this I have chosen to do, not in a controversial way, but in order to strengthen the faith of true believers, to build them up in the knowledge of Christ and his glory and to help them experience that which they have, or may have, of the power and reality of these things.

That which I intend to show is, that beholding the glory of Christ is one of the greatest privileges that believers are capable of in this world, or even in that which is to come. Indeed, it is by beholding the glory of Christ that believers are first gradually transformed into his image, and then brought into the eternal enjoyment of it, because they shall be ‘for ever like him,’ for they ‘shall see him as he is’ (2 Cor. 3:18; 1 John 3:1, 2).

On this depend our present comforts and future blessedness. This is the life and reward of our souls (John 14:9; 2 Cor. 4:6). Scripture shows us two ways by which we may behold the glory of Christ. We may behold it by faith in this world, faith being ‘the evidence of things not seen,’ and we may behold it by sight in the next (2 Cor. 5:7, 8; 1 Cor. 13:12). When Christ prayed ‘that they may behold my glory,’ he meant by actual sight in the light of eternal glory. But the Lord Jesus does not exclude that sight of his glory which we may have by faith in this world; rather he prays for the perfection of it in heaven. So we can learn the following lessons:

No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight in heaven who does not, in some measure, behold it by faith in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory and faith for sight. The soul unprepared by grace and faith is not capable of seeing the glory of Christ in heaven. Many will say with confidence that they desire to be with Christ and to behold his glory. But when asked, they can give no reason for this desire, except that it would be better than going to hell. If a man claims to love and desire that which he never even saw, he is deceiving himself.

In this way Roman Catholics are deceived. They delight outwardly in images of Christ depicting his sufferings, resurrection and glory. By these images they think their love for him and delight in him grows more and more strong. But no man-made image can truly represent the person of Christ and his glory. Only the gospel can do that.

John writes not only of himself but of his fellow apostles also, ‘We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14). Now what was this glory of Christ which they saw, and how did they see it?

It was not the glory of Christ’s outward condition for he had no earthly glory or grandeur. He kept no court, nor did he entertain people to parties in a great house. He had nowhere to lay his head, even though he created all things. There was nothing about his outward appearance that would attract the eyes of the world (Isa. 52:14; 53:2, 3). He appeared to others as a ‘man of sorrows.’

Neither was it the eternal essential glory of his divine nature that is meant, for this no man can see while in this world. What we shall see in heaven we cannot conceive.

What the apostles witnessed was the glory of ‘grace and truth.’ They saw the glory of Christ’s person and office in the administration of grace and truth. And how did they see this glory? It was by faith and in no other way, for this privilege was given only to those who ‘received him’ and believed on his name (John 1:12). This was the glory which the Baptist saw when he pointed to Christ and said, ‘Behold! the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’ (John 1:29).

So, let no one deceive himself. He that has no sight of Christ’s glory here shall never see it hereafter. The beholding of Christ in glory is too high, glorious and marvellous for us in our present condition. The splendour of Christ’s glory is too much for our physical eyes just as is the sun shining in all its strength. So while we are here on earth we can behold his glory only by faith.

Many learned men have written of this future state of eternal glory. Some of their writings are filled with excellent things which cannot but stir the minds and hearts of all who read them. But many complain that such writings do nothing for them. They are like a man who ‘beholds his natural face in a mirror, and immediately forgets what he saw’ (James 1:23, 24). These writings make no fixed impression on their minds. They briefly refresh, like a shower of rain in a drought, which does not soak down to the roots. But why do these writings make no impression on them? Is it not because their idea of future things has not arisen out of an experience of them which faith alone gives?

In fact, a soul will be troubled rather than edified when it thinks of future glory, if it has had no foretaste, sense, experience or evidence of these things by faith. No man ought to look for anything in heaven if he has not by faith first had some experience of it in this life. If men were convinced of this, they would spend more time in the exercise of faith and love about heavenly things than they usually do. At present they do not know what they enjoy, so they do not know what to expect. This is why men who are complete strangers to seeing the person and glory of Christ by faith have turned to images, pictures and music to help them in their worship.

So it is only as we behold the glory of Christ by faith here in this world that our hearts will be drawn more and more to Christ and to the full enjoyment of the sight of his glory hereafter.

It is by beholding the glory of Christ by faith that we are spiritually edified and built up in this world, for as we behold his glory, the life and power of faith grow stronger and stronger. It is by faith that we grow to love Christ. So if we desire strong faith and powerful love, which give us rest, peace and satisfaction, we must seek them by diligently beholding the glory of Christ by faith. In this duty I desire to live and to die. On Christ’s glory I would fix all my thoughts and desires, and the more I see of the glory of Christ, the more the painted beauties of this world will wither in my eyes and I will be more and more crucified to this world. It will become to me like something dead and putrid, impossible for me to enjoy.

For these and other reasons, I shall first ask how we behold the glory of Christ by faith. Then I will try and lead believers into the more retired walks of faith, love and holy meditation, showing them how to behold the glory of Christ by faith. To encourage such study, consider the blessings it will bring us: the rewards of this glorious duty.

By beholding the glory of Christ we shall be made fit and ready for heaven. Not all who desire to go to heaven are fit and ready for it. Some are not only unworthy of it and excluded from it because of unforgiven sin; they are not prepared for it. Should they be admitted, they would never enjoy it. All of us naturally regard ourselves as fit for eternal glory. But few of us have any idea of how unfit we really are, because we have had no experience of that glory of Christ which is in heaven. Men shall not be clothed with glory, as it were, whether they want to be or not. It is to be received only by faith. But fallen man is incapable of believing. Music cannot please a deaf man, nor can beautiful colours impress a blind man. A fish would not thank you for taking it out of the sea and putting it on dry land under the blazing sun! Neither would an unregenerate sinner welcome the thought of living for ever in the blazing glory of Christ.

So Paul gives ‘thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light’ (Col. 1:12). Indeed, the first touches of glory here, and the fullness of glory hereafter, are communicated to believers by an almighty act of the will and the grace of God. Nevertheless, he has ordained ways and means by which they may be made fit to receive that fullness of glory which still awaits them, and this way and means is by beholding the glory of Christ by faith, as we shall see. Knowing this should stir us up to our duty, for all our present glory lies in preparing for future glory.

By beholding the glory of Christ we shall be transformed ‘into the same image’ (2 Cor. 3:18). How this is done and how we become like Christ by beholding his glory, will become clear as our study progresses.

By beholding the glory of Christ by faith we shall find rest to our souls. Our minds are apt to be filled with troubles, fears, cares, dangers, distresses, ungoverned passions and lusts. By these our thoughts are filled with chaos, darkness and confusion. But where the soul is fixed on the glory of Christ then the mind finds rest and peace for ‘to be spiritually minded is peace’ (Rom. 8:6).

By beholding the glory of Christ we shall begin to experience what it means to be everlastingly blessed. ‘We shall always be with the Lord’ (1 Thess. 4:17). We shall ‘be with Christ,’ which is best of all (Phil. 1:23). For there we shall ‘behold his glory’ (John 17:24). And by seeing him as he is, ‘we shall be made like him’ (1 John 3:2). This is our everlasting blessedness.

The enjoyment of God by sight is commonly called the ‘Beatific Vision,’ and it is the only motive for everything we do in that state of blessedness. What the sight of God is and how we will react to it, we cannot imagine. Nevertheless we do know this, that God in his immense essence is invisible to our physical eyes and will be in eternity just as he will always be incomprehensible to our minds. So the sight which we shall have of God will be always ‘in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor. 4:6). In Christ’s face we shall see the glory of God in his infinite perfections. These things will shine into our souls filling us for ever with peace, rest and glory.

We can rejoice in these things even though we cannot understand them. We can talk of them but never fully comprehend them. In fact, true believers experience a foresight and foretaste of this glorious condition. Sometimes, when reading and meditating on the Bible our hearts are filled with such a sense of the uncreated glory of God shining through Jesus Christ that we experience unspeakable joy. So arises that ‘peace of God which passes all understanding,’ which keeps ‘our hearts and minds through Jesus Christ’ (Phil. 4:7). ‘Christ’ in believers ‘the hope of glory’ (Col. 1:27) gives them a foretaste of that future glory. And where any have no acquaintance with these things, they are blind and dead to spiritual things. It is because believers are lazy and ignorant that we do not experience more and more in our souls the visits of grace and the dawnings of eternal glory.

In the following chapters we will consider the following questions: What is that glory of Christ which we can behold by faith? How do we behold the glory of Christ by faith? And how is our beholding Christ by faith different from our actually seeing his glory in heaven?

Featured Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

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17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. 18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be  sanctified through the truth. 20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; 21 That they all may be one: as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23 I in them, and thou in me, that they
may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. 24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am: that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. 26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. (John 17:17–26).

THESE wonderful verses form a fitting conclusion of the most wonderful prayer that was ever prayed on earth,—the last Lord’s prayer after the first Lord’s supper. They contain three most important petitions which our Lord offered up in behalf of his disciples. On these three petitions let us fix our attention. Passing by all other things in the passage, let us look steadily at these three points. We should mark, first, how Jesus prays that his people may be sanctified. ‘Sanctify them,’ he says, ‘through thy truth: thy word is truth.’ We need not doubt that, in this place at any rate, the word ‘sanctify’ means ‘make holy.’ It is a prayer that the Father would make his people more holy, more spiritual, more pure, more saintly in thought and word and deed, in life and character. Grace had done something for the disciples already,—called, converted, renewed, and changed them. The great Head of the church prays that the work of grace may be carried higher and further, and that his people may be more thoroughly sanctified and made holy in body, soul, and spirit,—in fact more like himself. Surely we need not say much to show the matchless wisdom of this prayer. More holiness is the very thing to be desired for all servants of Christ. Holy living is the great proof of the reality of Christianity. Men may refuse to see the truth of our arguments, but they cannot evade the evidence of a godly life. Such a life adorns religion and makes it beautiful, and sometimes wins those who are not ‘won by the Word.’ Holy living trains Christians for heaven. The nearer we live to God while we live, the more ready shall we be to dwell for ever in his presence when we die. Our entrance into heaven will be entirely by grace, and not of works; but heaven itself would be no heaven to us if we entered it with an unsanctified character. Our hearts must be in tune for heaven if we are to enjoy it. There must be a moral ‘meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light,’ as well as a title. Christ’s blood alone can give us a title to enter the inheritance. Sanctification must give us a capacity to enjoy it. Who, in the face of such facts as these, need wonder that increased sanctification should be the first thing that Jesus asks for his people? Who that is really taught of God can fail to know that holiness is happiness, and that those who walk with God most closely, are always those who walk with him most comfortably? Let no man deceive us with vain words in this matter. He who despises holiness, and neglects good works, under the vain pretence of giving honour to justification by faith, shows plainly that he has not the mind of Christ.

We should mark, secondly, in these verses, how Jesus prays for the unity and oneness of his people. ‘That they all may be one,—that they may be one in us,—that they may be one even as we are one,’—and ‘that so the world may believe and know that thou hast sent me,’— this is a leading petition in our Lord’s prayer to his Father. We can ask no stronger proof of the value of unity among Christians, and the sinfulness of division, than the great prominence which our Master assigns to the subject in this passage. How painfully true it is that in every age divisions have been the scandal of religion, and the weakness of the church of Christ! How often Christians have wasted their strength in contending against their brethren, instead of contending against sin and the devil! How repeatedly they have given occasion to the world to say, ‘When you have settled your own internal differences we will believe!’ All this, we need not doubt, the Lord Jesus foresaw with prophetic eye. It was the foresight of it which made him pray so earnestly that believers might be ‘one.’ Let the recollection of this part of Christ’s prayer abide in our minds, and exercise a constant influence on our behaviour as Christians. Let no man think lightly, as some men seem to do, of schism, or count it a small thing to multiply sects, parties, and denominations. These very things, we may depend, only help the devil and damage the cause of Christ. ‘If it be possible, as much as lieth in us, let us live peaceably with all men’ (Rom. 12:18). Let us bear much, concede much, and put up with much, before we plunge into secessions and separations. They are movements in which there is often much false fire. Let rabid zealots who delight in sect-making and party-forming, rail at us and denounce us if they please. We need not mind them. So long as we have Christ and a good conscience, let us patiently hold on our way, follow the things that make for peace, and strive to promote unity. It was not for nothing that our Lord prayed so fervently that his people might be ‘one.’

We should mark, finally, in these verses, how Jesus prays that his people may at last be with him and behold his glory. ‘I will,’ he says, ‘that those whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am: that they may behold my glory.’ This is a singularly beautiful and touching conclusion to our Lord’s remarkable prayer. We may well believe that it was meant to cheer and comfort those who heard it, and to strengthen them for the parting scene which was fast drawing near. But for all who read it even now, this part of his prayer is full of sweet and unspeakable comfort. We do not see Christ now. We read of him, hear of him, believe in him, and rest our souls in his finished work. But even the best of us, at our best, walk by faith and not by sight, and our poor halting faith often makes us walk very feebly in the way to heaven. There shall be an end of all this state of things one day. We shall at length see Christ as he is, and know as we have been known. We shall behold him face to face, and not through a glass darkly. We shall actually be in his presence and company, and go out no more. If faith has been pleasant, much more will sight be; and if hope has been sweet, much more will certainty be. No wonder that when St Paul has written, ‘We shall ever be with the Lord,’ he adds, ‘Comfort one another with these words’ (1 Thess. 4:17, 18). We know little of heaven now. Our thoughts are all confounded, when we try to form an idea of a future state in which pardoned sinners shall be perfectly happy. ‘It does not yet appear what we shall be’ (1 John 3:2). But we may rest ourselves on the blessed thought, that after death we shall be ‘with Christ.’ Whether before the resurrection in paradise, or after the resurrection in final glory, the prospect is still the same. True Christians shall be ‘with Christ.’ We need no more information. Where that blessed person is who was born for us, died for us, and rose again, there can be no lack of anything. David might well say, ‘In thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore’ (Psa. 16:11). Let us leave this wonderful prayer with a solemn recollection of the three great petitions which it contains. Let holiness and unity by the way, and Christ’s company in the end, be subjects never long out of our thoughts or distant from our minds. Happy is that Christian who cares for nothing so much as to be holy and loving like his Master, while he lives, and a companion of his Master when he dies.

Ryle’s Notes on John 17:24

24.—[Father, I will … my glory … given me.] In this verse our Lord names the fourth and last thing which he desires for his disciples in his prayer. After preservation, sanctification, and unity, comes participation of his glory. He asks that they may be ‘with him’ in the glory yet to be revealed, and ‘behold,’ share, and take part in it. ‘I will’ is a remarkable phrase, though it must not be pressed and strained too far (see Mark 10:35). The daughter of Herodias asking the head of John the Baptist, said, ‘I will that thou give me’ (Mark 6:25). It may be nothing more than the expression of a strong ‘wish.’ Yet it is the wish of him who is one with the Father, and only wills what the Father wills. It is probably used to assure the mind of the disciples. ‘I will,’ and it will be done. Hutcheson says, ‘I will,’ doth not import any imperious commanding way, repugnant to his former way of humble supplication; but it only imports that in this his supplication, he was making his last will and testament, and leaving his legacies, which he was sure would be effectual, being purchased by his merits, and prosecuted by his affectionate and earnest requests and intercessions.’

Traill remarks, ‘Christians, behold the amazing difference betwixt Christ’s way of praying against his own hell (if I may so call it) and his praying for our heaven! When praying for himself, it is, “Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me.” But when Christ is praying for his people’s heaven, it is “Father, I will that they may be with me.”’

Stier maintains that ‘I will’ ‘is no other than a testamentary word of the Son, who in the unity of the Father, is appointing what he wills, at that second limit of the prayer where petition ceases.’ Alford says ‘this is an expression of will founded on acknowledged right.’ The expression, ‘be with me where I am,’ is one of those deeply interesting phrases which show the nature of the future dwelling place of believers. Wherever it may be, whether before or after the resurrection, it will be in the company of Christ. It is like ‘with me in paradise,’ ‘depart and be with Christ,’ and ‘for ever with the Lord’ (Luke 23:43; Phil. 1:23; 1 Thess. 4:17). The full nature of the future state is wisely hidden from us. It is enough for believers to know that they will be ‘with Christ.’ It is company, and not place, which makes up happiness. Traill remarks, ‘Heaven consists in the perfect immediate presence of Christ. Perfect presence is, when all on both sides is present: all of Christ, and all of the Christian. But now all of Christ is not with us, and all of us is not with him. On his part we have Christ’s Spirit, word, and grace. On our part there is present with him our hearts, and the workings of our faith and love and desire towards him. But this presence is imperfect, and mixed with much distance and absence.’ The expression, ‘behold my glory,’ of course must not be confined to the idea of ‘looking on as spectators.’ It includes participation, sharing, and common enjoyment (compare John 3:3, 36; 8:51; Rev. 18:7). The expression, ‘which thou hast given me,’ seems to point to that special glory which the Father, in everlasting covenant, has appointed for Christ as the reward of the work of redemption (Phil. 2:9).

[For thou lovedst me … foundation … world.] This sentence seems specially inserted in order to show that the glory of Christ in the next world is a glory which had been prepared from all eternity, before time began, and before the creation of man, and that it was not only something which, like Moses or John the Baptist, he had obtained by his faithfulness on earth; but something which he had, as the eternal Son of the eternal Father, from everlasting. ‘Thou lovedst me, and didst assign me this glory long before this world was made,’ that is, from all eternity. This is a very deep saying, and contains things far above our full comprehension.

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‘What a world of new sensations and emotions come with the first child!’

EVER SINCE she was a little girl Elizabeth loved babies. Looking back, her friend Carrie noted that one of Elizabeth’s most striking traits as a teenager was ‘a perfect passion for babies’. She ‘revelled in tending, kissing and playing with them’. She was overjoyed when her first child, Annie, was born in December 1846, a year and a half after her marriage to George. Like many new mothers, she lay awake at nights just to watch and marvel at her beautiful daughter. She wrote to a friend:

What a world of new sensations and emotions come with the first child! I was quite unprepared for the rush of strange feelings … I dare say the idea of Lizzy Payson with a baby seems quite funny to you, as it does to many of the Portland girls, but I assure you it doesn’t seem in the least funny to me, but as natural as life and … as wonderful, almost. She is a nice little plump creature, with a fine head of dark hair which I take some comfort in brushing round a quill to make it curl, and a pair of intelligent eyes, either black or blue, nobody knows which. I find the care of her very wearing, and have cried ever so many times from fatigue and anxiety, but now I am getting a little better and she pays me for all I do. She is a sweet, good little thing, her chief fault being a tendency to dissipation and sitting up late o’nights. The ladies of our church have made her a beautiful little wardrobe, fortunately for me.¹

Since Elizabeth was quite a distance from her own mother, several of the older women in the church took a motherly interest in her, making sure she had every thing she needed and visiting often with little treats for her as well as gifts for the baby. Sadly, Annie’s arrival was overshadowed by the critical illness of George’s older sister Abby. Only thirty-two years old, she had been ill for some time with tuberculosis. She was near to death when Annie was born and Elizabeth was unable to travel up to Portland to say her final farewell. George was called up to his old home in January. He wrote to Elizabeth:

I found dear Abby still alive, and [she] rejoiced beyond expression to see me. She had had a very feeble night, but brightened up towards noon, and when I arrived seemed entirely like her old self, smiling sweetly and exclaiming ‘This is the last blessing I desired! Oh, how good the Lord is, isn’t He?’ It was very delightful… Mother is wonderfully calm and happy, and the house seems like the very gate of heaven … I so wish you could have seen Abby’s smile when I entered her room. And then she enquired so affectionately for you and baby. ‘Now tell me everything about them.’ She longs and prays to be gone. There is something perfectly childlike about her expressions and feelings, especially towards mother. She can’t bear to have her leave the room and holds her hand a good deal of the time. She sends ever so much love.²

Abby died on 30 January 1847, nearly two months after Annie was born. Elizabeth had loved Abby dearly, and grieved much for her loss, but she also felt deeply for her husband, his other sister Anna, and the other members of the family. She wrote to Anna expressing her feeling that Abby’s loss had taken away her own youth and that she could never again be so light-hearted and carefree as before. For a time she dreamed about Abby every night. On 11 April 1847 George noted that he ‘Baptized Anna Louisa, who behaved sweetly. It was a great joy to Elizabeth and myself, thus publicly to dedicate her to the Lord.’ In the autumn, George made an extended visit to Maine to preach as well as to see family. Elizabeth sorely missed him and wrote (at length!) daily:

Friday, September 3, 1847. Yesterday forenoon I was perfectly wretched. It came over me, as things will in spite of us, ‘Suppose he didn’t get safely to Brunswick!’ and for several hours I could not shake it off. It had all the power of reality, and made me so faint that I could do nothing , and fairly had to go to bed. I suppose it was very silly, and if I had not tried in every way to rise above it might have been even wicked, but it frightened me to find how much I am under the power of mere feeling and fancy. But do not laugh at me. Sometimes I say to my self, ‘What madness to love any human being so intensely! What would become of you if he were snatched from you?’ and then I think that though God justly denies us comfort and support for the future, and bids us lean upon Him now and trust Him for the rest, He can give us strength for the endurance of His most terrible chastisements when their hour comes.³

Twenty-one months after the birth of Annie, Elizabeth gave birth to a little boy whom she named Edward Payson after her late father. This second pregnancy had been overshadowed by the critical illness of her mother. Mrs Payson spent the final months of her life in Williamstown, being cared for by her older daughter Louisa. She suffered greatly, and Elizabeth fretted constantly. She feared that her mother’s real condition was being concealed from her – which it was. Mrs Payson went downhill rapidly just at the time that Elizabeth gave birth to Eddy in October 1848. Within three weeks of the birth, Mrs Payson died, and Elizabeth was distraught that she had been unable to go and say goodbye . The shock of her mother’s death contributed, she believed, to her own incapacity to nurse her baby satisfactorily, and his subsequent weakness. She felt strongly that it had been wrong to deceive her as to her mother’s true condition. In future she always advocated honesty in such situations. Elizabeth now dreamed about both her mother and sister-in-law Abby every night. Her mind was also filled with worries for her brothers. In 1848 gold was discovered on the banks of the Sacramento river in California, and there followed a mass migration of men from the northern states hoping to make their fortune in the west. Among them were three of Elizabeth’s four brothers. Life was rough and hard, but for some the rewards were great. Elizabeth fretted about the conditions they worked in, the rough company they kept, and all the temptations of these primitive mining communities. It just made her flesh crawl, she wrote, to think of them involved in such gruelling physical labour all day. All this stress was compounded by her baby boy’s chronic colic. It seemed that he screamed incessantly for months. His exhausted parents tried everything they could think of but usually resorted to walking up and down with the infant. Elizabeth recalled years later: ‘Your sister’s allusion to Watts and Select Hymns reminds me of ages long past, when I used to sing the whole book through as I marched, night after night through my room, carrying a colicky baby up and down for fifteen months until I became a living skeleton.’

Such few hours of relief as they enjoyed were only achieved by giving Eddy laudanum (opium, commonly used at that time for pain relief). These trying months sapped what little strength Elizabeth had, her weight dropping to less than seven stone (45 kg). Her sleep patterns were permanently broken and she suffered from insomnia for the rest of her life. She found the demands of day and night exhausting. No longer could she maintain her routine devotional times. In a letter to Anna she wrote: ‘By far the greatest trial I have to contend with, is that of losing all power to control my time. A little room of my own, and a regular hour morning and night, all of my own would enable me, I think, to say ‘Now let life do it’s worst!’ Lamenting the poverty of her spiritual state she began to miss those rich devotional hours of her time in Richmond. George tried to comfort her, telling her that the Richmond years had been the time for contemplation: this season of her life was for action. God would not demand of her a consistency in prayer that was simply impractical. But despite her husband’s best efforts Elizabeth still felt miserable. Throughout her life Elizabeth felt a desolation of spirit if she could not enjoy communion with God. Space and time for reflection and prayer was necessary she believed if she was to have such closeness with her Lord. When illness or sleeplessness interrupted her routine, she seemed to suffer what can only be described as physical withdrawal symptoms. When Eddy was eight months old he was still hardly sleeping, and the doctor ordered that Elizabeth be allowed to get away from home for a while. Unless she could get some rest, he feared for her life. She agreed to go away for a week, but ended up staying away for a month. Eddy was left in the care of relatives, neighbours, and a nurse. (At that time, middle class families often employed a ‘nurse’ , if they could afford to, to care for young children. These women were not trained nurses as we think of them today. They were unqualified, and varied enormously in their commitment and efficiency. We would probably refer to them as ‘nursemaids’). One of the weeks away was spent with Anna and her family at Newburyport, with George and Annie joining them. Seargent, George’s brother, came up from his home in the south with his wife Mary, and their four children⁴. Mrs Prentiss, George’s mother, was also there, making it a most enjoyable family reunion. But when Elizabeth, somewhat stronger, returned home, Eddy was no better. She realized that he was seriously unwell, and at this point she gave him over to God. When he rallied and regained strength, she felt as if another child had been restored to her – not her own child, but God’s. From that time on every day was precious. Each morning, Elizabeth thanked God that Eddy was still alive. She kept a journal of all he did, and as he began to talk, all he said as well. She sensed that she would not have him much longer, and would need tangible reminders of his brief life. Eddy was a delightful toddler. Once he was walking, it seemed as if he was everywhere all at once, quick as lightning in his movements and full of enthusiasm. ‘It is worth a good deal to see his face’, wrote his mother proudly; ‘it is so brimful of life and sunshine and gladness.’ Even though the family employed a nurse to look after the children, Elizabeth did not really get much stronger. Her hands reminded her of claws, they looked so scrawny. On average, three days of every week was spent prostrated with a sick headache. In such a condition she could not eat and began to worry about how the household was going to pieces around her. She also fretted about the family finances, as her ill health meant that more was being spent on ‘help’ than they could afford. However, even in these depressing circumstances she did not lose sight of God’s plan for her life. Writing to George she confessed:

I can truly say that I have not spent a happier winter since our marriage, in spite of all my sickness. It seems to me I can never recover my spirits and be as I have been in my best days, but what I lose in one way perhaps I shall gain in another. Just think how my ambition has been crushed at every point by my ill-health, and even the ambition to be useful and a comfort to those about me is trampled underfoot, to teach me what I could not have learned in any other school!⁵

Editor’s Note: we pick up the narrative in 1851, when the family had relocated to New York…

During their first autumn in New York, Elizabeth was overjoyed to see her three brothers, returned from their prospecting for gold in California. The Prentiss home was large enough for several visitors. George and Elizabeth also regularly took the children over to Newark to visit George’s mother. By December, Eddy’s health was giving cause for concern and Elizabeth was consumed with anxiety about her son. He grew weaker and weaker. By January he had succumbed to what seems to have been meningitis. He did not sleep at all for the last week of his life. This was a terrible time for all the family. They all knew what was coming. Even Annie tried to comfort her little brother in the face of death. When he said ‘I don’t want to die’, his mother replied, ‘Why? You know it is a great deal pleasanter in heaven than it is here … Little boys don’t have the headache there. I should love dearly to go if God said I might.’ ‘Yes’, Annie joined in, ‘Don’t you know how we used to sing about the happy land?’ Eddy kept asking for Annie, but his sister got so distressed that they didn’t always let her see him. There are harrowing day-by-day descriptions of Eddy’s last days in Elizabeth’s book, How Sorrow Was Changed into Sympathy.⁶ His suffering was exacerbated by the treatments prescribed by the doctors, including the application of painful mustard plasters. Part of Elizabeth’s journal reads: On Sunday morning, January 4, not being able to come himself, Dr Buck sent Dr Watson in his place. I told Dr W that I thought Eddy had water on the brain; he said it was not so, and ordered nothing but a warm bath. On Thursday, January 8, while Margaret [the nursemaid] was at dinner, I knelt by the side of the cradle, rocking it very gently, and he asked me to tell him a story. I asked what about, and he said, ‘A little boy’, on which I said something like this: ‘Mamma knows a dear little boy who was very sick. His head ached and he felt sick all over. God said, I must let that little lamb come into my fold; then his head will never ache again, and he will be a very happy little lamb.’ I used the words little lamb because he was so fond of them. Often he would run to his nurse with his face full of animation and say, ‘Marget! Mamma says I am her little lamb!’ While I was telling him this story his eyes were fixed intelligently on my face. I then said, ‘Would you like to know the name of this boy?’ With eagerness he said, ‘Yes, yes, Mamma!’ Taking his dear little hand in mine, and kissing it, I said, ‘It was Eddy.’ Just then his nurse came in and his attention was diverted, so I said no more. On Friday, January 16, his little weary sighs became more profound, and, as the day advanced, more like groans; but appeared to indicate extreme fatigue, rather than severe pain. Towards night his breathing became quick and laborious, and between seven and eight slight spasms agitated his little feeble frame. He uttered cries of distress for a few minutes, when they ceased, and his loving and gentle spirit ascended to that world where thousands of holy children and the blessed company of angels and our blessed Lord Jesus, I doubt not, joyfully welcomed him. Now we were able to say, ‘It is well with the child!’⁷ The funeral was held the following Monday, and Dr Skinner led the service. The choir sang ‘Thy will be done’, which Elizabeth said was ‘like cold water to thirsty souls.’⁸ She was submissive, writing the well-known words in her journal: “‘Oh”, said the gardener, as he passed down the garden-walk, “who plucked that flower?” His fellow-servants answered, “The Master!” And the gardener held his peace.’ She was also grateful for the support which friends and family had given. Her young cousin Louisa Shipman had been there for her throughout, and Mrs Bull moved in during the final week or so to provide nursing care at night. She later said ‘I used to think I could never endure to lose a child, but you see how it is. God does carry us through whatever he pleases.’⁹

Sharon James’ biography Elizabeth Prentiss: More Love to Thee is available this week at 20% off.

The featured photo, by Kyle Bradbury on Unsplash, was taken in New Bedford, Massachussetts, where George Prentiss was pastor of South Trinitarian Church from 1845.

The post ‘God Never Makes a Mistake’: The Experience of Elizabeth Prentiss appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

WE may as well confess at the outset that there is no such thing as a modern theory of the Atonement, in the sense in which there is a modern theory, say, of the Incarnation – the kenosis theory to wit, which is a brand-new conception, never dreamed of until the nineteenth century was well on its course, and likely, we may hope, to pass out of notice with that century. All the theories of the Atonement now current readily arrange themselves under the old categories, and have their prototypes running back more or less remotely into the depths of Church history.

The fact is, the views men take of the atonement are largely determined by their fundamental feelings of need – by what men most long to be saved from. And from the beginning three well-marked types of thought on this subject have been traceable, corresponding to three fundamental needs of human nature as it unfolds itself in this world of limitation. Men are oppressed by the ignorance, or by the misery, or by the sin in which they feel themselves sunk; and, looking to Christ to deliver them from the evil under which they particularly labor, they are apt to conceive His work as consisting predominantly in revelation of divine knowledge, or in the inauguration of a reign of happiness, or in deliverance from the curse of sin.

In the early Church, the intellectualistic tendency allied itself with the class of phenomena which we call Gnosticism. The longing for peace and happiness that was the natural result of the crying social evils of the time, found its most remarkable expression in what we know as Chiliasm. That no such party-name suggests itself to describe the manifestation given to the longing to be delivered from the curse of sin, does not mean that this longing was less prominent or less poignant: but precisely the contrary. The other views were sloughed off as heresies, and each received its appropriate designation as such: this was the fundamental point of sight of the Church itself, and as such found expression in numberless ways, some of which, no doubt, were sufficiently bizarre – as, for example, the somewhat widespread representation of the atonement as centering in the surrender of Jesus as a ransom to Satan.

Our modern Church, you will not need me to tell you, is very much like the early Church in all this. All three of these tendencies find as full representation in present-day thought as in any age of the Church’s life. Perhaps at no other period was Christ so frequently or so passionately set forth as merely a social Saviour. Certainly at no other period has His work been so prevalently summed up in mere revelation. While now, as ever, the hope of Christians at large continues to be set upon Him specifically as the Redeemer from sin.

The forms in which these fundamental types of thinking are clothed in our modern days, differ, as a matter of course, greatly from those they assumed in the first age. This difference is largely the result of the history of thought through the intervening centuries. The assimilation of the doctrines of revelation by the Church was a gradual process; and it was also an orderly process – the several doctrines emerging in the Christian consciousness for formal discussion and scientific statement in a natural sequence. In this process the doctrine of the atonement did not come up for formulation until the eleventh century, when Anselm gave it its first really fruitful treatment, and laid down for all time the general lines on which the atonement must be conceived, if it is thought of as a work of deliverance from the penalty of sin. The influence of Anselm’s discussion is not only traceable, but has been determining in all subsequent thought down to to-day. The doctrine of satisfaction set forth by him has not been permitted, however, to make its way unopposed. Its extreme opposite –the general conception that the atoning work of Christ finds its essence in revelation and had its prime effect, therefore, in deliverance from error–was advocated in Anselm’s own day by perhaps the acutest reasoner of all the schoolmen, Peter Abelard. The intermediate view which was apparently invented five centuries later by the great Dutch jurist, Hugo Grotius, loves to think of itself as running back, in germ at least, to nearly as early a date. In the thousand years of conflict which has raged among these generic conceptions each has taken on protean shapes, and a multitude of mixed or mediating hypotheses have been constructed. But, broadly speaking, the theories that have divided the suffrages of men easily take places under one or other of these three types.

There is a fourth general conception, to be sure, which would need to be brought into view were we studying exhaustive enumeration. This is the mystical idea which looks upon the work of Christ as summed up in the incarnation; and upon the saving process as consisting in an unobserved leavening of mankind by the inworking of a vital germ then planted in the mass. But though there never was an age in which this idea failed entirely of representation, it bears a certain aristocratic character which has commended it ordinarily only to the few, however fit: and it probably never was very widely held except during the brief period when the immense genius of Schleiermacher so overshadowed the Church that it could hardly think at all save in the formulas taught by him. Broadly speaking, the field has been held practically by the three theories which are commonly designated by the names of Anselm, Grotius, and Abelard; and age has differed from age only in the changing expression given these theories and the relative dominance of one or another of them.

The Reformers, it goes without saying, were enthusiastic preachers of the Anselmic conception – of course as corrected, developed, and enriched by their own deeper thought and truer insight. Their successors adjusted, expounded, and defended its details, until it stood forth in the seventeenth century dogmatics in practical completeness. During this whole period this conception held the field; the numerous controversies that arose about it were rather joined with the Socinian or the mystic than internal to the circle of recognized Church teachers. It was not until the rise of Rationalism that a widely spread defection became observable. Under this blight men could no longer believe in the substitutive expiation which is the heart of the Anselmic doctrine, and a blood-bought redemption went much out of fashion. The dainty Supranaturalists attained the height only of the Grotian view, and allowed only a “demonstrative” as distinguished from an “ontological” necessity for an atonement, and an “executive” as distinguished from a” judicial” effect to it. The great evangelical revivals of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however, swept away all that. It is probable that a half century ago the doctrine of penal satisfaction had so strong a hold on the churches that not more than an academic interest attached to rival theories.

About that time a great change began to set in. I need only to mention such names as those of Horace Bushnell, McLeod Campbell, Frederick Dennison Maurice, Albrecht Ritschl, to suggest the strength of the assault that was suddenly delivered against the central ideas of an expiatory atonement. The immediate effect was to call out an equally powerful defense. Our best treatises on the atonement come from this period; and Presbyterians in particular may well be proud of the part played by them in the crisis. But this defense only stemmed the tide: it did not succeed in rolling it back. The ultimate result has been that the revolt from the conceptions of satisfaction, propitiation, expiation, sacrifice, reinforced continually by tendencies adverse to evangelical doctrine peculiar to our times, has grown steadily more and more widespread, and in some quarters more and more extreme, until it has issued in an immense confusion on this central doctrine of the gospel. Voices are raised all about us proclaiming a “theory” of the atonement impossible, while many of those that essay a “theory” seem to be feeling their tortuous way very much in the dark. That, if I mistake not, is the real state of affairs in the modern Church.

I am not meaning to imply that the doctrine of substitutive atonement–which is, after all, the very heart of the gospel–has been lost from the consciousness of the Church. It has not been lost from the hearts of the Christian community. It is in its terms that the humble Christian everywhere still expresses the grounds of his hope of salvation. It is in its terms that the earnest evangelist everywhere still presses the claims of Christ upon the awakened hearer. It has not even been lost from the forum of theological discussion. It still commands powerful advocates wherever a vital Christianity enters academical circles: and, as a rule, the more profound the thinker, the more clear is the note he strikes in its proclamation and defense. But if we were to judge only by the popular literature of the day– a procedure happily not possible –the doctrine of a substitutive atonement has retired well into the background. Probably the majority of those who hold the public ear, whether as academical or as popular religious guides, have definitely broken with it, and are commending to their audiences something other and, as they no doubt believe, something very much better. A tone of speech has even grown up regarding it which is not only scornful but positively abusive. There are no epithets too harsh to be applied to it, no invectives too intense to be poured out on it. An honored bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church tells us that “the whole theory of substitutional punishment as a ground either of conditional or unconditional pardon is unethical, contradictory, and self-subversive.”¹ He may rightly claim to be speaking in this sweeping sentence with marked discretion and unwonted charity. To do justice to the hateful theme requires, it seems, the tumid turmoil and rushing rant of Dr. Farrar’s rhetoric. Surely if hard words broke bones, the doctrine of the substitutional sacrifice of the Son of God for the sin of man would long ago have been ground to powder.

What, then, are we offered instead of it? We have already intimated that it is confusion which reigns here: and in any event we cannot go into details. We may try, however, to set down in few words the general impression that the most recent literature of the subject makes.

To obtain a just view of the situation, I think we ought to note, first of all, the wide prevalence among the sounder thinkers of the Grotian or Rectoral theory of the atonement–the theory, that is, that conceives the work of Christ not as supplying the ground on which God forgives sin, but only as supplying the ground on which He may safely forgive sins on the sole ground of His compassion. The theory of hypothetical universalism, according to which Christ died as the proper substitute for all men on the condition, namely, that they should believe–whether in its Remonstrant or in its Amyraldian form–has in the conflict of theories long since been crushed out of existence–as, indeed, it well deserved to be. This having been shoved out of the way, the Grotian theory has come to be the orthodox Arminian view and is taught as such by the leading exponents of modern Arminian thought whether in Britain or America; and he who will read the powerful argumentation to that effect by the late Dr. John Miley, say, for example, will be compelled to agree that it is, indeed, the highest form of atonement-doctrine conformable to the Arminian system. But not only is it thus practically universal among the Wesleyan Arminians. It has become also, under the influence of such teachers as Drs. Wardlaw and Dale and Dr. Park, the mark also of orthodox Nonconformity in Great Britain and of orthodox Congregationalism in America. Nor has it failed to take a strong hold also of Scottish Presbyterianism: it is specifically advocated by such men of mark and leading as, for example, Dr. Marcus Dods. On the Continent of Europe it is equally widespread among the saner teachers; one notes without surprise, for example, that it was taught by the late Dr. Frederic Godet, though one notes with satisfaction that it was considerably modified upward by Dr. Godet, and that his colleague, Dr. Gretillat, was careful to correct it. In a word, wherever men have been unwilling to drop all semblance of an “objective” atonement, as the word now goes, they have taken refuge in this half-way house which Grotius has builded for them. I do not myself look upon this as a particularly healthful sign of the times. I do not myself think that, at bottom, there is in principle much to choose between the Grotian and the so-called “subjective” theories. It seems to me only an illusion to suppose that it preserves an “objective” atonement at all. But meanwhile it is adopted by many because they deem it “objective,” and it so far bears witness to a remanent desire to preserve an “objective” atonement.

We are getting more closely down to the real characteristic of modern theories of the atonement when we note that there is a strong tendency observable all around us to rest the forgiveness of sins solely on repentance as its ground. In its last analysis, the Grotian theory itself reduces to this. The demonstration of God’s righteousness, which is held by it to be the heart of Christ’s work and particularly of His death, is supposed to have no other effect on God than to render it safe for Him to forgive sin. And this it does not as affecting Him, but as affecting men–namely, by awaking in them such a poignant sense of the evil of sin as to cause them to hate it soundly and to turn decisively away from it. This is just Repentance. We could desire no better illustration of this feature of the theory than is afforded by the statement of it by one of its most distinguished living advocates, Dr. Marcus Dods². The necessity of atonement, he tells us, lies in the “need of some such demonstration of God’s righteousness as will make it possible and safe for Him to forgive the unrighteous” (p. 181). Whatever begets in the sinner true penitence and impels him toward the practice of righteousness will render it safe to forgive him. Hence Dr. Dods asserts that it is inconceivable that God should not forgive the penitent sinner, and that Christ’s work is summed up in such an exhibition of God’s righteousness and love as produces, on its apprehension, adequate repentance. “By being the source, then, of true and fruitful penitence, the death of Christ removes the radical subjective obstacle in the way of forgiveness” (p. 184). “The death of Christ, then, has made forgiveness possible, because it enables man to repent with an adequate penitence, and because it manifests righteousness and binds men to God” (p. 187). There is no hint here that man needs anything more to enable him to repent than the presentation of motives calculated powerfully to induce him to repent. That is to say, there is no hint here of an adequate appreciation of the subjective effects of sin on the human heart, deadening it to the appeal of motives to right action however powerful, and requiring therefore an internal action of the Spirit of God upon it before it can repent: or of the purchase of such a gift of the Spirit by the sacrifice of Christ. As little is there any hint here of the existence of any sense of justice in God, forbidding Him to account the guilty righteous without satisfaction of guilt. All God requires for forgiveness is repentance: all the sinner needs for repentance is a moving inducement. It is all very simple; but we are afraid it does not go to the root of matters as presented either in Scripture or in the throes of our awakened heart.

The widespread tendency to represent repentance as the atoning fact might seem, then, to be accountable from the extensive acceptance which has been given to the Rectoral theory of the atonement. Nevertheless much of it has had a very different origin and may be traced back rather to some such teaching as that, say, of Dr. McLeod Campbell. Dr. Campbell did not himself find the atoning fact in man’s own repentance, but rather in our Lord’s sympathetic repentance for man. He replaced the evangelical doctrine of substitution by a theory of sympathetic identification, and the evangelical doctrine of expiatory penalty-paying by a theory of sympa­thetic repentance. Christ so fully enters sympathetically into our case, was his idea, that He is able to offer to God an adequate repentance for our sins, and the Father says, It is enough! Man here is still held to need a Saviour, and Christ is presented as that Saviour, and is looked upon as performing for man what man cannot do for himself. But the gravitation of this theory is distinctly downward, and it has ever tended to find its lower level. There are, therefore, numerous transition theories prevalent–some of them very complicated, some of them very subtle–which connect it by a series of insensible stages with the proclamation of human repentance as the sole atonement required. As typical of these we may take the elaborate theory (which, like man himself, may be said to be fearfully and wonderfully made) set forth by the modern Andover divines. This finds the atoning fact in a combination ‘Of Christ’s sympathetic repentance for man and man’s own repentance under the impression made upon him by Christ’s work on his behalf – not in the one without the other, but in the two in unison. A similar combination of the revolutionary repentance of man induced by Christ and the sympathetic repentance of Christ for man meets us also in recent German theorizing, as, for example, in the teaching of Häring. It is sometimes clothed in “sacrificial ” language and made to bear an appearance even of “substitution.” It is just the repentance of Christ, however, which is misleadingly called His “sacrifice,” and our sympathetic repentance with Him that is called our participation in His “sacrifice”; and it is carefully explained that though there was “a substitution on Calvary,” it was not the substitution of a sinless Christ for a sinful race, but the substitution of humanity plus Christ for humanity minus Christ. All of which seems but a confusing way of saying that the atoning fact consists in the revolutionary repentance of man induced by the spectacle of Christ’s sympathetic repentance for man.

The essential emphasis in all these transition theories falls obviously on man’s own repentance rather than on Christ’s. Accordingly the latter falls away easily and leaves us with human repentance only as the sole atoning fact–the entire reparation which God asks or can ask for sin. Nor do men hesitate to-day to proclaim this openly and boldly. Scores of voices are raised about us declaring it not only with clearness but with passion. Even those who still feel bound to attribute the reconciling of God somehow to the work of Christ are often careful to explain that they mean this ultimately only, and only because they attribute in one way or other to the work of Christ the arousing of the repentance in man which is the immediate ground of forgiveness. Thus Dean Fremantle tells us that it is “repentance and faith” that “change for us the face of God.” And then he adds, doubtless as a concession to ingrained, though outgrown, habits of thought: “If, then, the death of Christ, viewed as the culminating point of His life of love, is the destined means of repentance for the whole world, we may say, also, that it is the means of securing the  mercy and favour of God, of procuring the forgiveness of sins.”‘³ And Dr. (now Principal) Forsyth, whose fervid address on the atonement at a great Congregationalist gathering a few years ago quite took captive the hearts of the whole land, seems really to teach little more than this. Christ sympathetically enters into our condition, he tells us, and gives expression to an adequate sense of sin. We, perceiving the effect of this, His entrance into our sinful atmosphere, are smitten with horror of the judgment our sin has thus brought on Him. This horror begets in us an adequate repentance of sin: God accepts this repentance as enough; and forgives our sin. Thus forgiveness rests proximately only on our repentance as its ground: but our repentance is produced only by Christ’s sufferings: and hence, Dr. Forsyth tells us, Christ’s sufferings may be called the ultimate ground of forgiveness.⁴

It is sufficiently plain that the function served by the sufferings and death of Christ in this construction is somewhat remote. Accordingly they quite readily fall away altogether. It seems quite natural that they should do so with those whose doctrinal inheritance comes from Horace Bushnell, say, or from the Socinian theorizing of the school of Ritschl. We feel no surprise to learn, for example, that with Harnack the sufferings and death of Christ play no appreciable part. With him the whole atoning act seems to consist in the removal of a false conception of God from the minds of men. Men, because sinners, are prone to look upon God as a wrathful judge. He is, on the contrary, just Love. How can the sinner’s misjudgment be corrected? By the impression made upon him by the life of Jesus, keyed to the conception of the Divine Fatherhood. With all this we are familiar enough. But we are hardly prepared for the extremities of language which some permit themselves in giving expression to it. “The whole difficulty,” a recent writer of this class declares, “is not in inducing or enabling God to pardon, but in moving men to abhor sin and to want pardon.” Even this difficulty, however, we are assured is removable: and what is needed for its removal is only proper instruction. “Christianity,” cries our writer, “was a revelation, not a creation.” Even this false antithesis does not, however, satisfy him. He rises beyond it to the acme of his passion. “Would there have been no Gospel,” he rhetorically demands–as if none could venture to say him nay–”would there have been no Gospel had not Christ died?”⁵ Thus “the blood of Christ” on which the Scriptures hang the whole atoning fact is thought no longer to be needed: the gospel of Paul, which consisted not in Christ simpliciter but specifically in “Christ as crucified,” is scouted. We are able to get along now without these things.

To such a pass have we been brought by the prevailing gospel of the indiscriminate love of God. For it is here that we place our finger on the root of the whole modern assault upon the doctrine of an expiatory atonement. In the attempt to give effect to the conception of indiscriminate and undiscriminating love as the basal fact of religion, the entire Biblical teaching as to atonement has been ruthlessly torn up. If God is love and nothing but love, what possible need can there be of an atonement? Certainly such a God cannot need propitiating. Is not He the All-Father? Is He not yearning for His children with an unconditioned and unconditioning eagerness which excludes all thought of “obstacles to forgiveness”? What does He want but–just His children? Our modern theorizers are never weary of ringing the changes on this single fundamental idea. God does not require to be moved to forgiveness; or to be enabled to pardon; or even to be enabled to pardon safely. He raises no question of whether He can pardon, or whether it would be safe for Him to pardon. Such is not the way of love. Love is bold enough to sweep all such chilling questions impatiently out of its path. The whole difficulty is to induce men to permit themselves to be pardoned. God is continually reaching longing arms out of heaven toward men: oh, if men would only let themselves be gathered unto the Father’s eager heart! It is absurd, we are told–nay, wicked–blasphemous with awful blasphemy–to speak of propitiating such a God as this, of reconciling Him, of making satisfaction to Him. Love needs no satisfying, reconciling, propitiating; nay, will have nothing to do with such things. Of its very nature it flows out unbought, unpropitiated, instinctively and unconditionally, to its object. And God is Love!

Well, certainly, God is Love. And we praise Him that we have better authority for telling our souls this glorious truth than the passionate assertion of these somewhat crass theorizers. God is Love! But it does not in the least follow that He is nothing but love. God is Love: but Love is not God and the formula “Love” must therefore ever be inadequate to express God. It may well be–to us sinners, lost in our sin and misery but for it, it must be–the crowning revelation of Christianity that God is love. But it is not from the Christian revelation that we have learned to think of God as nothing but love. That God is the Father of all men in a true and important sense, we should not doubt. But this term “All-Father” – it is not from the lips of Hebrew prophet or Christian apostle that we have caught it. And the indiscriminate benevolencism which has taken captive so much of the religious thinking of our time is a conception not native to Christianity, but of distinctly heathen quality. As one reads the pages of popular religious literature, teeming as it is with ill-considered assertions of the general Fatherhood of God, he has an odd feeling of transportation back into the atmosphere of, say, the decadent heathenism of the fourth and fifth centuries, when the gods were dying, and there was left to those who would fain cling to the old ways little beyond a somewhat saddened sense of the benignitas numinis. The benignitas numinis! How studded the pages of those genial old heathen are with the expression; how suffused their repressed life is with the conviction that the kind Deity that dwells above will surely not be hard on men toiling here below! How shocked they are at the stern righteousness of the Christian’s God, who loomed before their startled eyes as He looms before those of the modern poet in no other light than as “the hard God that dwelt in Jerusalem”! Surely the Great Divinity is too broadly good to mark the peccadillos of poor puny man; surely they are the objects of His compassionate amusement rather than of His fierce reprobation. Like Omar Khayyam’s pot, they were convinced, before all things, of their Maker that “He’s a good fellow and ’twill all be well.”

The query cannot help rising to the surface of our minds whether our modern indiscriminate benevolencism goes much  deeper than this. Does all this one-sided proclamation of the universal Fatherhood of God import much more than the heathen benignitas numinis? When we take those blessed words, “God is Love,” upon our lips, are we sure we mean to express much more than that we do not wish to believe that God will hold man to any real account for his sin? Are we, in a word, in these modern days, so much soaring upward toward a more adequate apprehension of the transcendent truth that God is love, as passionately protesting against being ourselves branded and dealt with as wrath-deserving sinners? Assuredly it is impossible to put anything like their real content into these great words, “God is Love,” save as they are thrown out against the background of those other conceptions of equal loftiness, “God is Light,” “God is Righteousness,” “God is Holiness,” ” God is a consuming fire.” The love of God cannot be apprehended in its length and breadth and height and depth–all of which pass knowledge–save as it is apprehended as the love of a God who turns from the sight of sin with inexpressible abhorrence, and burns against it with unquenchable indignation. The infinitude of His love would be illustrated not by His lavishing of His favor on sinners without requiring an expiation of sin, but by His–through such holiness and through such righteousness as cannot but cry out with infinite abhorrence and indignation–still loving sinners so greatly that He provides a satisfaction for their sin adequate to these tremendous demands. It is the distinguishing characteristic of Christianity, after all, not that it preaches a God of love, but that it preaches a God of conscience.  A somewhat flippant critic, contemplating the religion of Israel, has told us, as expressive of his admiration for what he found there, that “an honest God is the noblest work of man.”⁶ There is a profound truth lurking in the remark. Only it appears that the work were too noble for man; and probably man has never compassed it. A benevolent God, yes: men have framed a benevolent God for themselves. But a thoroughly honest God, perhaps never. That has been left for the revelation of God Himself to give us. And this is the really distinguishing characteristic of the God of revelation: He is  thoroughly honest, a thoroughly conscientious God–a God who deals honestly with Himself and us, who deals conscientiously with Himself and us. And a thoroughly conscientious God, we may be sure, is not a God who can deal with sinners as if they were not sinners. In this fact lies, perhaps, the deepest ground of the necessity of an expiatory atonement. And it is in this fact also that there lies the deepest ground of the increasing failure of the modern world to appreciate the necessity of an expiatory atonement. Conscientiousness commends itself only to awakened conscience; and in much of recent theologizing conscience does not seem especially active. Nothing, indeed, is more startling in the structure of recent theories of atonement, than the apparently vanishing sense of sin that underlies them. Surely, it is only where the sense of guilt of sin has grown grievously faint, that men can suppose repentance to be all that is needed to purge it. Surely it is only where the sense of the power of sin has profoundly decayed, that men can fancy that they can at will cast it off from them in a “revolutionary repentance.” Surely it is only where the sense of the heinousness of sin has practically passed away, that man can imagine that the holy and just God can deal with it lightly. If we have not much to be saved from, why, certainly, a very little atonement will suffice for our needs. It is, after all, only the sinner that requires a Saviour. But if we are sinners, and in proportion as we know ourselves to be sinners, and appreciate what it means to be sinners, we will cry out for that Saviour who only after He was perfected by suffering could become the Author of eternal salvation.

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Hugh M’KAIL was born about the year 1640, and was educated at the University of Edinburgh, under the inspection of his uncle, Mr Hugh M’Kail, in whose family he resided. In the winter of 1661, he offered himself for trials for the ministry, before the presbytery of Edinburgh, being then about twenty years old; and being by them licensed, he preached several times with great acceptance. He preached his last public sermon, from Cant i. 7 {Song of Solomon 1:7}, in the High Church of Edinburgh, upon the Sabbath immediately preceding the 8th of September 1662, the day fixed by Parliament for the removal of the ministers of Edinburgh. In this sermon, taking occasion to speak of the great and many persecutions to which the Church of God had been and was subjected, and amplifying the point from the persons and powers that had been instrumental therein, he said, that the Church and people of God had been persecuted by a Pharaoh upon the throne, a Haman in the State, and a Judas in the Church; and these characters seemed so similar to those of the rulers of Church and State at the time, that though he made no particular application, he was reputed guilty. Whereupon, a few days after, a party of horse was sent to the place of his residence, near Edinburgh, to apprehend him; but upon little more than a moment’s warning, he escaped out of bed into another chamber, where he was preserved from the search. After this, he was obliged to return to his father’s house, near Liberton¹, and having lurked there for some time, he spent other four years in several other places before his death.

While he lived at his father’s house, troubles arose in the west; and the news thereof having alarmed him, for such motives and considerations as he himself afterwards more fully declares, he joined himself, upon the 18th of November 1666, to those who rose in these parts for the assistance of that poor afflicted party. [The reference here is to what was afterwards known as the ” Pentland Rising,” which was regarded as formidable enough at the time, but which originated in the following very simple and unpremeditated manner. Sir James Turner, who had distinguished himself by his military exactions and cruelty, had sent some of his soldiers to a small village about twenty miles from Dumfries, to seize the property of an old man who had incurred his displeasure for some religious offence. While they were maltreating him in the most brutal manner, some of the villagers ventured to remonstrate; but the soldiers having resented the interference, a scuffle ensued, and the old man was set free. It was now impossible to stop here, without exposing themselves, and the inhabitants of the district, to summary vengeance. Accordingly, many of their friends having joined them, they marched to Dumfries, where they surprised Sir James Turner and his garrison, and made them prisoners. Up till this time the movement had been quite accidental and unpremeditated, but now there came a necessity for more deliberate and determined action. Having received considerable reinforcements, and having been joined by many of the ablest and most influential of the Presbyterians, among whom was Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace, a gallant and distinguished officer, they marched under his command to Lanark, where they arrived on the evening of the 25th; and where, on the following day, they renewed the Covenants² in the most solemn manner. Their number at this time was about 1,500, the horsemen being armed for the most part with sword and pistol, but many of the foot soldiers only with scythes and pitchforks. Unfortunately, however, and as so often happened, difference of opinion sprang up among themselves, some wishing to give battle at once, and others urging the expediency of continuing their march eastwards, in the hope of receiving reinforcements in the Lothians.

After deliberation, the second course was adopted as the best; but, in consequence, many left for their homes. And when, after a terrible march in extremely tempestuous weather, the army arrived in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, it was reduced to a handful of about 900 men. To oppose them, General Dalyell had been sent out by the Government with a force of 3,000 fully equipped and disciplined soldiers. The battle, which followed on the 28th, and which took place on Rullion Green, one of the slopes of the Pentlands,

was nobly fought by the insurgents; although, with their disadvantages, the result could not be doubtful. The loss to the royal army was never known; but, on the side of the Presbyterians, about 50 were killed, and 100 surrendered on promise of quarter; which promise was, however, in many cases, shamefully violated. The killed were buried in trenches on the battle-field; and a monument, with the following inscription, still marks the spot where they fell:

“A cloud of witnesses lie here,

Who, for Christ’s interests, did appear;

For to restore true liberty,

O’ertumed then by tyranny.

These heroes fought with great renown;

By falling got the Martyr’s Crown!”

We shall not presume to say how far it was prudent, in their circumstances, to continue in arms, and brave the fury of the Government; but, in the words of Defoe, “we leave all those, who afterwards thought it lawful to join in the Revolution, and in taking arms against the oppressions and arbitrary government of King James, to judge whether these good men had not the same individual reasons and more for this Pentland expedition. And it is answer enough to all that shall read these sheets to say, that those men died for that lawful resisting of arbitrary power which has been justified as legal, and acknowledged to be justifiable by the practice and declaration of the respective Parliaments of both kingdoms.”-ED.]

Being of a tender constitution, by the toil, fatigue, and continual marching in tempestuous weather, Hugh M’Kail was so disabled and weakened, that he could no longer endure; and upon the 27th, the day before the battle, he was obliged to leave his comrades near Cramond water. On his way to Liberton parish, passing through Braid’s Craigs, he was taken without any resistance (having only a small ordinary sword) by some of the countrymen who were sent out to view the fields. And here it is observable that his former escape was no more miraculous than his present taking was fatal; for the least caution might have prevented this misfortune; but God, who gave him the full experience of His turning all things to the good of them that love Him, did thus prepare the way for His own glory, and His servant’s joy and victory. He was brought to Edinburgh, first to the Town Council house, where he was searched for letters; but none being found, he was committed prisoner to the Tolbooth. Upon Wednesday the 28th, he was, by order of the Secret Council, brought before the Earl of Dumfries, Lord Sinclair, Sir Robert Murray of Priestfield, and others, in order to his examination. Being interrogated concerning his joining the westland forces, he, conceiving himself not obliged by any law or reason to be his own accuser, did decline the question. After some reasoning, he was desired to subscribe his name, but refused; and this fact, when reported to the Council, gave them great offence, and brought him under some suspicion of being a dissembler. On the 29th he was again called, when, to allay this prejudice, he gave in a declaration under his own hand, testifying that he had been with the westland forces. Though it was certainly known that he had both formed and subscribed this acknowledgment the night before, yet they still persisted in their jealousy. Suspecting him to have been privy to all the designs of that party, they dealt with him with the greater importunity to declare an account of the whole business; and upon December 3, the Boots (a most terrible instrument of torture) were laid on the council-house table before him, and he was certified, that, if he would not confess, he would be tortured next day. Accordingly he was called before them, and, being urged to confess, he solemnly declared, that he knew no more than what he had already confessed; whereupon they ordered the executioner to put his leg in the Boot, and to proceed to the torture, to the number of ten or eleven strokes, with considerable intervals; yet all did not move him to express any impatience or bitterness. This torture was the cause of his not being indicted with the first ten, who were arraigned and sentenced on Wednesday, December 5, to be hanged on the Friday following. Many thought that his slight connection with the rising, and what he had suffered by torture, should have procured him some favour; but it was otherwise determined, for his former sermon was not forgotten, especially the words, “A Pharaoh upon the throne,” etc. Upon December 8, his brother went from Edinburgh to Glasgow, with a letter in his favour from the Marchioness of Douglas, and another from the Duchess of Hamilton, to the Lord Commissioner, but both proved ineffectual. His cousin, Mr Matthew M’Kail, carried another letter from the Marchioness of Douglas to the Archbishop of St Andrews for the same purpose, but with no better success. On Monday the 10th, he and other seven received their indictment of treason, and were summoned to appear before the Justices on Wednesday, December 12; but his torture and close imprisonment (for so it was ordered) had cast him into a fever, whereby he was utterly unable to make his appearance. Therefore, upon Tuesday the 11th, he gave in to the Lords of the Council a supplication, declaring his weak and sickly condition, craving that they would surcease any legal procedure against him, and that they would discharge him of the foresaid appearance. Hereupon the Council ordered two physicians and two chirurgeons to visit him, and to return their attestations, upon soul and conscience, betwixt that time and the morrow at ten o’clock, to the Justices. On December 16, he, being indifferently recovered, was with other three brought before the Justices, where the general indictment was read, founded both on old and recent Acts of Parliament, made against rising in arms, entering into leagues and covenants, and renewing the Solemn League and Covenant, without and against the King’s authority. Hugh M’Kail was particularly charged with joining the rebels at Ayr, Ochiltree, Lanark, and other places, on horseback. Hereupon, being permitted to answer, he spoke in his own defence, both concerning the charge laid against him, and likewise of the ties and obligations that were upon this land to God; commending the institution, dignity, and blessing of Presbyterian government; and said, that the last words of the national Covenant had always a great weight upon his spirit. Here he was interrupted by the King’s Advocate, who bade him forbear that discourse, and answer the question for the crime of rebellion. To this he answered, that the thing which moved him to declare as he had done, was that weighty important saying of our Lord Jesus: ” Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God.” After the depositions of those examined anent him were read, with his replies to the same, the assize was inclosed; after which they gave their verdict unanimously, and by the mouth of Sir William Murray, their chancellor, reported him guilty. This being done, doom was pronounced, declaring and adjudging him and the rest to be taken on Saturday, December 20, to the market cross of Edinburgh, there to be hanged on a gibbet till dead, and their goods and lands to be escheated and forfeited for his Highness’ use. At the hearing of the sentence, he cheerfully said, ” The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord;” and he was then carried back to the Tolbooth through the guards, the people making lamentations for him by the way. After he came to his chamber, he immediately addressed himself to God in prayer, with great enlargement of heart, in behalf of himself and those who were condemned with him. Afterwards, he said to a friend, “O how good news; to be within four days’ journey to enjoy the sight of Jesus Christ;” and protested that he was not so cumbered how to die as he had sometimes been to preach a sermon. To some women lamenting for him, he said, that his condition, though he was but young, and in the budding of his hopes and labours in the ministry, was not to be mourned; “for one drop of my blood,” added he, “through the grace of God, may make more hearts contrite than many years’ sermons might have done.”  This afternoon he supplicated the Council for liberty to his father to visit him; which being granted, his father came next night, to whom he discoursed a little from the fifth commandment, concerning obedience to parents. After prayer, his father said to him, “Hugh, I have called thee a goodly olive-tree of fair fruit, and now a storm hath destroyed the tree and his fruit.” He answered, that his too good thought had afflicted him. His father said, that he was persuaded God was visiting not his own sins, but his parents’ sins, so that he might say, “Our fathers have sinned, and we have borne their inquity;” and added, “I have sinned; thou poor sheep, what hast thou done?” Hugh answered with many groans, that, through coming short of the fifth commandment, he had come short of the promise, that his days should be prolonged in the land of the living; and that God’s controversy with his father was for overvaluing his children, especially himself. Upon the 20th of December, through the importunity of friends, more than his own ‘inclination, he gave in a petition to the Council, craving their clemency, after having declared his own innocence; but it proved altogether ineffectual. During his abode in prison, the Lord was very graciously present with him, both to sustain him against the fears of death, and to expel the overcloudings of terror, unto which the best of men, through the frailty of flesh and blood, are sometimes subject. He was also wonderfully assisted in prayer and praise, to the admiration of all. On Thursday night, being at supper with his fellow-prisoners, his father, and one or two more, he said merrily to the former, “Eat to the full, and cherish your bodies, that we may be a fat Christmas-pie to the prelates.” After supper, in thanksgiving, he broke forth into several expressions, both concerning himself and the Church of God, and at last used that exclamation in the book of Daniel, “What, Lord, shall be the end of these wonders?” The last night of his life he propounded and answered several questions for the strengthening of his fellow-prisoners, among others the following:

“How should I go from the Tolbooth through a multitude of gazing people, and guards of soldiers, to a scaffold and gibbet, and overcome the impression of all this?” The answer was, “By conceiving a deeper impression of a multitude of angels, who are on-lookers; according to that saying, ‘We are a gazing-stock to the world, angels, and men:’ for the angels, rejoicing at our good confession, are present to convoy and carry our souls, as the soul of Lazarus, to Abraham’s bosom; not to receive them, for that is Jesus Christ’s work alone, who will welcome them to heaven Himself, with the songs of angels and blessed spirits; the angels are but ministering spirits, always ready to serve and strengthen dying believers.” “What is the way for us, who are hastening to it, to conceive of heaven, seeing the word saith, ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard?'” To this he answered, “that the Scripture helps us two ways to conceive of heaven : (1.) By way of similitude, as in Revelation 21, where heaven is held forth by the representation of a glorious city, there described; ( 2.) By holding forth the love of the saints to Jesus Christ, and teaching us to love Him in sincerity, which is the very joy and exultation of heaven (Revelation 5:12); and no other thing than the soul breathing forth love to Jesus Christ can rightly apprehend the joys of heaven.” The last words he spoke at supper were in commendation of love above knowledge. “Oh! notions of knowledge without love are of small worth, evanishing in nothing, and very dangerous.” After supper, his father having given thanks, he read the 16th Psalm, and then said, “If there be anything in the world sadly and unwillingly to be left, it were the reading of the Scriptures. I said, that I shall not see the Lord in the land of the living; but this needs not make us sad, for, where we go, the Lamb is the book of Scripture, and the light of the city; and there is life; even the River of the Water of Life, and living springs.” He then called for a pen, saying, it was to write his testament, wherein he ordered some few books he had to be delivered to several persons. He went to bed about eleven o’clock, and slept till five in the morning, when he arose and called for his comrade John Wodrow, saying pleasantly, “Up, John, for you are too long in bed; you and I look not like men going to be hanged this day, seeing we lie so long.” Then he spake to him in the words of Isaiah 43:24; and after some short discourse, John said to him, “You and I shall be chambered shortly beside Mr Robertson.” He answered, “John, I fear you bar me out, because you were more free before the Council than I was; but I shall be as free as any of you upon the scaffold;” adding, “I have got a clear ray of the majesty of the Lord after his awakening, but it was a little overclouded thereafter.” He then prayed with great fervency, pleading his covenant relation with Him, and that they might be enabled that day to witness a good confession before many witnesses. His father, coming to him, bade him farewell; to whom his last words were, that his sufferings would do more hurt to the prelates, and be more edifying to God’s people, than if he were to continue in the ministry twenty years. Then he desired his father to go to his chamber, and pray earnestly to the Lord to be with him on the scaffold; “for how to carry there,” said he, “is my care; even that I may be strengthened to endure to the end.” About two o’clock afternoon, he was brought to the scaffold, with other five who suffered with him; where, to the conviction of all that formerly knew him, he had a fairer and more stayed countenance than ever they had before observed. Being come to the foot of the ladder, he directed his speech to the multitude northward, saying, that as his years in the world had been but few, his words then should not be many, and he then addressed to the people the speech and testimony which he had before written and subscribed. Having done speaking, he sung a part of the 31st Psalm, and prayed with such power and fervency, as caused many to weep bitterly. Then he gave his hat and cloak from him; and taking hold of the ladder to go up, he said with an audible voice, “I care no more to go up this ladder, and over it, than if I were going home to my father’s house.” Hearing a noise among the people, he called down to his fellow-sufferers, saying, “Friends and fellow sufferers, be not afraid; every step of this ladder is a degree nearer heaven: “and having seated himself thereon, he said, “I do partly believe that the noble counsellors and rulers of this land would have used some mitigation of this punishment, had they not been instigated by the prelates, so that our blood lies principally at the prelates’ door; but this is my comfort, I know that my Redeemer liveth. And now I do willingly lay down my life for the truth and cause of God, the Covenants and work of Reformation, which were once counted the glory of this nation; and it is for endeavouring to defend this, and to extirpate that bitter root of Prelacy, that I embrace this rope” the executioner then putting the rope about his neck.  Hearing the people weep, he said, “Your work is not to weep but to pray, that we may be honourably borne through; and blessed be the Lord that supports me now. As I have been beholden to the prayers and kindness of many since my imprisonment and sentence, so I hope you will not be wanting to me now in the last step of my journey, that I may witness a good confession; and that ye may know what the ground of my encouragement in this work is, I shall read to you in the last chapter of the Bible;” which having read,  he said, “Here you see the glory that is to be revealed on me; a ‘pure river of water of life;’ and here you see my access to the glory and reward; ‘Let him that is athirst, come;’ and here you see my welcome; ‘The Spirit and the Bride say, Come.'” Then he said, “I have one word more to say to my friends. Ye need neither to lament nor be ashamed of me in this condition, for I may make use of that expression of Christ’s, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God,’ to my King and your King, to the blessed apostles and martyrs, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly of the first-born, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant; and I bid you all farewell, for God will be more comfortable to you than I could be, and He will be now more refreshing to me than you can be. Farewell, farewell in the Lord!” The napkin being put on his face, he prayed a little, and putting it up with his hand, he said that he had a word more to say concerning what comfort he had in his death: “I hope you perceive no alteration or discouragement in my countenance and carriage, and as it may be your wonder, so I profess it is a wonder to myself: and I will tell you the reason of it. Besides the justice of my cause, my comfort is, what was said of Lazarus when he died, that the angels did carry his soul to Abraham’s bosom; so that as there is a great solemnity here, a confluence of people, a scaffold, a gallows, a people looking out of windows; so there is a greater and more solemn preparation of angels to carry my soul to Christ’s bosom. Again this is my comfort, that it is to come to Christ’s hand; He will present it blameless and faultless to the Father, and then shall I be ever with the Lord. And now I leave off to speak any more to creatures, and begin my intercourse with God, which shall never be broken off. Farewell father and mother, friends and relations; farewell the world and all delights; farewell meat and drink; farewell sun, moon, and stars; welcome God and Father; welcome sweet Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant; welcome blessed Spirit of grace, and God of all consolation; welcome glory; welcome eternal life; and welcome death!” Then he desired the executioner not to turm him over until he himself should put over his shoulders; which, after praying a little in private, he did, saying, “O Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.” And thus, in the 26th year of his age, he died, as he lived, in the Lord. His death was so much lamented by the onlookers and spectators, that there was scarcely a dry cheek seen in all the streets and windows about the Cross of Edinburgh, at the time of his execution. A late historian gives him this character, that “he was a youth of twenty-six years of age, universally beloved, singularly pious, and of very considerable learning. He had seen the world, and travelled some years abroad, and was of a very comely and graceful person. I am told,” says he, “that he used to fast one day every week, and had frequently, before this, signified to his friends his impression of such a death as he now underwent. His share in the Pentland rising was known to be but small; and when he spoke of comfort and joy in his death, heavy were the groans of those present.”

The post “I Do Willingly Lay Down My Life”: The Trial and Triumph of Hugh M’Kail appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

Peace on earth, and mercy mild; God and sinners reconciled.

O ye sinners, who tremble at the thought of the divine wrath, as well you may, lift up your heads with joyful hope of pardon and favour, for God must be full of grace and mercy to that race which he so distinguishes above all others by taking it into union with himself! Be of good cheer, O men of women born, and expect untold blessings, for ‘unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.’ If you look at rivers, you can often tell, by their colour, whence they have come, and the soil over which they have flowed; those which flow from melting glaciers can be recognized at once. There is a text, concerning a heavenly river, which you will understand if you look at it in this light. John, in the Revelation, says concerning the angel, ‘He shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.’ Where the throne is jointly occupied by God and the appointed mediator, the incarnate God, the once-bleeding Lamb, then the river that flows from it must be a river, not of the molten lava of devouring wrath, but of the water of life.

The consequences of Christ’s incarnation must be pleasant, profitable, saving, and ennobling to the sons of men. They include, among many other blessings, a pledge of our deliverance. We are a fallen race, we are sunken in the mire, we are sold under sin, in bondage and in slavery to Satan; but if God comes to our race, and espouses our nature, why, then, it must be because he has resolved to retrieve our fall. It cannot be possible for the gates of hell to enclose those who have God with them. Slaves under sin, and bondsmen beneath the law, hearken to the trump of jubilee, for one has come among you, born of a woman, made under the law, who is also ‘the mighty God,’ pledged to set you free.

He is a Saviour, and a great one; he is able to save, for he is almighty; and he is pledged to do it, for he has entered the lists on our behalf, and put on the harness for the battle. The champion of his people is one who will not fail, nor be discouraged; the victory over all their foes shall be fully won. Jesus coming down from heaven is the pledge that he will take his people up to heaven; his taking our nature is the seal of our being lifted up to stand before his throne.

Were it an angel who had interposed on our behalf, we might have some fears as to the result of the conflict. Were it a mere man who had espoused our cause, we might go beyond fear, and sit down in despair; but as God has actually taken manhood into union with himself, let us ‘ring the bells of heaven,’ and be full of glad thanksgiving. There must be brighter and happier days in store for us, there must be salvation for man, there must be glory to God, now that we have ‘God with us.’ Let us bask in the beams of the Sun of righteousness, who now has risen upon us, a Light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of his people Israel.

Good Tidings of Great Joy, 38 meditations from Charles Spurgeon on the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, is now available from the Banner of Truth (Clothbound, 176 pages, RP: £10.50).

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I believe that very much of current Arminianism is simply ignorance of gospel doctrine.

C. H. S., Sermons, 11, 29

When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this. I can recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths in my own soul – when they were, as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron, and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown on a sudden from a babe into a man – that I had made progress in Scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God.

C. H. S., The Early Years, p. 164.

It was obvious to Spurgeon, not only by Scripture but by his own experience, that a man – or child – may become a believer with very little knowledge besides the fact that the Son of God has borne his sins in his own body on the tree. What brought him to faith or what brought Christ to Calvary he may not then know – ‘We did not know whether God had converted us, or we had converted ourselves.’¹ He gives us his own testimony on this point: ‘I remember, when I was converted to God, I was an Arminian thoroughly . . . I used sometimes to sit down and think, “Well, I sought the Lord four years before I found him”’² Again in another sermon, preached twenty-eight years after the one last quoted, he says:

I have known some that, at first conversion, have not been very clear in the gospel, who have been made evangelical by their discoveries of their own need of mercy. They could not spell the word ‘grace’. They began with a G, but they very soon went on with an F, till it spelt very like ‘freewill’ before they had done with it. But after they have learned their weakness, after they have fallen into serious fault, and God has restored them, or after they have passed through deep depression of mind, they have sung a new song. In the school of repentance they have learned to spell. They began to write the word ‘free’, but they went on from ‘free’, not to ‘will’ but to ‘grace’, and there it stood in capitals, ‘FREE GRACE’ . . . They became clearer in their divinity, and truer in their faith than ever they were before.³

Recognizing then that wrong doctrine does not necessarily mean false experience, or the unchristianizing of true believers, we return to the question, Why did Spurgeon oppose Arminianism so resolutely? If men can be brought to Christ under preaching which is not distinctly Calvinistic, and if they may be believers without apprehending clearly these doctrines, is this a subject which should ever disturb the peace of the church? Is modern evangelicalism right after all in relegating the whole matter to limbo, and in regarding Arminianism as a kind of theological ghost, which may once have lived and may still drift about on occasions, but which no sensible Christian should waste time contending about? Or, to use the popular distinction, are we not in danger of confusing essentials with non-essentials if we give prominence to these issues? Let us then hear Spurgeon’s justification of his position. Firstly, Spurgeon held that Arminianism does not merely affect a few doctrines which can be separated from the gospel, rather it involves the whole unity of biblical revelation and it affects our view of the whole plan of redemption at almost every point. He regarded ignorance of the full content of the gospel as a major cause of Arminianism, and the errors of that system then prevent men from grasping the whole divine unity of Scriptural truths and from perceiving them in their true relationships and in their right order. Arminianism truncates Scripture and it militates against that wholeness of view which is necessary for the glory of God, the exaltation of Christ and the stability of the believer. Anything which thus inclines Christians to rest short of this fulness of vision is therefore a serious matter which needs to be opposed: ‘I would have you study much the Word of God till you get a clear view of the whole scheme, from election onward to final perseverance, and from final perseverance to the second advent, the resurrection, and the glories which shall follow, world without end.’⁴ Spurgeon never tired of introducing into
his sermons summaries of the breadth and vastness of God’s plan of salvation and yet the glorious unity of all its parts. The following is a typical example from a sermon on Galatians 1:15, entitled ‘It Pleased God’.

‘You will perceive, I think, in these words, that the divine plan of salvation is very clearly laid down. It begins, you see, in the will and pleasure of God: ‘When it pleased God’. The foundation of salvation is not laid in the will of man. It does not begin with man’s obedience, and then proceed onward to the purpose of God; but here is its commencement, here the fountain-head from which the living waters flow: ‘It pleased God’. Next to the sovereign will and good pleasure of God comes the act of separation, commonly known by the name of election. This act is said, in the text, to take place even in the mother’s womb, by which we are taught that it took place before our birth when as yet we could have done nothing whatever to win it or to merit it. God separated us from the earliest part and time of our being; and indeed, long before that, when as yet the mountains and hills were not piled, and the oceans were not formed by his creative power, he had, in his eternal purpose, set us apart for himself. Then, after this act of separation came the effectual calling: ‘and called me by his grace’. The calling does not cause the election; but the election, springing from the divine purpose, causes the calling. The calling comes as a consequence of the divine purpose and the divine separation, and you will note how the obedience follows the calling. So the whole process runs thus, – first the sacred, sovereign purpose of God, then the distinct and definite election or separation, then the effectual and irresistible calling, and then afterwards the obedience unto life, and the sweet fruits of the Spirit which spring therefrom. They do err, not knowing the Scriptures, who put any of these processes before the others, out of Scripture order. They who put man’s will first know not what they say, nor whereof they affirm.’⁵

Arminianism is thus guilty of confusing doctrines and of acting as an obstruction to a clear and lucid grasp of the Scripture; because it misstates or ignores the eternal purpose of God, it dislocates the meaning of the whole plan of redemption. Indeed confusion is inevitable apart from this foundational truth: Without it there is a lack of unity of thought, and generally speaking they have no idea whatever of a system of divinity. It is almost impossible to make a man a theologian unless you begin with this. You may if you please put a young believer to college for years, but unless you shew him this ground-plan of the everlasting covenant, he will make little progress, because his studies do not cohere, he does not see how one truth fits with another, and how all truths must harmonize together. Once let him get a clear idea that salvation is by grace, let him discover the difference between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace; let him clearly understand the meaning of election, as shewing the purpose of God, and its bearing upon other doctrines which shew the accomplishment of that purpose, and from that moment he is on the high road to become an instructive believer. He will always be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in him with meekness and with fear. The proof is palpable. Take any county throughout England, you will find poor men hedging and ditching that have a better knowledge of divinity than one half of those who come from our academies and colleges, for the reason simply and entirely that these men have first learned in their youth the system of which election is a centre, and have afterwards found their own experience exactly square with it. They have built upon that good foundation a temple of holy knowledge, which has made them fathers in the Church of God. Every other scheme is as nothing to build with, they are but wood, hay, and stubble. Pile what you will upon them, and they will fall. They have no system of architecture; they belong to no order of reason or revelation. A disjointed system makes its topstone bigger than its foundation; it makes one part of the covenant to disagree with another; it makes Christ’s mystical body to be of no shape whatever; it gives Christ a bride whom he does not know and does not choose, and it puts him up in the world to be married to anyone who will have him; but he is to have no choice himself. It spoils every figure that is used with reference to Christ and his Church. The good old plan of the doctrine of grace is a system which when once received is seldom given up; when rightly learned, it moulds the thoughts of the heart, and it gives a sacred stamp to the characters of those who have once discovered its power.’⁶

It has frequently been said that Calvinism has no evangelistic message when it comes to the preaching of the Cross – because it cannot say that Christ died for the sins of all men everywhere. But the atonement lay at the centre of all Spurgeon’s preaching and far from thinking that a universal atonement is necessary for evangelism, he held that if the Arminian position were true he would have no real redemption that he could preach, because it would throw the message of the gospel into confusion.

He believed that once preachers cease to set the Cross in the context of the plan of salvation, and once the blood that was shed is not seen to be ‘the blood of the everlasting covenant’, then it is not only the extent of the atonement that is in question but its very nature. On the other hand, if we hold, with Scripture, that Calvary is the fulfilment of that great plan of grace in which the Son of God became the Representative and Head of those who were loved by the Father before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), then at once both the nature and the extent of the atonement are settled. That his death was in its nature substitutionary (Christ bearing the penalty of the sins of others) and that it was suffered on behalf of those towards whom he stood related by an everlasting covenant, are two truths which are essentially connected.⁷ Against these persons, Scripture declares, no charge of sin can be laid, and the gift of Christ for them places beyond doubt the fact that God will also with him freely give them all things (Rom. 8:32–33). This must be so, for the atonement means not only that salvation has been provided from sin as it affects human nature (the bondage and pollution of sin) but, more wonderful, from sin as it renders us guilty and condemned in the sight of God. Christ has borne the divine condemnation, a condemnation which has no meaning unless we hold that it was the judgment due to the sins of persons,⁸ and by his sacrifice he thus meets and removes the wrath due to his people. In his person he has fully satisfied the demands of God’s holiness and law, so that now, on the grounds of justice, the divine favour has been secured for those in whose place the Saviour suffered and died. In other words, the Cross has a Godward reference; it was a propitiatory work through which the Father is pacified and it is on this ground, namely, Christ’s obedience and blood, that all the blessings of salvation flow freely and surely to sinners. This is what is so clearly taught in Romans 3:21, 26. Writing on these verses, Robert Haldane says: ‘God is shown not only to be merciful to forgive, but He is faithful and just to forgive the sinner his sins. Justice has received full payment, and guarantees his deliverance. Even the chief of sinners are shown in the propitiatory sacrifice of their Surety, to be perfectly worthy of Divine love, because they are not only perfectly innocent, but have the righteousness of God. “He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”’⁹ Spurgeon gloried in this truth: ‘He has punished Christ, why should he punish twice for one offence? Christ has died for all his people’s sins, and if thou art in the covenant, thou art one of Christ’s people. Damned thou canst not be. Suffer for thy sins thou canst not. Until God can be unjust, and demand two payments for one debt, he cannot destroy the soul for whom Jesus died.’¹⁰ Evangelical Arminianism preaches a substitutionary atonement and it also clings to a universal redemption, but becauseit knows that this universality is one that does not secure universal salvation it must necessarily weaken the reality of the substitution, and represent it as a more indefinite and impersonal thing¹¹ – a substitution which does not actually redeem but which makes the redemption of all men possible. According to Arminianism, the atonement has no special relation to any individual person and it renders the salvation of no one certain. For this same reason this teaching has also an inevitable tendency to underrate the meaning of propitiation and to obscure the fact that justification comes to sinners solely on account of Christ’s work.¹² It is not faith which makes the atonement efficacious for us, rather the atonement has secured the justification and righteousness of sinners, and even the faith by which we apprehend these blessings is a gift of which Christ is the author and purchaser. So while Arminianism does not deny the nature of the atonement as vicarious, there is always the danger that it may do so, and this is one reason why, in more than one period of history, Arminianism has led to a Modernism which denies substitution and propitiation altogether. Once a blurred and indistinct view of the atonement is accepted in the Church it is more than likely that the next generation will come to the ultimate obscurity of a man like F. W. Robertson of Brighton, of whom it was said, ‘Robertson believed that Christ did something or other, which, somehow or other, had some connection or other with salvation.’ Those who desire to study further the relationship between the doctrines of grace and the atonement will find an extensive examination of the relevant scriptures in John Owen’s work, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (London: Banner of Truth, 1959), and Spurgeon’s position was the same as the great Puritan’s.¹³ Our purpose in raising this particular doctrine in the present context is only to show that Spurgeon regarded it as involving more than a dispute about the extent of redemption. Preaching on ‘Particular Redemption’ in 1858 he said: ‘The doctrine of Redemption is one of the most important doctrines of the system of faith. A mistake on this point will inevitably lead to a mistake through the entire system of our belief.’¹⁴

More than twenty years later this was still his conviction: ‘The grace of God cannot be frustrated, and Jesus Christ died not in vain. These two principles I think lie at the bottom of all sound doctrine. The grace of God cannot be frustrated after all. Its eternal purpose will be fulfilled, its sacrifice and seal shall be effectual; the chosen ones of grace shall be brought to glory.’¹⁵ ‘The Arminian holds that Christ, when he died, did not die with an intent to save any particular person; and they teach that Christ’s death does not in itself secure, beyond doubt, the salvation of any one man living . . . they are obliged to hold that if man’s will would not give way, and voluntarily surrender to grace, then Christ’s atonement would be unavailing . . . We say Christ so died that he infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ’s death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved.’¹⁶ For Spurgeon the error of believing that Christ died equally for all men led to a further remove from the Bible in misleading Gospel hearers on the nature of saving faith:

I have sometimes thought when I have heard addresses from some revival brethren who had kept on saying time after time, ‘Believe, believe, believe,’ that I should like to have known for myself what it was we were to believe in order to our salvation. There is, I fear a great deal of vagueness and crudeness about this matter. I have heard it often asserted that if you believe that Jesus Christ died for you, you will be saved. My dear hearer, do not be deluded by such an idea. You may believe that Jesus Christ died for you, and may believe what is not true; you may believe that which will bring you no sort of good whatever. That is not saving faith. The man who has saving faith afterwards attains to the conviction that Christ died for him, but it is not of the essence of saving faith. Do not get that into your head, or it will ruin you. Do not say, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ died for me,’ and because of that feel that you are saved. I pray you to remember that the genuine faith that saves the soul has for its main element – trust – absolute rest of the whole soul – on the Lord Jesus Christ to save me, whether he died in particular or in special to save me or not, and relying, as I am, wholly and alone on him, I am saved. Afterwards I come to perceive that I have a special interest in the Saviour’s blood; but if I think I have perceived that, before I have believed in Christ, then I have inverted the Scriptural order of things, and I have taken as a fruit of my faith that which is only to be obtained by rights, by the man who absolutely trusts in Christ, and Christ alone, to save.¹⁷

In more succinct language Charles Hodge has also indicated how Arminianism undermines the coherence of the whole Biblical revelation. After stating that the radical divergence between the Arminian and Augustinian systems concerns the doctrine of God’s election of some of the fallen family of men to everlasting life (with the consequent provision of his Son for their redemption and of his Spirit to secure their repentance, faith and holy living unto the end) he continues: Although this may be said to be the turning point between these great systems, which have divided the Church in all ages, yet that point of necessity involves all the other matters of difference; namely, the nature of original sin; the motive of God in providing redemption; the nature and design of the work of Christ; and the nature of divine grace, or the work of the Holy Spirit. Thus, in a great measure, the whole system of theology, and of necessity, the character of our religion, depend upon the view taken of this particular question. It is, therefore, a question of the highest practical importance, and not a matter of idle speculation.¹⁸ A second reason why Spurgeon opposed Arminianism so strongly was that he saw that the spirit of that system leads directly to legality,¹⁹ for while evangelical Arminians deny salvation by works, the tendency of the errors they hold is to elevate the importance of the sinner’s activity and to direct emphasis primarily to the human will and endeavour. This is the logical outcome of a system which regards the human decision as the crucial factor in determining who is saved, and which represents faith as something which every man may call into exercise if he so chooses. A modern evangelist, for example, has written, ‘We do not know Christ through the five physical senses, but we know Him through the sixth sense that God has given to every man – which is the ability to believe.’ If God has given this ability to all men then the turning point must depend on the human response, as clearly not all are saved. This consequence is accepted by Arminianism.

In the words of a contemporary preacher of this view: ‘This love of God, that is immeasurable, unmistakable and unending, this love of God that reaches to whatever a man is, can be entirely rejected. God will not force Himself upon any man against his will . . . But if you really want it, you must believe – you must receive the love of God, you must take it.’ The emphasis is intended to be upon ‘you’, and the impression is unavoidably given that it is only our faith which can save us – as though faith were the cause of salvation. This is the very reverse of Spurgeon’s conception of the spirit of gospel preaching. ‘I could not preach like an Arminian’, he says, and in the following passage he tells us precisely why: What the Arminian wants to do is to arouse man’s activity; what we want to do is to kill it once and for all, to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion; that he must look upward. They seek to make the man stand up; we seek to bring him down, and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God, and that his business is to submit himself to God, and cry aloud, ‘Lord, save, or we perish.’ We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all. When he says, ‘I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, and I can do the other,’ marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow.²⁰ Arminianism, by making the love and salvation of God to turn upon the fulfilment of conditions on the part of the sinner instead of entirely upon grace, encourages an error which cannot be too strongly opposed: ‘Do you not see at once that this is legality,’ says Spurgeon, ‘– that this is hanging our salvation upon our work – that this is making our eternal life to depend on something we do? Nay, the doctrine of justification itself, as preached by an Arminian, is nothing but the doctrine of salvation by works, after all; for he always thinks faith is a work of the creature, and a condition of his acceptance. It is as false to say that man is saved by faith as a work, as that he is saved by the deeds of the Law. We are saved by faith as the gift of God, and as the first token of his eternal favour to us; but it is not faith as our work that saves, otherwise we are saved
by works, and not by grace at all.’²¹ ‘We did not ask him to make the covenant of grace,’ he declares in another sermon, ‘We did not ask him to elect us. We did not ask him to redeem us. These things were done before we were born. We did not ask him to call us by his grace, for alas! we did not know the value of that call, and we were dead in trespasses and sins, but he gave to us freely of his unsought, but boundless love. Prevenient grace came to us, outrunning all our desires, and all our wills, and all our prayers.’²² ‘Does God love me because I love him? Does God love me because my faith is strong? Why, then, he must have loved me because of something good in me, and that is not according to the gospel. The gospel represents the Lord as loving the unworthy and justifying the ungodly, and therefore I must cast out of my mind the idea that divine love depends on human conditions.’²³ Arminianism, because it obscures the glory which belongs solely to the grace of God, comes under apostolic condemnations²⁴ and is therefore an error sufficiently serious for there to be no room for compromising. We may have fellowship with brethren who are under the influence of these errors but in the preaching and teaching of the church there can be no wavering or indistinctness on such an issue. On a personal level, it is the full proclamation of the doctrines of grace which gives the believer the peace so beautifully expressed in Horatius Bonar’s verses:

My love is oft-times low,

My joy still ebbs and flows;

But peace with Him remains the same

– No change Jehovah knows.

I change, He changes not,

The Christ can never die;

His love, not mine, the resting place,

His truth, not mine, the tie.

It was this faith which supported Spurgeon in the periods of sickness and darkness through which he sometimes passed, and he was expressing the feelings of his heart when he said, ‘I can never understand what an Arminian does, when he gets into sickness, sorrow, and affiiction.’²⁵ Nevertheless, C. T. Cook expunges the words in the Kelvedon Edition reprint of the sermon in which the remark occurs.²⁶ It hardly fits modern notions to regard Arminianism as undermining peace of heart, but where else can the believer rest in times of trouble except in the assurance that he is saved, kept and destined for glory solely by the eternal and unchanging grace of God!

On the same subject he gives this testimony in another place:

I would cheerfully give up many doctrines if I believed that they were only party watchwords, and were merely employed for the maintenance of a sect; but those doctrines of grace, those precious doctrines of grace, against which so many contend, I could not renounce or bate a jot of them, because they are the joy and rejoicing of my heart. When one is full of health and vigour, and has everything going well, you might, perhaps, live on the elementary truths of Christianity very comfortably; but in times of stern pressure of spirit, when the soul is much cast down, you want the marrow and the fatness. In times of inward conflict, salvation must be all of grace from first to last.²⁷

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And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out
the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest
the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply
against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from
before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.
—Exod. 23:28-30

SANCTIFICATION, or heavenly meetness, is an initial work in the great process by which God prepares the soul for glory. Justification, that instantaneous act of his free grace by which the soul is brought into a state of divine acceptance, is a present and a complete work. The moment a believing sinner receives Christ and is clothed upon with his imputed righteousness, that moment he is in possession of the divine title-deed to the inheritance of the saints in light. Thus, justification, because it is an imputed, and sanctification, because it is an imparted act, though cognate doctrines, are distinct works and must not be considered as identical, as the Roman Catholics and many Protestants have done. By one act of faith in Christ we are justified; but it is by a gradual work of the Spirit that we are sanctified. It is a solemn declaration, ‘Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord’ (Heb. 12:14). There is no vision of God either present or future, save through the medium of holiness. A holy God can only be seen with an enlightened and sanctified eye. The spiritual vision must be ‘anointed with eyesalve’. The divine Oculist must couch the moral cataract, must remove the film of sin, ignorance, and prejudice from the mental eye, ere one ray of divine holiness can dart in upon the retina of the soul. As one born blind cannot see the sun, so the soul morally blind cannot see God. Therefore our Lord said to Nicodemus, ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’ (John 3:3). He cannot see it, because he is not a subject of the new and second birth. We have remarked that this work of holiness is initiatory, and therefore not complete. It is real, but progressive; certain, but gradual; and although in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, God can fit the believer for heaven, it yet goes forward little and by little until it reaches the culminating point, and then the door of glory opens and receives to its bosom the soul fitted for its purity and bliss.

In supplying the reader with a few helps heavenward, we plant his feet upon one of the lowest rungs of the ladder, when we, at this early stage of our subject, direct his thoughts to progressive meetness for heaven. And we the more advisedly and earnestly do this because of the crude and imperfect views of heavenliness which many, especially young Christians, entertain, and in consequence of which are involved in much legality of mind and distress of soul. We have selected, as illustrating this important doctrine, an incident in the early settlement of the Israelites in Canaan. It was God’s arrangement that they should colonize the land amidst its many and idolatrous inhabitants; who, so far from sympathizing with their habits and worship, presented an antagonistic and formidable aspect: so that, while it was a land of rest and affluence, it was yet a scene of perpetual invasion and conflict, demanding on their part the watchful eye and the furbished weapon. Now the God who planted them in the promised land could as easily have exterminated their foes; but not so, for reasons which his wisdom would dictate and which his goodness would justify, he permitted the inhabitants to continue in possession, until, by a process gradual and progressive, Canaan should be decimated of its idolatrous population, and his own people should go up into its length and breadth and fully possess the land which the Lord their God gave them. ‘By little and little I will drive them out from before you’ (Exod. 23:30). How strikingly are the two cognate yet distinct doctrines of the glorious gospel—justification and sanctification—illustrated here. The planting of the children of Israel in Canaan illustrates the present justification of the Church of God; their protracted conquest of the land illustrates the gradual subjugation of the believer’s sinfulness to the supremacy of holiness, or, in other words, his progressive meetness for heaven.

Now let us trace more fully the analogy between this part of Israel’s history, and the spiritual experience of the Church of God and of every individual member of that Church. Oh that the divine Spirit may be our Teacher, his grace our anointing, Christ the first, the centre, and the last, and our advanced meetness for heaven the personal and happy result of our meditation upon this sacred truth! And if, child of God, heaven shall be brought nearer to your soul and your soul’s meetness for heaven be promoted, we shall thank our heavenly Father for this advanced step; and, strengthened and cheered, we shall seek another and yet another, and so ascend, until, reaching the highest rung, we find ourselves in heaven.

Canaan was a land of rest: it was that good land in which the Israelites were to terminate their long and wearisome march in sweet and delightsome repose. The moment a poor believing soul is brought to Jesus, he is brought to rest. ‘We which have believed do enter into rest’ (Heb. 4:3). The instant that he crosses the border that separates the covenant of works from the covenant of grace, the moment that he emerges from the wilderness of his doings and toil—his going about to establish a righteousness of his own—and enters believingly into Christ, he is at rest. The true Joshua has brought him into Canaan, has brought him to himself; and his long travelling, weary soul is at peace with God through Christ. ‘For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his’ (Heb. 4:10). Behold the rest! It is Jesus. His finished work, his blood and righteousness, his law-fulfilling obedience, and his justice-satisfying death, give perfect rest from guilt and condemnation and sorrow to him that simply enters, though it be but a border-touch of faith, into Jesus.

Oh, art thou a sin-burdened, a wilderness-wearied soul? Art thou seeking rest in the law, in convictions of sin, in pious duties, in churches and sacraments? Each one exclaims, ‘It is not in me!’ Turn from these, and bend your listening ear to the gentle voice of your gracious Saviour, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matt. 11:28). What wondrous words are these! Tell me not that you are too sinful and unworthy to come; that you are too vile to lay your head upon that sacred bosom; too guilty to bathe in that cleansing stream; too poor to clothe you in that divine righteousness. I reply, Jesus bids you come. Can you, dare you refuse? The instant that you cease to labour, and enter believingly, savingly into Christ, that instant you are safe within the City of Refuge, beyond the reach of sin, and condemnation, and the law’s curse, and the uplifted arm of the avenger of blood. ‘Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom. 5:1). Note the present tense here: we have peace.

But notwithstanding this perfect state of pardon, justification, and rest, into which the believing soul is brought, is sin utterly and totally extirpated from his bosom? In other words, because forgiveness is complete and acceptance is complete, is sanctification complete? Far from it, beloved. It is a good land and a wealthy, a land of peace and rest, into which grace has led us, but it is, nevertheless, a land besieged by foes—for the Canaanites still dwell therein— and of consequent warfare. The believer has to fight his way to heaven. In the soul, in the centre of the very heart where perfect rest and peace are experienced, there dwell innate and powerful corruptions, ever invading our peaceful possessions, seeking to disturb our repose and to bring us into subjection. ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Rom. 7:24)

Observe, too, these inhabitants of the land interposed a powerful barrier between the Israelites and their full possession. They were at best but borderers. They had indeed passed the confines of the desert and pressed the soil of the promised land, but how small a portion of the vast territory did they as yet occupy! Far beyond them, stretching in luxuriant beauty, were vine-clad hills, and flowing rivers, acres of wheat and barley and pomegranates, fountains and depths that spring out of valleys which they had not as yet explored.

Is not this a picture of our spiritual state? How much interposes between us and our spiritual possessions! What keeps us from the ‘abundant entrance’ into the kingdom of grace, but our ever-present and ever sleepless enemy, unbelief? What prevents a more full and cordial acceptance of the righteousness of Christ, but a constant dealing with our own unrighteousness? What keeps us from enjoying more of heaven upon earth, but the too-absorbing influence of the world? What causes us to live so far below the privilege of our high vocation, dwarfs our Christianity, lowers our profession, shades the lustre and impairs the vigour of our holy religion, but the depravity, the corruption, the sin that dwells in us? These are the spiritual Canaanites which prevent our going up to possess the good land in its length and breadth. What an evidence this is, that though our Lord Jesus has put us into a state of present and complete acceptance, we have not as yet attained unto a state of perfect and future holiness—the Canaanites still dwell in the land! We are called to ‘fight the good fight of faith’ (1 Tim. 6:12). Not only do we war with flesh and blood, but we wrestle ‘against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places’ (Eph. 6:12).

But why should this thwart our advance? Why should the existence and ever-threatening attitude of our foes prevent us from living upon a full Christ, a present Christ, a loving Christ, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment? Clad in our invincible armour, why should we not carve our way through the serried ranks of our foes and penetrate into the heart of Canaan, pluck thence the grapes, gather the honey, drink of the fountains, and explore the hidden things which God has treasured for us in the covenant of grace, in the fulness of our Surety Head, in the infinite greatness of his own love, and in the unsearchable riches of his gospel, his revealed truth? Oh, how much of the good land remains yet to be possessed! Truly, ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him’ (1 Cor. 2:9). Well might the grateful psalmist exclaim, and each believer in Jesus respond, ‘O how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee’ (Psa. 31:19)!

There is one view of this truth exceedingly helpful to Zion’s travellers; we refer to the fact that God is never unmindful of the trying and critical position of his people, dwelling in the midst of their enemies, and their enemies dwelling in the midst of them. He knows all your corruptions, your infirmities, your besetting sin, weakness, and frailty. He has, too, his unslumbering eye upon all the stratagems and assaults of Satan, never for an instant losing sight of or ceasing to control and check this subtle and sleepless foe. Never does thy Lord forget that the body he has redeemed is yet a ‘body of sin and death’ and that the soul he has ransomed with his most precious blood is still the seat of principles, passions, and thoughts inimical to its perfect holiness and ever seeking to subjugate it to the body. Did not Jesus recognize this truth when he said to his disciples, ‘Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves’ (Matt. 10:16)? What expressive words! Sheep in the midst of wolves! Who can save them? The Shepherd who gave his life for them, the ‘Lion of the tribe of Judah’—he will keep, shield, and preserve them. Oh, take the encouragement and comfort which this truth gives, that your Lord knows your exposure to and your conflict with the enemies of the land! You have on your side, allied with you in this spiritual warfare, his loving heart, his watchful eye, his outstretched arm, and all his legions of angels sent forth to encircle you with chariots of fire. Ah! the world may taunt you with your infirmities, the saints may chide you for your haltings, your own heart may condemn you for its secret declensions, but God, your Father, is very sympathetic and remembers that you are dust; and Jesus, your Advocate, is very compassionate and prays for you within the veil. The saints judge, the world censures, the heart is self-abased; but Christ says, ‘Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more’ (John 8:11).

But we have the promise of conquest. God assured the Israelites that he would drive out the Canaanites from before them. Have we an assurance less emphatic or a hope less joyous? What is the promise of this, which appears one of the brightest constellations in the glorious galaxy of the ‘exceeding great and precious promises’ of God (2 Pet. 1:4)? It is, ‘He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all our sins into the depths of the sea’ (Mic. 7:19). What a largess, what an accumulation of blessings, what blest encouragement and heart-cheer to the downcast traveller! ‘He will turn again.’ Again! He has turned his loving eye, his outstretched hand, a thousand times over; what! will he ‘turn again’? After all my baseness and ingratitude; my sins without confession; my confession without repentance; my repentance without forsaking; my forsakings so reluctant, so partial, and so short—what! will he turn to me again, bend upon me once more that loving eye, that forgiving look, that dissolves my heart at his feet? Oh, who is a God like unto thee? And when he turns again, what will he do? He will drive out the Canaanites from before us. In other words, ‘He will subdue our iniquities’. What encouragement this is to fall down at his feet—the feet that never spurned a humble suppliant—and cry with his people of old, ‘Lord, we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee’ (2 Chron. 20:12). With such faith and such an appeal, what sin will not God pardon, what iniquity will not Christ subdue, against what confederate host will not the Spirit of the Lord lift up a standard?

But let us not mistake our true position in this holy contest. It is both aggressive and defensive. The children of Israel were not to allow the inhabitants of the land to remain intact. They were to go up armed and drive back the foe. Thus is it with us. When our Lord, the ‘Prince of peace’, commanded, ‘He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one’ (Luke 22:36), he doubtless intended that as significant for the spiritual conflict in which they were to be engaged; for the temporal sword he never authorized in defence or propagation of his truth. We are to be aggressive upon the territory of sin and of error, of ignorance and of the world. To these confederate hosts— the Canaanites of the church—we are to present a bold, united, antagonistic front. The Bible nowhere ignores, but on the contrary, everywhere recognizes, the individual responsibility of the Christian. What means the exhortation, ‘Put on the whole armour of God’ (Eph. 6:11)? What means the injunction, ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling’ (Phil. 2:12)? What but that, dwelling in an enemy’s land—the Canaanite, and the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, all combined against us—we are to ‘resist unto blood, striving against sin’, and ‘to fight the good fight of faith’, to ‘keep the body under, and bring it into subjection’, to ‘overcome the world’, to ‘resist the devil’, to ‘keep ourselves in the love of God’ and ‘having done all, to stand’ with girded loins, waiting and watching for the coming of our Captain. O child of God, be not cast down and discouraged in this holy war! The Lord, he it is that fights for you. By prayer, by vigilance, by the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, by keeping out of temptation, by doubling the picket where you are the most exposed to the invasion of the foe, above all, by bearing your conflicts to Christ, linking your weakness with his strength, your infirmity with his grace, the erring of your heart, the faltering of your feet, the hidden conflict of your mind and will with evil, to his most tender, most reasonable, most forgiving love; thus will he teach your hands to war and your fingers to fight, and thus shall you exclaim, ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me’ (Phil. 4:13).

We have arrived now at a deeply interesting and instructive part of this chapter, the progressive meetness of the believer for heaven. ‘By little and little I will drive them out from before thee’. If it so pleased him, God could as instantaneously mature our sanctification as he perfects our justification. By one stroke of his arm he could have extirpated the idolatrous inhabitants of Canaan and have caused his flock to lie down in quiet places. But it was his wisdom, love, and glory that they should be driven out ‘by little and little’. We must resolve the circumstance of God’s permissive will touching the indwelling of sin in the believer into the same view of his character. His wisdom appoints it; his will permits it; his love controls it. Where would be the display of his grace and power in the soul as it is now exhibited in the daily life of a child of God, but for the existence of a nature partially sanctified? How little should we learn of the mysteries of the life of faith, how imperfectly skilled in the heavenly war, how stagnant the well of living water within us, how dwarfed and paralyzed every grace of the soul, how partial our knowledge of God, how little our acquaintance with Christ, how small a measure of the indwelling power of the Holy Ghost, how little holy wrestling with the Angel of the Covenant, how faint the incense of prayer, and how distant and dim an object to our spiritual vision the cross of Christ, but for the gradual subduing of our iniquities, the driving from before us ‘by little and little’ our corruptions, the progressive advance of the soul in its holy, sanctified meetness for heaven!

Yes, it is ‘by little and little’ this holy work is done. Here the power of sin is weakened, there the spell of a temptation is broken; here an advancing foe is foiled, there a deep-laid plot is discovered; and thus ‘by little and little’, by a gradual process, aggressive and defensive, of spiritual encounter and extermination, the spiritual Canaanites are subdued and the soul becomes ‘meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light’ (Col. 1:12).

The subject presented in this chapter is replete with instruction, encouragement, and help heavenward. Many of the Lord’s people are looking for the full, the complete sanctification which the Lord has not appointed here and which is only attained when the last bond of corruption is severed. The more deeply the children of Israel explored the good land, the more intelligently and experimentally they became acquainted with the number and power of their enemies. Thus it is we are taught. Ignorance of our own heart, a false idea of the strength of our corruption, a blind, undue estimate of the number and tact of our indwelling sins, is not favourable to our growth in holiness. But the Holy Spirit leads us deeper and deeper into self-knowledge, shows us more and more of the hidden evil, unveils by little and little the chamber of imagery, teaches us ‘line upon line; here a little, and there a little’ (Isa. 28:10); and thus, by a gradual and progressive process, we are made meet for glory.

Are you, beloved reader, like the children of Israel, conscious of impoverishment by the marauding incursions of the enemy? Then, do as they did, cry unto the Lord. Thus we read, ‘And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord’ (Judg. 6:6). Oh, besiege the throne of grace, and your foes shall be driven back! Cry mightily unto Jesus, your Commander and Leader, the Captain of your salvation, and he will defeat their plots and deliver you from their power. Tell him that you hate sin and loathe yourselves because of its existence and taint. Tell him you long to be holy, pant to be delivered from the last remnant of corruption, and that the heavenly voice that bids you unclasp your wings and soar to a world of perfect purity will be the sweetest and the dearest that ever chimed upon your ear. O blessed moment! With what splendour has the hand of prophecy portrayed it before the eye: ‘In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness unto the Lord; and the pots in the Lord’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts: and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein: and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts’ (Zech. 14:20-21).

O blessed day when all false doctrine, and all superstitious worship, and all indwelling sin, and all worldly temptation, and all self-seeking, and iniquity of every name, and sorrow of every form, shall be utterly exterminated, and holiness to the Lord shall hallow every enjoyment and consecrate every thing, and enshrine every being! Speed, oh speed the day, blessed Redeemer, when every throb of my heart, and every faculty of my mind, and every power of my soul and every aspiration of my lips, and every glance of my eye, yea, every thought and word and deed, shall be holiness to the Lord! Oh, precious day of God, when will it arrive?

Shall the lover of Jesus be indeed delivered from all false pastors, all corrupt worship, and the Lord have turned to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent? Shall my soul indeed be freed, not only from all the sorrows, pains, evils, and afflictions of sin around me, but, what is infinitely better than all, from the very being and indwelling of sin within me? Shall the fountain of corruption, both of original and actual sin, be dried up, so that I shall never think a vain thought, nor speak an idle, sinful word any more? Is there such a day in which the Canaanites shall be wholly driven out? Oh, blessed, precious, precious promise! Oh, dearest Jesus, to what a blessed state hast thou begotten poor sinners of the earth by thy blood and righteousness! Hasten it, Lord. Cut short thy work, thou that art mighty to save, and take thy willing captive home from myself, and all the remaining Canaanites yet in the land, which are the very tyrants of my soul. Welcome, oh welcome, beloved, every circumstance, every dispensation, every trial that speeds you homeward and matures your soul for the heaven of glory Christ has gone to prepare for you! It is ‘by little and by little’, not all at once, that believers fight the battle and obtain the victory: ‘They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God’ (Psa. 84:7). Your path to glory shall be as the light, shining with ever-growing, ever-deepening, ever-brightening lustre of truth, grace, and holiness, until you find yourself lost amidst the splendours of a perfect and eternal day! Onward, traveller, onward! From an earthly, you are passing to a heavenly Canaan, in which no foe enters and from which no friend departs, where eternity will be prolonged, as time began, in a paradise of perfect purity and love, amidst whose verdant bowers lurks no subtle serpent and along whose sylvan windings treads no ensnaring Eve. Shudder not to pass the Jordan that divides the earthly from the heavenly Canaan. The Ark of the Covenant will go before you, upborne upon the shoulder of your great High Priest, cleaving the waters as you pass and conducting you, gently, softly, and triumphantly, home to God.

I saw an aged pilgrim,
Whose toilsome march was o’er,
With slow and painful footstep
Approaching Jordan’s shore:
He first his dusty vestment
And sandals cast aside,
Then, with an air of transport,
Enter’d the swelling tide.

I thought to see him shudder,
As cold the waters rose,
And fear’d lest o’er him, surging,
The murky stream should close;
But calmly and unshrinking,
The billowy path he trod,
And cheer’d with Jesus’ presence,
Pass’d o’er the raging flood.

On yonder shore to greet him,
I saw a shining throng;
Some just begun their praising,
Some had been praising long;
With joy they bade him welcome,
And struck their harps again,
While through the heavenly arches
Peal’d the triumphal strain.

Now in a robe of glory,
And with a starry crown,
I see the weary pilgrim
With kings and priests sit down;
With prophets, patriarchs, martyrs,
And saints, a countless throng,
He chants his great deliverance,
In never-ceasing song.
—Anonymous

Featured Photo by Earl Wilcox on Unsplash

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JOHN OWEN was born in 1616 and died in 1683. During the course of his life he held pastorates in Fordham and Coggeshall, in Essex, served as vice-chancellor of Oxford University, as army chaplain under Oliver Cromwell, and finally as the minister of a gathered congregation in the city of London. Little is known of his inner life, and biographers have never found it easy to reconstruct the details of his spiritual pilgrimage. It might seem remarkable, therefore, that his works, covering many thousands of closely argued pages, should be kept in print four hundred years after his birth. Owen himself would have been the first to express amazement that so long after his death God’s people should continue to discover the value and significance of his writings. The only possible explanation and justification for this state of affairs is that Owen was one of the foremost, perhaps the foremost, theologian England has ever produced. That is not simply the view of an enthusiast. It was recognized by Owen’s contemporaries, friends and foes alike, and it has been frequently recognized since. From Thomas Boston, the scholar-pastor of Ettrick, telling us in characteristic manner that he was ‘helped by Owen on the Spirit’;¹ to a leading modern missiologist describing him as ‘perhaps the greatest British theologian of all time’ and ‘the greatest of Independent theologians’², testimonies to his significance abound.

It is unquestionably for this reason that Owen’s works ought to be purchased and read. But it is probably true that many find the first of these obligations (purchasing volumes of Owen) easier to fulfil than the second (reading what Owen wrote). There are doubtless many bookcases in the English-speaking world lined with several volumes in their distinctive white and green jackets whose owners would freely confess that they have read too little of the contents, and frankly find Owen very heavy-going. Let it be said that this situation is eminently understandable, and all those who have read Owen will sympathize with others who feel that the initial stages of reading him may be more of a burden than a pleasure. When such eminent Christian men and lovers of Puritan writings as Dr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Dr J. I. Packer have written respectively, ‘John Owen on the whole is difficult to read’,³ and ‘There is no denying that Owen is heavy and hard to read’,⁴ lesser mortals may be excused for thinking that such a task is really beyond their capacities. But this need not be the case, if we approach his writings wisely and intelligently. Owen did not write simply for fellow scholars (although he knew how to do that), but for fellow Christians. His preaching, apparently, was both understandable and eminently helpful, and it would probably be the opinion of those who have found his teaching conducive to spiritual growth, that much of what he wrote is well within the capacity of the serious Christian of average intelligence. While it is a fact that Owen is not universally easy to read, it is also true that he is not universally difficult to read. We may need some convincing on this point, and it is the function of these paragraphs to attempt to do that, and in measure provide a key which will help to open up the treasures that seem to be locked up behind the heavy door of Owen’s length and style of writing. The fact is that Owen wrote some books which nowadays would appear as paperbacks, and it is possible to be introduced to him without having to plough through endless subdivisions of material and references to long-dead and almost equally long-forgotten theologians.

Assuming that one possesses some or all (or intends to purchase!) the republished volumes of Owen, what steps can be taken to reap the benefit of such an investment? The first step is to employ the three tools which W. H. Goold, the editor, helpfully supplied, namely:

(1) The division of the works into Doctrinal (volumes I-V), Practical (volumes VI-IX), Controversial (volumes X-XVI) and Exegetical (volumes XVII-XXIII, the Commentary on Hebrews) sections. These divisions give us a fundamental grasp of the nature and intention of each work.

(2) The introductions to each of the books supplied by Goold, some of which contain outlines and information on the work within very brief compass. It is possible, at least in theory, to have a kind of working knowledge of where Owen will lead you even before you begin the journey. That can serve a very useful function, and it is in fact the raison d’être of the introductions.

(3) The indices found at the end of volumes XVI and XXIII, and particularly those on subject matter and Scripture passages. These can be used as a map to Owen’s theology in general, and a guide to the exposition of a particular passage or theme. They have a special value for occasional study or reading and preparation. These three tools will help us to get the ‘feel’ of Owen’s thought before we turn to read him, and a few mornings or evenings spent using them may preserve us from rushing headlong into a volume which we find too long and difficult, and on which we labour to no profit.

But then we will want to read something by Owen himself! The adventure of discovering his rich ministry of God’s word and his penetrating knowledge of the human heart can be begun with confidence if we know what pieces are valuable to read as introductions, and then, in general terms, what sections of his works we can turn to in the expectation of receiving help and instruction. With Owen it is probably wise to begin with a work that can be read at one or two sittings, and within a matter of hours. The sense of achievement in doing so, and the thrill of discovering how clearly the teaching speaks to our needs, is something not to be discounted or despised. Once we realize he is not always heavy reading we will want to read on. Depending on personal circumstances, present needs and interests, there are a number of useful starting places.

Sermons

Some readers will find it helpful to begin with a sermon from the collections in volumes VIII, IX, XV, and XVI—and if this is the case, the practical and pastoral sermons in volume IX can be highly recommended, perhaps more so than the statesmanlike addresses in volume VIII. But even in this latter volume, where some of the sermons run to thirty or forty pages, those with an historical interest will find much that is helpful and thought-provoking. Sermon 3, for example, on Jeremiah 15:19-20, was preached the day after the execution of Charles I. It is interesting to reflect on what one might have said oneself if summoned to preach before Parliament on such an occasion, as Owen was! Sermon 4, on Romans 4:20, was preached in connection with his visit to Ireland as an army chaplain, and in it he expresses the desire that the Irish might have peace, and ‘might enjoy Ireland as long as the moon endureth, so that Jesus Christ might possess the Irish’.⁵ Sermon 5 is the one which led to Owen’s first introduction to Cromwell, while sermon 6 was preached in 1650 in Edinburgh and Berwick after the Battle of Dunbar, when the fear-filled Scottish preachers refused to occupy their own pulpits. Volume IX, on the other hand, contains sermons on worship (sermons 3 and 4); spiritual barrenness (14 and 15); the withdrawing of God’s presence (24) and dying daily (27-29). Christian ministers will find much help in a sermon on Christ’s pastoral care (22), and also series of sermons on the ministry and on the Lord’s Supper in the same volume.

Cases of conscience

In volume IX we also find fine examples of a form of teaching and ministry unfamiliar to some readers, but in which all Christians will find great help and blessing. Owen deals with fourteen cases of conscience—for example: What sense of sin and guilt is needed to cause men to look to Christ as Saviour? What are the most certain evidences of conversion? How do we recover from spiritual decline? How should we prepare for the coming of Christ?—all of which speak for themselves as subjects of great personal and pastoral importance. Each is discussed within the scope of a few pages. The study of these in private, or in small groups, would surely have helpful repercussions in any Christian fellowship.

Short books

Others may prefer to begin by reading a whole book, and there are several which can be read without undue weariness to the mind—although it is always wise to read with paper and pencil at hand. Owen’s divisions can be perplexing (Goold tells us in volume I, p. xiv, that they are denoted by the numerals I, 1, (1), [1], first and first!), and readers will note with some amusement and even relief that the editor indicates in some footnotes that Owen seems to have lost the place. Needless to say such places are few and far between!

The works on temptation and mortification, in volume 6, come within this general category of short works, although both are of outstanding value and probably unsurpassed in their treatment of these respective themes of Christian experience. Each work is less than ninety pages in length. No doubt some difficult passages may be encountered even here, but if so J. I. Packer’s suggestion still holds good, that ‘the hard places in Owen usually come out as soon as one reads them out loud’.⁶ Alternative books might be The True Nature of a Gospel Church, in volume XVI, or The Duty of Pastors and People Distinguished, in volume XIII. It need hardly be said that such reading should be an exercise in prayerfulness as well as thoughtfulness, for it will be recognized that, however unusual it may be for Christians to read this kind of literature, there can still be a certain carnal kudos in having done so. Owen’s teaching should be read with the same spirit of humility we would commend to those who listen to the regular ministry of the word, since we are but servants looking to the Master’s hand for mercy and for grace to help in times of need.

Spreading our wings

When we have come thus far, we will want to spread our wings a little, and turn to works of special interest, or that deal with some aspect of Christian living in which we sense our need for further instruction. Owen covers a very wide range of themes, as we would expect: The doctrine of God and the Trinity is discussed in volume 2, where, in A Brief Declaration and Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, Owen gave a matter of hours to provide ordinary Christians with a reliable guide to the teaching of Scripture. Earlier in the same volume may be found his work Of Communion with the Trinity. In this he describes the particular fellowship which the believer enjoys with each person of the Trinity, and thus opens up what may be a fresh avenue of thought for many readers. The section on communion with Christ contains a quite comprehensive, if incomplete, allegorical exposition of the Song of Solomon, with many valuable and spiritual insights. Owen takes the main characters to represent Christ and the believer (sometimes the church); the daughters of Jerusalem represent ‘all sorts of professors’; the watchmen are the office-bearers, and the city is the visible church. Even those who do not share Owen’s allegorical view can find benefit in his comments. The Person and Work of Christ is covered in volume 1 and elsewhere. Owen’s Christologia, esteemed by the elder Thomas M‘Crie to be second only to Calvin’s Institutes, is of great value, as is his exposition of John 17:24, on The Glory of Christ. The nature and extent of the atonement is dealt with in what is currently Owen’s best-known work, in volume 10, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ—written when he was only thirty.

While historical circumstances have drawn attention to this last area of his thought, it would be true to say of Owen (as Warfield claimed of Calvin) that he was pre-eminently a theologian of the Holy Spirit. It is clear both from his own statements and the extent of his writing on the theme, that The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit, expounded in volumes 3 and 4, and in nine books, lay very close to his heart. It probably remains, in Goold’s words, ‘The most complete exhibition of the doctrine of Scripture on the person and agency of the Holy Spirit to be found in any language’. It is still claimed that the Reformers and Puritans gave little attention to the Holy Spirit, and many critics have indicated that the Westminster Confession of Faith lacks any separate treatment of the doctrine. It is, however, muddle-headed to suggest that the Spirit has been restored from a position of oblivion as ‘the forgotten person of the Godhead’ only in the present century. Owen’s work was but one of a number of massive treatments of the Spirit in seventeenth century writings. Its contemporary value is out of all proportion to the investment any Christian might make in obtaining volumes III and IV. Owen provides basic teaching on the Spirit and guides the reader through his work, in the old creation, in the person and work of Christ and his witness to him, in his work in regeneration and conversion, and then in sanctification and holiness. His work in the inspiration of Scripture, as the Comforter, in prayer, and in the exercise of spiritual gifts are all treated at length. Here is wholesome and edifying food for every Christian, and the kind of help and stimulus which serves as a handmaid to the pastor and teacher in public ministry and private counselling. Indeed some may well find that the time spent becoming familiar with the contents of these two volumes will often be repaid by the time saved and the help given to believers in need of counsel simply by commending the reading of some short section which meets their need. In this connection the short works on Temptation and Mortification should also be mentioned as well as the Cases of Conscience. These prepare the way for the teaching in volume VII on The Dominion of Sin and Grace, and The Nature and Power of Indwelling Sin, and also for the encouragement of the treatment of forgiveness and assurance from Psalm 130, in volume VI. Students of later expositions of the Reformed doctrine of sanctification may possibly sense a lack of clarity here and there in Owen’s definitions of expressions such as ‘the old man’ (Rom. 6:6), but this does not greatly impair the value of the work, and there are probably few more realistic and pastoral treatments of these themes available today. All in all, it is doubtful whether a young minister could adopt a better study plan than, after working through Calvin’s Institutes, to turn to volumes III and IV, and VI and VII in Owen’s Works.

Attention ought also to be drawn to the treatment of Justification in volume V. This provides not only a rich exposition of a central biblical doctrine, but also a healthy corrective to aberrations that have recurred at various times since Owen’s day, including our own. In volumes IV and XVI Owen briefly gives his understanding of the inspiration and authority of Scripture, and affirms the necessity of faith in it as ‘divine, supernatural and infallible’ because based upon the testimony of God himself. The reading of volume XI might seem to demand the grace it expounds—Perseverance. It is virtually an extended review of the Arminian teaching found in John Goodwin’s Redemption Redeemed. Even so, Owen admits that his six hundred-plus pages only deal with a part of Goodwin’s book! It was against this same work of Goodwin’s that Robert Baillie, a member of the Westminster Assembly and later Principal of Glasgow University, wrote his Scottish Antidote against the English Infection of Arminianism! Despite Owen’s prolixity there is much valuable exposition here for those with the time and will to find it. It should be said, however, that this is probably not the gate for any young or new reader to enter the city of Oweniana!

Extensive treatment is given to the doctrine of the Church in volumes XIII-XVI, where material sometimes overlaps. From a number of important books here perhaps The Duty of Pastors and People Distinguished (written when Owen was still Presbyterian), Eshcol (scriptural rules for church fellowship), both in volume XIII, and The True Nature of a Gospel Church, in volume XVI, may be singled out as specially helpful. Readers who belong to the more or less ‘established’ churches will find that the careful perusal of these writings will enable them to understand the mind and stance of ‘independent’ churches in greater measure, and indeed in a heart-searching fashion. The study and discussion of works like these, along with Owen’s Union among Protestants, in volume XIV, might do much towards a mutual understanding and sympathy amongst evangelical people today.

Attention has already been drawn to Owen’s works on the ministry, but mention should also be made of his sermons on The Lord’s Supper. Volume IX contains twenty-five of these, including five on 1 Corinthians 11:23ff., and volume XVI has three more, published long after Owen’s death, but attributed to him on internal grounds. As with other extant sermons preached by Owen at the Lord’s Supper, they indicate that he frequently administered the Supper midweek rather than only on the Lord’s day. In these short pieces he draws attention to some of the distinctive features of the Lord’s Supper, in the way the believer’s concentration is drawn to Christ’s body as sacrificed and his blood as shed rather than to the person or presence of Christ in more general terms. He also shows that in the Supper it is not the Father or the Spirit, but Christ himself who invites us to come to him in faith. Volume XVI also contains an interesting treatment Of Infant Baptism and Dipping, both of which Owen discusses in the course of a dozen pages.

Finally, the massive Commentary on Hebrews in seven volumes ought to be mentioned. Owen had a special love for Hebrews and this work lay close to his heart. It is marked by great erudition balanced by spiritual insight and theological and practical wisdom. A number of lengthy essays preface the whole work, of which those on The Sacerdotal Office of Christ, and the Day of Sacred Rest (both in volume XIX) may be singled out as of special value. The words of Thomas Chalmers are adequate commendation of the Hebrews commentary: ‘We regard it—as Owen himself did—as his “greatest work”: A work of gigantic strength as well as gigantic size; and he who hath mastered it is very little short, both in respect to the doctrinal and practical of Christianity, of being an erudite and accomplished theologian.’⁷

Concluding thoughts

These, then, are some of the riches of Owen’s Works.⁸ They contain the fruit of a lifetime’s study of Scripture, and the reader will often find himself thinking that Owen weighed up almost every possible nuance of meaning and application of every verse of the Bible. As with others, it is in his almost incidental use of a verse or passage that the fruit of long and deep meditation comes to the surface. That can be overwhelming and almost depressing, but it will be an encouragement as well as a rebuke to us as we read. What is important, however, is not to read much but to profit much. That is why regular and regulated study is of value, and leads to a developing ability to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the great spiritual lessons Owen expounds. To pastors and teachers there will be a certain value in using the whole set of the Works as a constant companion and help, using the Owen corpus as a library of pastoral theology. To others the greatest help may come from the specifically practical or doctrinal volumes. But, as W. H. Goold once wrote, all Owen’s work is marked by the spiritual application of divine truth to human character generally, and to the experience of the saints in particular. It is this experimental dimension in all Owen’s teaching that is of universal and permanent value, and brings us nearer to the great goal of his ministry, which was, quite simply, to help his fellow Christians to live according to Scripture.

Footnotes:

¹ Memoirs of Thomas Boston, ed. G. H. Morrison (Edinburgh, 1899), p. 301.

² A. F. Walls, A Guide to Christian Reading (London: Tyndale Press, 1962), pp. 89, 105.

³ D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers (London: Hodder and Stoughton,
1971), p. 175.

⁴ J. I. Packer, Introductory Essay to John Owen, The Death of Death (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1959), p. 25.

⁵Works, VIII:235.

⁶ J. I. Packer, Introductory Essay to The Death of Death, p. 25.

⁷ Quoted in Works, XVII:xi.

⁸ A version of the Latin material published in the original Goold edition has now been published as Biblical Theology: The History of Theology from Adam to Christ, edited by Stephen J. Westcott (Pittsburgh: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1994).

Buy Sinclair Ferguson’s book Some Pastors and Teachers: Reflecting a Biblical Vision of What Every Minister is Called to Be, from which the extract above has been taken.

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The covenant into which we enter through faith in Christ is an everlasting covenant, in that it is rooted in the eternal purposes of God the Father, and extends to the eternal enjoyment of the believer. Our appreciation of Owen’s concept of the Christian life would be diminished without some kind of consideration of his view of the Christian’s destiny, and the effect of this on the manner in which he lives and dies in the faith of Christ.

Owen wrote comparatively little on the future prospects of the church in this world. He shared with other Puritan writers the hope that the Jews would be converted, and that this, according to the teaching of Paul in Romans would lead to a world-wide period of expansion and blessing.’ But he emphatically rejected any chiliastic interpretation of the kingdom of God, regarding all such views as little more than a ‘dream’. Owen attributed the rise of this view in the Fifth Monarchy men to the influence of Joseph Mede, and set his face against it. The Christian’s best hope, therefore, must lie beyond this world in the next, when he will be with Christ in glory.

In this life, the believer knows Christ as in a mirror, seeing only his likeness and image, as he appears, like the Shepherd-Lover of Canticles, through the lattices of the ordinances of the gospel. But in glory the barriers of sin and the limitations of earthly experience will be broken down, and believers will be changed into his likeness. This final transformation and last crisis which brings the Christian from sanctification to glorification, involves a number of aspects which Owen outlines.

Firstly, the mind will be freed from all its natural darkness, through sin, and its incapacity through present creaturehood characterized by fleshly existence.

Secondly, a new light, the light of glory will be implanted in him. What Paul calls the change ‘from one degree of glory to another’ is of special interest here, and Owen says, ‘as the light of grace doth not destroy or abolish the light of nature, but rectify and improve it, so the light of glory shall not abolish or destroy the light of faith and grace, but, by incorporating with it, render it absolutely perfect.’ Just as we cannot appreciate the light of grace by the light of nature, we do not yet appreciate the light of glory by the present light of grace; we only believe that it will form the soul into the image of Christ, so that as ‘Grace renews nature; glory perfects grace’.

Thirdly, the body of the believer will also be glorified through union with Christ in the body of his glory. The sum of this is that ‘Heaven doth more excel the Gospel state than that state doth the Law.’ Owen is not describing the manner or means of dwelling in Christ, but only of the measure of enjoyment and experience of him. His glory knows three degrees of manifestation; the shadow, known through the law; the perfect image, known in the gospel; and the substance itself, known only in the glory. It follows, according to Owen, that whatever we see here of Christ is to make us long to see him more clearly and fully in the future. The Christian life, then, is simply the planting of the seed and the growth of the stock and bud. The flowering takes place in the future.

It is a characteristic of Puritan teaching that this most heavenly doctrine is regarded as among the most practical in its implications and application. This is also the New Testament teaching. Owen believed that the steady contemplation of Christ’s glory, though an exercise of considerable spiritual difficulty, brings a lively experience of grace and of the manifestation of Christ to the believer. But the experience that awaits him is different again. For his faculties will then be made perfect, freed from the ‘clogs of the flesh’ and its restraint upon spiritual powers. Because of the union of the soul with the body of sinful flesh it is arduous for us now to contemplate Christ’s present glory. But in glory Christ will be seen, not by the insight of faith, but with the immediacy of sight, and he will no more withdraw from the church. We will see him with vision that is no longer liable to defects or the assaults of external temptations. While we are here, we can but gather ‘parcels’ of Christ; there we will see him at once, and for ever. The transformation will no longer be the gradual influence of faith, but the radical and immediate transformation of heaven, through the beatific vision which brings perfect rest. Yet, even so, there will be a continual operation on and communication to the glorified, of the love of Christ. Everything will still depend on his mediation: ‘We shall no more be self-subsistent in glory than we are in nature or grace.’

It is of great interest that Owen turned to this theme during the last days of his life. Indeed his meditations on the Christian’s share in the glory of Christ really represent his ministry to his own congregation.’ It is natural therefore that they should contain a special strain of application to the attitude of the child of God to death. For contemplation of the glory of Christ ‘will carry us cheerfully, comfortably, and victoriously through life and death, and all that we have to conflict withal in either of them.’ At such a time God acts in sovereign wisdom with his children, and disposes their circumstances as he thinks fit. But certain duties are called for in every believer, and all believers will share in a common pool of experiences.

Firstly, special faith requires exercise, for committing the soul to God. The Christian cannot go to the world beyond in comfort without recognizing what awaits him. So it was with Christ, and with the first martyr, Stephen. This is the ‘last victorious act of faith, wherein its conquest over its last enemy death itself doth consist.’ There is no greater sign of faith than this affirmation of the future presence of God. There is no greater encouragement to it than the knowledge that it is Christ himself who receives us.

Secondly, the Christian must be willing and ready to part with the flesh. This requires an appreciation of the purposes of God, for the fact is that the body-soul union is unparalleled. Neither angels nor beasts know it. Only man can experience this great convulsion of being. And he, by nature, has a ‘fixed aversion from a dissolution’. It can be regarded with equanimity only through a sure knowledge of entrance into Christ’s presence, and the promise of a future union in the resurrection. He, therefore, that would die comfortably, must be able to say with himself and to himself, ‘Die, then, thou frail and sinful flesh: “dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” I yield thee up unto the righteous doom of the Holy One. Yet therein also I give thee into the hand of the great Refiner, who will hide thee in thy grave, and by thy consumption purify thee from all thy corruption and disposition to evil.’

Thirdly the believer needs to learn a readiness to comply with the times and seasons that God has ordained for his departure.

Fourthly, since the ways and means by which death approaches bring special trials, long illnesses, severe treatment, even persecution, the child of God must learn to resign himself to the gracious will of God and to the utter holiness of his decree, with its ultimate purpose that Christ should be the first-born of the many brethren who are predestined to be conformed to his image. And thus, if our future blessedness shall consist in being where he is, and beholding of his glory, what better preparation can there be for it than in a constant previous contemplation of that glory in the revelation that is made in the Gospel, unto this very end, that by a view of it we may be gradually transformed into the same glory?

Here our study of Owen’s teaching on the Christian life comes appropriately to an end. But Owen himself would have wished that our study of the glory of Christ himself should continue, until (in his own words) we see that glory ‘in another manner than we have ever done’ or were ‘capable of doing in this world.’ This, as we have seen, was the aim of all of his teaching. Like his life, it is a ‘burning and a shining light’ and, as David Clarkson said, ‘we may rejoice in it still.’

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Mr. Richard Flavel left two sons behind him, both ministers of the gospel, viz. John and Phinehas. John the eldest was born in Worcestershire. It was observable, that whilst his mother lay in with him, a nightingale made her nest in the out-side of the chamber-window, where she used to sing most sweetly. He was religiously educated by his father, and having profited well at the grammar schools, was sent early to Oxford, and settled a commoner in University College. He plied his studies hard, and exceeded many of his contemporaries in university learning.

Soon after his commencing batchelor of arts, Mr. Walplate, the minister of Diptford, in the county of Devon, was rendered uncapable of performing his office by reason of his age and infirmity, and sent to Oxford for an assistant; Mr. Flavel, though but young, was recommended to him as a person duly qualified, and was accordingly settled there by the standing committee of Devon, April 27, 1650, to preach as a probationer and assistant to Mr. Walplate.

Mr. Flavel considering the weight of his charge, applied himself to the work of his calling with great diligence; and being assiduous in reading, meditation and prayer, he increased in ministerial knowledge daily, (for he found himself that he came raw enough in that respect from the university) so that he attained to an high degree of eminency and reputation for his useful labours in the church.

About six months after his settling at Diptford, he heard of an ordination to be at Salisbury, and therefore went thither with his testimonials, and offered himself to be examined and ordained by the presbytery there: they appointed him a text, upon which he preached to their general satisfaction; and having afterwards examined him as to his learning, etc. they set him apart to the work of the ministry, with prayer and imposition of hands, on the 17th day of October, 1650.

Mr. Flavel being thus ordained, returned to Diptford, and after Mr. Walplate’s death succeeded in the rectory. To avoid all incumbrances from the world, and avocations from his studies and ministerial work, he chose a person of worth and reputation in the parish (of whom he had a good assurance that he would be faithful to himself, and kind to his parishioners) and let him the whole tithes much below the real value, which was very pleasing to his people. By this means he was the better able to deal with them in private, since the hire of his labours was no way a hindrance to the success of them.

Whilst he was at Diptford he married one Mrs. Jane Randal, a pious gentlewoman, of a good family, who died in travail of her first child without being delivered. His year of mourning being expired, his acquaintance and intimate friends advised him to marry a second time, wherein he was again very happy. Sometime after this second marriage, the people of Dartmouth (a great and noted sea-port in the county of Devon, formerly under the charge of the Reverend Mr. Anthony Hartford, deceased) unanimously chose Mr. Flavel to succeed him. They urged him to accept their call, (1.) Because there were exceptions made against all the other candidates, but none against him. (2.) Because, being acceptable to the whole town, he was the more like to be an instrument of healing the breaches among the good people there. (3.) Because Dartmouth, being a considerable and populous town, required an able and eminent minister, which was not so necessary for a country-parish, that might besides be more easily supplied with another pastor than Dartmouth.

That which made them more pressing and earnest with Mr. Flavel, was this; at a provincial synod in that county, Mr. Flavel, though but a young man, was voted into the chair as moderator, where he opened the assembly with a most devout and pertinent prayer; he examined the candidates who offered themselves to their trials for the ministry with great learning, stated the cases and questions proposed to them with much acuteness and judgment, and in the whole demeaned himself with that gravity, piety, and seriousness, during his presidency, that all the ministers of the assembly admired and loved him. The Reverend Mr. Hartford, his predecessor at Dartmouth, took particular notice of him, from that time forward contracted a strict friendship with him, and spoke of him among the magistrates and people of Dartmouth, as an extraordinary person, who was like to be a great light in the church. This, with their having several times heard him preach, occasioned their importunity with Mr. Flavel to come and be their minister; upon which, having spread his case before the Lord, and submitted to the decision of his neighbouring ministers, he was prevailed upon to remove to Dartmouth, to his great loss in temporals, the rectory of Diptford being a much greater benefice.

Mr. Flavel being settled at Dartmouth by the election of people, and an order from Whitehall by the commissioners for approbation of public preachers, of the 10th of December, 1656, he was associated with Mr. Allein Geere, a very worthy, but sickly, man. The ministerial work was thus divided betwixt them; Mr. Flavel was to preach on the Lord’s-day at Townstall, the mother-church standing upon a hill without the town; and every fortnight in his turn at the Wednesday’s Lecture in Dartmouth. Here God crowned his labours with many conversions. One of his judicious hearers expressed himself thus concerning him; “I could say much, though not enough, of the excellency of his preaching; of his seasonable, suitable and spiritual matter; of his plain expositions of scripture, his taking method, his genuine and natural deductions, his convincing arguments, his clear and powerful demonstrations, his heart-searching applications, and his comfortable supports to those that were afflicted in conscience. In short that person must have a very soft head, or a very hard heart, or both, that could sit under his ministry unaffected.”

By his unwearied application to study, he had accquired a great stock both of divine and human learning. He was master of the controversies betwixt the Jews and Christians, Papists and Protestants, Lutherans and Calvinists, and betwixt the Orthodox, and the Arminians and Socinians: he was likewise well read in the Controversies about Church-discipline, Infant-Baptism, and Antinomianism. He was well acquainted with the School-divinity, and drew up a judicious and ingenious scheme of the whole body of that Theology in good Latin, which he presented to a person of quality, but it was never printed. He had one way of improving his knowledge, which is very proper for young divines; whatever remarkable passage he heard in private conference, if he was familiar with the relator, he would desire him to repeat it again, and insert it into his Aversaria: by these methods he acquired a vast stock of proper materials for his popular sermons in the pulpit, and his more elaborate works for the press.

He had an excellent gift of prayer, and was never at a loss in all his various occasions for suitable matter and words; and, which was the most remarkable of all, he always brought with him a broken heart and moving affections: his tongue and spirit were touched with a live coal from the altar, and he was evidently assisted by the Holy Spirit of grace and supplication in that divine ordinance. Those who lived in his family say that he was always full and copious in prayer, seemed constantly to exceed himself, and rarely made use twice of the same expressions.

When the act of uniformity turned him out with the rest of his nonconforming brethren, he did not thereupon quit his relation to his church, he thought the souls of his flock to be more precious than to be so tamely neglected; he took all opportunities of ministering the word and sacraments to them in private meetings, and joined with other ministers in solemn days of fasting and humiliation, to pray that God would once more restore the ark of his covenant unto his afllicted Israel. About four months after that fatal Bartholomew day, his reverend colleague, Mr. Allein Geere, died; so that the whole care of the flock devolved upon Mr. Flavel, which, though a heavy and pressing burden, he undertook very cheerfully.

Upon the execution of the Oxford act, which banished all nonconformist ministers five miles from any towns which sent members to parliament, he was forced to leave Dartmouth, to the great sorrow of his people, who followed him out of town; and at Townstall church-yard they took such a mournful farewell of one another as the place might very well have been called Bochim. He removed to Slapton, a parish five miles from Dartmouth, or any other corporation, which put him out of the legal reach of his adversaries. Here he met with signal instances of God’s fatherly care and protection, and preached twice every Lord’s-day to such as durst adventure to hear him, which many of his own people and others did, notwithstanding the rigour and severity of the act against conventicles. He many times slipped privately into Dartmouth, where by preaching and conversation he edified his flock, to the great refreshment of his own soul and theirs, though with very much danger, because of his watchful adversaries, who constantly laid wait for him, so that he could not make any long stay in the town.

In those times Mr. Flavel being at Exeter, was invited to preach by many good people of that city, who for safety chose a wood about three miles from the city to be the place of their assembly, where they were broke up by their enemies by that time the sermon was well begun. Mr. Flavel, by the care of the people, made his escape through the middle of his enraging enemies; and though many of his hearers were taken, carried before Justice Tuckfield, and fined; yet the rest, being nothing discouraged, re-assembled, and carrying Mr. Flavel to another wood, he preached to them without any disturbance; and, after he had concluded, rode to a gentleman’s house near the wood, who, though an absolute stranger to Mr. Flavel, entertained him with great civility that night, and next day he returned to Exeter in safety. Amongst those taken at this time, there was a Tanner who had a numerous family, and but a small stock; he was fined notwithstanding in forty pounds; at which he was nothing discouraged, but told a friend, who asked him how he bore up under his loss, That he took the spoiling of his goods joyfully, for the sake of his Lord Jesus, for whom his life and all that he had was too little.

As soon as the Nonconformists had any respite from their trouble, Mr. Flavel laid hold of the opportunity, and returned to Darmouth, where, during the first indulgence granted by King Charles II. he kept open doors, and preached freely to all that would come and hear him; and when that liberty was revoked, he made it his business notwithstanding to preach in season and out of season, and seldom missed of an opportunity of preaching on the Lord’s-day. During this time, God was pleased to deprive him of his second wife, which was a great affliction, she having been a help-meet for him, and such an one he stood much in need of, as being a man of an infirm and weak constitution, who laboured under many infirmities. In convenient time he married a third wife, Mrs. Ann Downe, daughter of Mr. Thomas Downe, minister of Exeter, who lived very happily with him eleven years, and left him two sons, who are youths of great hopes.

The persecution against the Nonconformists being renewed, Mr. Flavel found it unsafe to stay at Dartmouth, and therefore resolved to go to London, where he hoped to be in less danger, and to have more liberty to exercise his function. The night before he embarked for that end, he had the following premonition by a dream; he thought he was on board the ship, and that a storm arose which exceedingly terrified the passengers, during their consternation there sat writing at the table a person of admirable sagacity and gravity, who had a child in a cradle by him that was very froward; he thought he saw the father take up a little whip, and give the child a lash, saying, Child be quiet, I will discipline, but not hurt thee. Upon this Mr. Flavel awaked, and musing on his dream, he concluded, that he should meet with some trouble in his passage: his friends being at dinner with him, assured him of a pleasant passage, because the wind and weather were very fair; Mr. Flavel replied, That he was not of their mind, but expected much trouble because of his dream, adding, that when he had such representations made to him in his sleep, they seldom or never failed.

Accordingly, when they were advanced within five leagues of Portland in their voyage, they were overtaken by a dreadful tempest, insomuch that betwixt one and two in the morning, the master and seamen concluded, that, unless God changed the wind, there was no hope of life; it was impossible for them to weather Portland, so that they must of necessity be wrecked on the rocks or on the shore. Upon this Mr. Flavel called all the hands that could be spared into the cabin to prayer; but the violence of the tempest was such, that they could not prevent themselves from being thrown from the one side unto the other as the ship was tossed; and not only so, but mighty seas broke in upon them, as if they would have drowned them in the very cabin. Mr. Flavel in this danger took hold of the two pillars of the cabin bed, and calling upon God, begged mercy for himself and the rest in the ship. Amongst other arguments in prayer, he made use of this, that if he and his company perished in that storm, the name of God would be blasphemed, the enemies of religion would say, that though he escaped their hands on shore, yet divine vengeance had overtaken him at sea. In the midst of prayer his faith and hope were raised, insomuch that he expected a gracious answer; so that, committing himself and his company to the mercy of God, he concluded the duty. No sooner was prayer ended, but one came down from the deck, crying, Deliverance! Deliverance! God is a God hearing prayer! In a moment the wind is come fair west! And so sailing before it, they were brought safely to London. Mr. Flavel found many of his old friends there; and God raised him new ones, with abundance of work, and extraordinary encouragement in it. During his stay in London, he married his fourth wife, a widow gentlewoman, (daughter to Mr. George Jeffries, formerly minister of King’s-Bridge) but now his sorrowful relict.

Mr. Flavel, while he was in London, narrowly escaped being taken, with the reverend Mr. Jenkins, at Mr. Fox’s in Moorfields, where they were keeping a day of fasting and prayer. He was so near, that he heard the insolence of the officers and soldiers to Mr. Jenkins when they had taken him; and observed it in his diary, that Mr. Jenkins might have escaped as well as himself, had it not been for a piece of vanity in a lady, whose long train hindered his going down stairs, Mr. Jenkins, out of his too great civility having let her pass before him.

Mr. Flavel after this, returned to Dartmouth, where with his family and dear people he blessed God for his mercies towards him. He was in a little time after confined close prisoner to his house, where many of his dear flock stole in over night, or betimes on the Lord’s-day in the morning, to enjoy the benefit of his labours, and spend the sabbath in hearing, praying, singing of psalms, and holy discourses.

Mr. Jenkins, abovementioned, dying in prison, his people gave Mr. Flavel a call to the pastoral office among them, and Mr. Reeve’s people did the like. Mr. Flavel communicated these calls unto his flock, and kept a day of prayer with them to beg direction of God in this important affair; he was graciously pleased to answer them by fixing Mr. Flavel’s resolution to stay with his flock at Dartmouth. Many arguments were made use of to persuade him to come to London, as, that since he was turned out by the act of uniformity, he had had but very little maintenance from his church; that those at London were rich and numerous congregations; that he had a family and children to provide for; and that the city was a theatre of honour and reputation. But none of these things could prevail with him to leave his poor people at Dartmouth.

In 1687, when it pleased God so to over-rule affairs, that King James II. thought it his interest to dispense with the penal laws against them, Mr. Flavel, who had formerly been confined to a corner, shone brightly, as a flaming beacon upon the top of an hill. His affectionate people prepared a large place for him, where God blessed his labours to the conviction of many people, by his sermons on Rev. 3:20. Behold I stand at the door and knock. This encouraged him to print those sermons, under the title of England’s Duty, etc. hoping that it might do good abroad, as well as in his own congregation. He made a vow to the Lord under his confinement, that if he should be once more entrusted with public liberty, he would improve it to the advantage of the gospel; this he performed in a most conscientious manner, preached twice every Lord’s-day, and lectured every Wednesday, in which he went over most of the 3d chapter of St John’s gospel, shewing the indispensable necessity of regeneration. He preached likewise every Thursday before the sacrament, and then after examination admitted communicants. He had no assistance on sacrament-days, so that he was many times almost spent before he distributed the elements. When the duty of the day was over, he would often complain of a sore breast, an aking head, and a pained back; yet he would be early at study again next Monday. He allowed himself very little recreation, accounting time a precious jewel that ought to be improved at any rate.

*It is unclear who wrote this sketch of the life of John Flavel.

Featured Photo of Slapton Ley, Devon, by Ray Harrington on Unsplash

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Having proved the affairs of the people of God to be conducted by the care of special Providence, and given instances of what influence Providence has upon those interests and concerns of theirs, we come in the next place to prove it to be the duty of the people of God to meditate upon these performances of Providence for them, at all times, but especially in times of difficulty and trouble. This is our duty because God has expressly commanded it, and called his people to make the most serious reflections upon his works, whether of mercy or judgment.

So when that most dreadful of all judgments was executed upon his professing people for their apostasy from God, and God had removed the symbols of his presence from among them, the rest are bidden to go, that is, by their meditations, to send at least their thoughts to Shiloh, and see what God did to it (Jer. 7:12).

So for mercies, God calls us to consider and review them. ‘O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord’ (Mic. 6:5). As much as to say, if you do not reflect upon that signal providence, my righteousness will be covered, and your unrighteousness uncovered.

So for God’s works of providence concerning the creatures, we are called to consider them, that we may prop up our faith by those considerations for our own supplies (Matt. 6:28). It is plain that this is our duty because the neglect of it is everywhere in Scripture condemned as a sin. To be careless and unobservant is very displeasing to God, and so much appears by that Scripture: ‘Lord, when thy hand, is lifted up they will not see’ (Isa. 26:11). Nay, it is a sin which God threatens and denounces woe against in his word (Psa. 28:4, 5; Isa. 3:12, 13). Yea, God not only threatens, but smites men with visible judgments for this sin (Job. 34:26, 27). And for this end and purpose it is that the Holy Ghost has affixed notes of attention such as ‘behold’ to the narratives of the works of providence in Scripture. All these invite and call men to a due and deep observation of them.

For example, in that great and celebrated work of Providence in delivering Israel out of Egyptian bondage, you find a note of attention twice affixed to it (Exod. 3:2, 9). Again, when that daring enemy Rabshakeh that put Hezekiah and all the people into such a consternation was defeated by Providence, there is a note of attention prefixed to that providence, ‘Behold, I will send a blast upon him’ (2 Kings 19:7). When God glorifies his wisdom and power in delivering his people from their enemies, and ensnaring the latter in the works of their own hands, a double note of attention is affixed to that double work of Providence: ‘Higgaion selah’ (Psa. 9:16). Also at the opening of every seal which contains a remarkable series or branch of Providence, how particularly is attention commanded to every one of them: ‘Come and see, come and see’ (Rev. 6:1-7). All these are very useless and superfluous additions in Scripture, if no such duty lies upon us (see Psa. 66:5).

Without due observation of the works of Providence no praise can be rendered to God for any of them. Praise and thanksgiving for mercies depend upon this act of observation of them, and cannot be performed without it.

Psalm 107 is spent in narrating God’s providential care of men: to his people in difficulties (4-6); to prisoners in their bonds (10-12); to men that lie languishing upon beds of sickness (17-19); to seamen upon the stormy ocean (23); to men in times of famine (33-40). Yea, his providence is displayed in all those changes that occur in the world, debasing the high, and exalting the low (40-41), and at every paragraph men are called upon to praise God for each of these providences. Verse 43 shows you what a necessary ingredient to that duty observation is: ‘Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.’ So that of necessity, God must be defrauded of his praise if this duty is neglected. Without this we lose the usefulness and benefit of all the works of God for us or others, which would be an unspeakable loss indeed to us. This is the food our faith lives upon in days of distress: ‘Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness’ (Psa. 74:14), that is, food to their faith. From providences past saints argue to fresh and new ones to come. So David: ‘The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine’ (1 Sam. 17:37). So Paul: ‘Who hath delivered, and in whom also we trust that he will yet deliver’ (2 Cor. 1:10). If these are forgotten or not considered, the hands of faith hang down. ‘How is it that ye do not remember, neither consider?’ (Matt. 16:9).

This is a topic from which the saints have often drawn their arguments in prayer for new mercies. As when Moses prays for continued or new pardons for the people, he argues from what was past: ‘As thou hast forgiven them from Egypt until now’ (Num. 14:19); so the church argues for new providences upon the same ground Moses pleaded for new pardons (Isa. 51:9, 10). It is a vile slighting of God not to observe what he manifests of himself in his providences. For in all providences, especially in some, he comes near to us. He does so in his judgments: ‘I will come near to you in judgment’ (Mal. 3:5). He comes near in mercies also: ‘The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him’ (Psa. 145:18), Yea, he is said to visit us by his providence when he corrects (Hos. 9:7), and when he saves and delivers (Psa. 106. 4). These visitations of God preserve our spirits (Job 10. 12), and it is a wonderful condescension in the great God to visit us so often, ‘every morning and … every moment’ (Job 7:18).

But not to take notice of it is a vile and brutish contempt of God (Isa. 1:3; Zeph. 3:2). You would not do so to a man for whom you have any respect. It is the character of the wicked not to regard God’s favours (Isa. 26:10) or frowns (Jer. 5:3). In a word, men can never order their addresses to God in prayer, suitable to their conditions, without due observation of his providences. Your prayers are to be suitable to your conditions: sometimes we are called to praise, sometimes to humiliation. In the way of his judgments you are to wait for him (Isa. 26. 8), to prepare to meet him (Zeph. 2:1, 2; Amos 4:12). Sometimes your business is to turn away his anger which you see approaching, and sometimes you are called to praise him for mercies received (Isa. 12:1, 2), but then you must first observe them. Thus you find the matter of David’s psalms still varied, according to the providences that befell him: but one who is unobservant and careless can never do it. And thus you have the grounds of the duty briefly presented.

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Note to the reader: before this section, Baxter spends time considering how a minister may winsomely prevail upon his people to submit to being catechised. With this treated of, he proceeds to outline how a shepherd of God’s flock can best carry out the work of catechesis:

Having used these means to procure them to come and submit to your instructions, we are next to consider how you may deal most effectually with them in the work. And again I must say, that I think it an easier matter by far to compose and preach a good sermon, than to deal rightly with an ignorant man for his instruction in the more essential principles of religion. As much as this work is contemned by some, I doubt not it will try the gifts and spirit of ministers, and show you the difference between one man and another, more fully than preaching will do.

And here I shall, as fitting my purpose, transcribe the words of a most learned, orthodox, and godly man, Archbishop Ussher, in his sermon* before King James at Wanstead on Ephesians 4:13: ‘Your Majesty’s care can never be sufficiently commended, in taking order that the chief heads of the catechism should, in the ordinary ministry, be diligently propounded and explained unto the people throughout the land; which I wish were as duly executed everywhere, as it was piously by you intended. ‘Great scholars possibly may think, that it standeth not so well with their credit to stoop thus low, and to spend so much of their time in teaching these rudiments and first principles of the doctrine of Christ; but they should consider, that the laying of the foundation skilfully, as it is the matter of greatest importance in the whole building, so is it the very masterpiece of the wisest-building. “According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation,” saith the great apostle. And let the most learned of us all try it whenever we please, we shall find, that to lay this groundwork rightly, (that is, to apply ourselves to the capacity of the common auditory, and to make an ignorant man to understand these mysteries in some good measure) will put us to the trial of our skill, and trouble us a great deal more, than if we were to discuss a controversy, or handle a subtle point of learning in the schools. Yet Christ did give as well his apostles, and prophets, and evangelists, as his ordinary pastors and teachers, to bring us all, both learned and unlearned, unto the unity of this faith and knowledge; and the neglecting of this, is the frustrating of the whole work of  the ministry. For, let us preach never so many sermons to the people, our labour is but lost, as long as the foundation is unlaid, and the first principles untaught, upon which all other doctrine must be builded.’

The directions which I think it necessary to give for the right managing of the work, are the following:

1. When your people come to you, one family or more, begin with a brief preface, to mollify their minds and to take off all offence, unwillingness, or discouragement, and to prepare them for receiving your instructions. ‘My friends,’ you may say, ‘it may perhaps seem to some of you an unusual and a troublesome business that I put you upon; but I hope you will not think it needless: for if I had thought so, I would have spared both you and myself this labour. But my conscience hath told me, yea, God hath told me in his word, so solemnly, what it is to have the charge of souls, and how the blood of them that perish will be required at the hands of a minister that neglecteth them, that I dare not be guilty of it as I have hitherto been. Alas! all our business in this world is to get well to heaven; and God hath appointed us to be guides to his people, to help them safe thither. If this be well done, all is done; and if this be not done, we are for ever undone. The Lord knows how short a time you and I may be together; and therefore it concerns us to do what we can for our own and your salvation before we leave you, or you leave the world. All other business in the world is but as toys and dreams in comparison of this. The labours of your calling are but to prop up a cottage of clay, while your souls are hastening to death and judgment, which may even now be near at hand. I hope, therefore, you will be glad of help in so needful a work, and not think it much that I put you to this trouble, when the trifles of the world cannot be got without much greater trouble.’ This, or something to this purpose, may tend to make them more willing to hear you, and receive instruction, and to give you some account of their knowledge and practice.

2. When you have spoken thus to them all, take them one by one, and deal with them as far as you can in private, out of the hearing of the rest; for some cannot speak freely before others, and some will not endure to be questioned before others, because they think that it will tend to their shame to have others hear their answers; and some persons that can make better answers themselves, will be ready, when they are gone, to talk of what they heard, and to disgrace those that speak not so well as themselves; and so people will be discouraged, and persons who are backward to the exercise, will have pretences to forbear and forsake it, and to say, ‘They will not come to be made a scorn and a laughing-stock.’ You must, therefore, be very careful to prevent all these inconveniences. But the main reason is, as I find by experience, people will better take plain close dealing about their sin, and misery, and duty, when you have them alone, than they will before others; and, if you have not an opportunity to set home the truth, and to deal freely with their consciences, you will frustrate all. If, therefore, you have a convenient place, let the rest stay in one room, while you confer with each person by himself in another room; only, in order to avoid scandal, we must speak to the women only in presence of some others; and, if we lose some advantage by this there is no remedy. It is better to do so, than, by giving occasion of reproach to the malicious, to destroy all the work. Yet we may so contrive it, that, though some others be in the room, yet what things are less fit for their observance may be spoken in a low voice that they may not hear it; and therefore they may be placed at the remotest part of the room; or, at least, let none be present but the members of the same family, who are more familiar with each other, and not so likely to reproach one another. And then, in your most rousing examinations and reproofs, deal most with the ignorant, secure, and vicious, that you may have the clearer ground for your close dealing, and the hearing of it may awaken the bystanders, to whom you seem not so directly to apply it. These small things deserve attention, because they are in order to a work that is not small; and small errors may hinder a great deal of good.

3. Begin your work by taking an account of what they have learned of the words of the catechism, and receiving their answer to each question; and, if they are able to repeat but little or none of it, try whether they can rehearse the creed and the decalogue.

4. Then choose out some of the weightiest points, and try, by further questions, how far they understand them. And therein be careful of the following things:

(1) That you do not begin with less necessary points, but with those which they themselves may perceive most nearly concern them. For example? ‘What do you think becomes of men when they die? What shall become of us after the end of the world? Do you believe that you have any sin; or that you were born with sin? What doth every sin deserve? What remedy hath God provided for the saving of sinful, miserable souls? Hath anyone suffered for our sins in our stead; or must we suffer for them ourselves? Who are they that God will pardon; and who shall be saved by the blood  of Christ? What change must be made on all who shall be saved; and how is this change effected? Wherein lies our chief happiness? And what is it that our hearts must be most set upon?’ And such like other questions.

(2) Beware of asking them nice, or needless, or doubtful, or very difficult questions, though about those matters that are of greatest weight in themselves. Some self-conceited persons will be as busy with such questions which they cannot answer themselves, and as censorious of the poor people that cannot answer them, as if life and death depended on them. You will ask them perhaps, ‘What is God?’: and how defective an answer must you make yourselves! You may tell what he is not sooner than what he is. If you ask, ‘What is repentance, what faith, or what is forgiveness of sin?, how many ministers may you ask before you have a right answer, or else they would not be so disagreed in the point! Likewise if you ask them what regeneration is, what sanctification is. But you will perhaps say, ‘If men know not what God is, what repentance, faith, conversion, justification, and sanctification are, how can they be true Christians and be saved?’ I answer, It is one thing to know exactly what they are, and another thing to know them in their nature and effects, though with a more general and indistinct knowledge; and it is one thing to know, and another thing to tell what this or that is. The very name as commonly used doth signify to them, and express from them the thing without a definition; and they partly understand what that name signifieth, when they cannot tell it you in other words; as they know what it is to repent, to believe, to be forgiven. By custom of speech they know what these mean, and yet cannot define them, but perhaps put you off with the country answer: ‘To repent is to repent; and to be forgiven is to be forgiven’; or if they can say, ‘It is to be pardoned,’ it is fair. Yet do I not absolutely dissuade you from the use of such questions; but do it cautiously, in case you suspect some gross ignorance in the point; especially about God himself.

(3) So contrive your questions, that they may perceive what you mean, and that it is not a nice definition, but simply a solution, that you expect; and look not after words, but things, and even leave them to a bare Yes, or No, or the mere election of one of the two descriptions which you yourself may have propounded. For example: ‘What is God? Is he made of flesh and blood, as we are; or is he an invisible Spirit? Is he a man, or is he not? Had he any beginning? Can he die? What is faith? Is it a believing all the word of God? What is it to believe in Christ? Is it all one as to become a true Christian? or to believe that Christ is the Saviour of sinners, and to trust in him, as your Saviour, to pardon, sanctify, govern, and glorify you? What is repentance? Is it only to be sorry for sin? or is it the change of the mind from sin to God, and a forsaking of it? or does it include both?’

(4) When you perceive that they do not understand the meaning of your question, you must draw out their answer by an equivalent, or expository question; or, if that will not do, you must frame the answer into your question, and require in reply, but Yes, or No. I have often asked some very ignorant people, ‘How do you think that your sins, which are so many and so great, can be pardoned?’ And they tell me, ‘By their repenting, and amending their lives’; and never mention Jesus Christ. I ask them further, ‘But do you think that your amendment can make God any amends or satisfaction for the sin that is past?’ They will answer, ‘We hope so, or else we know not what will?’ One would now think that these men had no knowledge of Christ at all, since they make no mention of him; and some I indeed find have no knowledge of him; and when I tell them the history of Christ, and what he is, and did, and suffered, they stand wondering at it as a strange thing; and some say, They never heard this much before, nor knew it, though they came to church every Lord’s day. But some, I perceive, give such answers, because they understand not the scope of my question; but suppose that I take Christ’s death for granted, and that I only ask them, ‘What shall make God satisfaction, as their part under Christ?’ – though in this, also, they reveal sad ignorance. And when I ask them, ‘Whether their good deeds can merit anything from God?’ they answer, ‘No; but they hope God will accept them.’ And if I ask further, ‘Can you be saved without the death of Christ?’ they say, ‘No.’ And if I ask, still further, ‘What hath he done or suffered for you?’ they will say, ‘He died for us; or he shed his blood for us’; and will profess that they place their confidence in that for salvation. Many men have that in their minds which is not ripe for utterance; and, through an imperfect education and disuse, they are strangers to the expression of those things of which they yet have some conception. And, by the way, you may here see reason why you should deal very tenderly with the common people for matter of knowledge and defect of expression, if they are teachable and tractable, and willing to use the means; for many, even ancient godly persons, cannot express themselves with any tolerable propriety, nor yet learn when expressions are put into their mouths.

Some of the most pious, experienced, approved Christians that I know (aged people), complain to me, with tears, that they cannot learn the words of the catechism; and when I consider their advantages – that they have enjoyed the most excellent helps, in constant duty, and in the best company, for forty, fifty, or sixty years together – it teacheth me what to expect from poor, ignorant people, who never had such company and converse for one year or week; and not to reject them so hastily as some hot and too high professors would have us do.

(5) If you find them at a loss, and unable to answer your questions, do not drive them too hard, or too long, with question after question, lest they conceive you intend only to puzzle them, and disgrace them; but when you perceive that they cannot answer, step in yourself, and take the burden off them, and answer the question yourselves; and do it thoroughly and plainly, and give a full explanation of the whole truth to them, that, by your teaching, they may be brought to understand it before you leave them. And herein it is commonly necessary that you fetch up the matter from the beginning, and take it in order, till you come to the point in question.

5. When you have done what you see cause in the trial of their knowledge, proceed next to instruct them yourselves, and this must be according to their several capacities. If it be a professor that understandeth the fundamental principles of religion, fall upon somewhat which you perceive that he most needeth, either explaining further some of the mysteries of the gospel, or laying the grounds of some duty which he may doubt of, or showing the necessity of what he neglecteth, or pointing out his sins or mistakes, as may be most convincing and edifying to him. If, on the other hand, it be one who is grossly ignorant, give him a plain, familiar recital of the sum of the Christian religion in a few words; for though it be in the catechism already, yet a more familiar way may better help him to understand it. Thus:

‘You must know, that from everlasting there was one God, who had no beginning, and will have no end, who is not a body as we are, but a most pure, spiritual Being, that knoweth all things, and can do all things; and hath all goodness and blessedness in himself. This God is but one, but yet Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, in a manner that is above our understanding. And you must know, that this one God did make all the world by his word; the heavens he made to be the place of his glory, and a multitude of holy angels to serve him. But some of these did, by pride or some other sin, fall from their high estate, and are become devils, and shall be miserable for ever. When he had created the earth, he made man, as his noblest creature here below, even one man and one woman, Adam and Eve; and he made them perfect, without any sin, and put them into the garden of Eden, and forbade them to eat of one tree in the garden, and told them that if they ate of it they should die. But the devil, who had first fallen himself, did tempt them to sin, and they yielded to his temptation, and thus fell under the curse of God’s law. But God, of his infinite wisdom and mercy, did send his own Son, Jesus Christ, to be their Redeemer, who, in the fulness of time, was made man, being born of a virgin, by the power of the Holy Ghost, and lived on earth, among the Jews, about thirty-three years, during which time he preached the gospel himself, and wrought many miracles  to prove his doctrine, healing the lame, the blind, the sick, and raising the dead by his Divine power; and in the end he was offered upon the cross as a sacrifice for our sins to bear that curse which we should have borne. ‘And now, if sinners will but believe in him, and repent of their sins, he will freely pardon all that is past, and will sanctify their corrupted nature, and will at length bring them to his heavenly kingdom and glory. But if they make light of their sins and of his mercy, he will condemn them to everlasting misery in hell. This gospel, Christ, having risen from the dead on the third day, appointed his ministers to preach to all the world; and when he had given this in charge to all his apostles, he ascended up into heaven, before their faces, where he is now in glory, with God the Father, in our nature. And at the end of this world, he will come again in our nature, and will raise the dead to life again, and bring them all before him, that they may “give an account of all the deeds done in the body, whether they be good, or whether they be evil.” If, therefore, you mean to be saved, you must believe in Christ, as the only Saviour from the wrath to come; you must repent of your sins; you must, in short, be wholly new creatures, or there will be no salvation for you.’

Some such short rehearsal of the principles of religion, in the most familiar manner that you can devise, with a brief touch of application in the end, will be necessary when you deal with the grossly ignorant. And if you perceive they understand you not, go over it again, and ask them whether they understand it, and try to fix it in their memories.

6. Whether they be grossly ignorant or not, if you suspect them to be unconverted, endeavour next to make some prudent inquiry into their state. The best and least offensive way of doing this will be to prepare them for the inquiry saying something that may mollify their minds, and convince them of the necessity of the inquiry, and then to take occasion from some article in the catechism to touch their consciences. For example: ‘You see that the Holy Ghost doth, by the word, enlighten men’s minds, and soften and open their hearts, and turn them from the power of Satan unto God, through faith in Christ, and “purifies them unto himself a peculiar people;” and that none but these shall be made partakers of everlasting life. Now, though I have no desire, needlessly, to pry into any man’s secrets, yet, because it is the office of ministers to give advice to their people in matters of salvation, and because it is so dangerous a thing to be mistaken as to points which involve everlasting life or everlasting death, I would entreat you to deal honestly, and tell me, Whether or not you ever found this great change upon your own heart? Did you ever find the Spirit of God, by the word, come in upon your understanding, with a new and heavenly life, which hath made you a new creature? The Lord, who seeth your heart, doth know whether it be so or not; I pray you, therefore, see that you speak the truth.’ If he tell you that he hopes he is converted – all are sinners – but he is sorry for his sins, or the like; then tell him more particularly, in a few words, of some of the plainest marks of true conversion, and so renew and enforce the inquiry, thus: ‘Because your salvation or damnation is involved in this, I would fain help you a little in regard to it, that you may not be mistaken in a matter of such moment, but may find out the truth before it be too late; for as God will judge us impartially, so we have his word before us, by which we may judge ourselves; for this word tells us most certainly who they are that shall go to heaven, and who to hell. Now the Scripture tells us that the state of an unconverted man is this: he seeth no great felicity in the love and communion of God in the life to come, which may draw his heart thither from this present world; but he liveth to his carnal self, or to the flesh; and the main bent of his life is, that it may go well with him on earth; and that religion which he hath is but a little by the by, lest he should be damned when he can keep the world no longer; so that the world and the flesh are highest in his esteem, and nearest to his heart, and God and glory stand below them, and all their service of God is but a giving him that which the world and flesh can spare. This is the case of every unconverted man; and all who are in this case are in a state of misery. But he that is truly converted, hath had a light shining into his soul from God, which hath showed him the greatness of his sin and misery, and made it a heavy load upon his soul; and showed him what Christ is, and what he hath done for sinners, and made him admire the riches of God’s grace in him. ‘Oh, what glad news it is to him, that yet there is hope for such lost sinners as he; that so many and so great sins may be pardoned; and that pardon is offered to all who will accept of it! How gladly doth he entertain this message and offer! And for the time to come, he resigneth himself and all that he hath to Christ, to be wholly his, and to be disposed of by him, in order to the everlasting glory which he hath promised. He hath now such a sight of the blessed state of the saints in glory, that he despiseth all this world as dross and dung, in comparison of it; and there he layeth up his happiness and his hopes, and takes all the affairs of this life but as so many helps or hindrances in the way to that; so that the main care and business of his life is to be happy in the life to come. This is the case of all who are truly converted and who shall be saved. Now, is this the case with you, or is it not? Have you experienced such a change as this upon your soul?’ If he say, he hopes he hath, descend to some particulars, thus: ‘I pray you then answer me these two or three questions.

(1) Can you truly say, that all the known sins of your past life are the grief of your heart, and that you have felt that everlasting misery is due to you for them; and that, under a sense of this heavy burden, you have felt yourself a lost man, and have gladly entertained the news of a Saviour, and cast your soul upon Christ alone, for pardon by his blood?

‘(2) Can you truly say, that your heart is so far turned from sin, that you hate the sins which you once have loved, and love that holy life which you had no mind to before; and that you do not now live in the wilful practice of any known sin? Is there no sin which you are not heartily willing to forsake, whatever it cost you; and no duty which you are not willing to perform?

‘(3) Can you truly say, that you have so far taken the everlasting enjoyment of God for your happiness, that it hath the most of your heart, of your love, desire, and care; and that you are resolved, by the strength of Divine grace, to let go all that you have in the world, rather than hazard it; and that it is your daily, and your principal business to seek it? Can you truly say, that though you have your failings and sins, yet your main care, and the bent of your whole life, is to please God, and to enjoy him for ever; and that you give the world God’s leavings, as it were, and not God the world’s leavings; and that your worldly business is but as a traveller’s seeking for provision in his journey, and heaven is the place that you take for your home?’ If he answer in the affirmative to these questions, tell him how great a thing it is for a man’s heart to abhor his sin, and to lay up his happiness unfeignedly in another world; and to live in this world for another that is out of sight; and, therefore, desire him to see that it be so indeed. Then turn to some of the articles in the catechism, which treat of those duties which you most suspect him to omit, and ask him, whether he performs such or such a duty; as for instance, prayer in his family, or in private, and the holy spending of the Lord’s day. I would, however, advise you to be very cautious how you pass too hasty or absolute censures on any you have to do with; because, it is not so easy a matter to discern a man to be certainly graceless, as many imagine it to be; and you may do the work in hand as well without such an absolute conclusion as with it.

7. If, however, you have, either by former discovery of gross ignorance, or by these later inquiries into his spiritual state, discerned an apparent probability that the person is yet in an unconverted state, your next business is, to employ all your skill to bring his heart to a sense of his condition. For example:

‘Truly, my friends, I have no mind, the Lord knows, to make your condition worse than it is, nor to occasion you any causeless fear or trouble; but, I suppose, you would account me a treacherous enemy, and not a faithful minister, if I should flatter you, and not tell you the truth. If you seek a physician in your sickness, you would have him tell you the truth, though it were the worst. Much more here! For there the knowledge of your disease may, by your fears, increase it; but here you must know it, or else you can never be recovered from it. I much fear that you are yet a stranger to the Christian life. For if you were a Christian indeed, and truly converted, your very heart would be set on God and the life to come, and you would make it your chief business to prepare for everlasting happiness; and you durst not, you would not, live in any wilful sin, nor in the neglect of any known duty. ‘Alas! what have you done? how have you spent your time till now? Did you not know that you had a soul to be saved or lost; and that you must live in heaven or in hell for ever; and that you had your life and time in this world chiefly for the purpose of preparing for another? Alas! what have you been doing all your days that you are so ignorant, or so unprepared for death, if it should now find you? If you had but as much mind of heaven as of earth, you would have known more of it, and done more for it, and inquired more diligently after it, than you have done. You can learn how to do your business in the world; and why could you not learn more of the will of God, if you had but attended to it? You have neighbours that could learn more, that have had as much to do in the world as you, and who have had as little time. Do you think that heaven is not worth your labour? or that it can be had without any care or pains, when you cannot have the trifles of this world without them, and when God hath bid you seek first his kingdom and the righteousness thereof? Alas! my friends, what if you had died before this hour in an unconverted state? what then had become of you, and where had you now been? Alas! that you were so cruel to yourselves as to venture your everlasting state so desperately as you have done! What did you think of? Did you not all this while know that you must shortly die, and be judged as you were then found? Had you any greater work to do, or any greater business to mind, than your everlasting salvation? Do you think that all that you can get in this world will comfort you in a dying hour, or purchase your salvation, or ease the pains of hell?’

Set these things home with a peculiar earnestness; for if you get not to the heart, you do little or nothing; and that which affecteth not is soon forgotten.

8. Conclude the whole with a practical exhortation, which must contain two parts; first, the duty of believing in Christ; and secondly, of using the external means of grace for the time to come, and the avoiding of former sins. For example: ‘My friend, I am heartily sorry to find you in so sad a case, but I should be more sorry to leave you in it, and therefore let me entreat you, for the Lord’s sake, and for your own sake, to regard what I shall say to you, as to the time to come. It is of the Lord’s great mercy that he did not cut you off in your unconverted state, and that you have yet life and time, and that there is a remedy provided for you in the blood of Christ, and that pardon and sanctification and everlasting life are offered to you as well as to others. God hath not left sinful man to utter destruction, as he hath done the devils; nor hath he made any exception in the offer of pardon and eternal life against you any more than against any other.

‘If you had yet but a bleeding heart for sin, and could come to Christ believingly for recovery, and resign yourself to him as your Saviour and Lord, and would be a new man for the time to come, the Lord would have mercy on you in the pardon of your sins, and the everlasting salvation of your soul. And I must tell you that, as it must be the great work of God’s grace to give you such a heart, so if ever he mean to pardon and save you, he will make this change upon you; he will make you feel your sin as the heaviest burden in the world, as that which is most odious in itself, and hath rendered you liable to his wrath and curse; he will make you see that you are a lost man, and that there is nothing for you but everlasting damnation, unless you are pardoned by the blood of Christ, and sanctified by his Spirit; he will make you see the need you have of Christ, and how all your hope and life is in him; he will make you see the vanity of this world and all that it can afford you, and that all your happiness is with God, in that everlasting life in heaven, where you may, with the saints and angels, behold his glory, and live in his love, and be employed in his praises. Let me tell you that, till this work be done upon you, you are a miserable man; and if you die before it is done, you are lost for ever. Now you have hope and help before you, but then there will be none. ‘Let me therefore entreat you, as you love your soul,

First, That you will not rest in the condition in which you at present are. Be not quiet in your mind till a saving change is wrought in your heart. Think, when you rise in the morning, Oh, what if this day should be my last, and death should find me in an unrenewed state? Think, when you are about your labour, Oh, how much greater a work have I yet to do, to get my soul reconciled to God, and sanctified by his Spirit! Think, when you are eating, or drinking, or looking on anything that you possess in the world, What good will all this do me, if I live and die an enemy to God, and a stranger to Christ and his Spirit, and so perish for ever? Let these thoughts be day and night upon your mind till your soul be changed.

Secondly, I entreat you to bethink yourself seriously what a vain world this is, and how shortly it will leave you to a cold grave, and to everlasting misery, if you have not a better treasure than it. And consider what it is to live in the presence of God, and to reign with Christ, and be like the angels; and that this is the life that Christ hath procured you, and is preparing for you, and offereth you, if you will only accept of it; and oh think, whether it be not madness to slight such an endless glory, and to prefer these fleshly dreams and earthly shadows before it. Accustom yourself to such considerations as these when you are alone, and let them dwell upon your mind.

Thirdly, entreat, that you will presently, without any more delay, accept of this felicity, and this Saviour. Close with the Lord Jesus that offereth you this eternal life: joyfully and thankfully accept his offer as the only way to make you happy: and then you may believe that all your sins will be done away by him.

Fourthly, Resolve presently against your former sins; find out what hath defiled your heart and life, and cast it from you, as you would do poison out of your stomach, and abhor the thought of taking it again. ‘My last request to you is, that you will set yourself to the diligent use of the means of grace till this change be wrought, and then continue the use of these means till you are confirmed, and at last perfected,

(1) As you cannot of yourself effect this change upon your heart and life, betake yourself daily to God in prayer, and beg earnestly, as for your life, that he will pardon all your sins, and change your heart, and show you the riches of his grace in Christ, and the glory of his kingdom. Follow God day and night with these requests.

(2) Fly from temptations and occasions of sin, and forsake your former evil company, and betake yourself to the company of those that fear God, and will help you in the way to heaven.

(3) Be specially careful to spend the Lord’s day in holy exercises, both public and private, and lose not one quarter of an hour of any of your time; but especially of that most precious time which God hath given you purposely, that you may set your mind upon him, and be instructed by him, and prepare yourself for your latter end. What say you to these things? Will you do this presently, or at least so much of it as you can? Will you give me a promise to this effect, and study henceforth to keep that promise?’ And here be sure, if you can, to get their promise, and engage them to amendment, especially to use the means of grace, and to change their company, and to forsake their sins, because these are more within their reach; and in this way they may wait for the accomplishing of that change that is not yet wrought. And do this solemnly, reminding them of the presence of God who heareth their promises, and who will expect the performance of them; and when you afterward have opportunity, you may remind them of their promise.

9. At the dismissing of them, do these two things:

(1) Mollify their minds again by a few words, deprecating anything like offence. For example: ‘I pray you, take it not ill that I have put you to this trouble, or dealt thus freely with you. It is as little pleasure to me as to you. If I did not know these things to be true and necessary, I would have spared this labour to myself and you; but I know that we shall be  here together but a little while: We are almost at the world to come already; and therefore it is time for us all to look about us, and see that we be ready when God shall call us.’

(2) As you may not soon have an opportunity to speak with the same persons, set them in the way of perfecting what you have begun. Engage the master of each family to call all his family to repeat, every Lord’s day, what they have learned of the catechism; and to continue this practice till they have all learned it perfectly: and when they have done so, still to continue to hear them regularly recite it, that they may not forget it; for, even to the most judicious, it will be an excellent help to have in memory a Sum of the Christian Religion, as to matter, method, and words. As to the rulers of families themselves, or those that are under such masters as will not help them, if they have learned some part of the catechism only, engage them either to come again to you (though before their course) when they have learned the rest, or else to go to some able experienced neighbour, and repeat it to him; and do you take the assistance of such persons, when you cannot have time yourself.

10. Have the names of all your parishioners by you in a book; and when they come and repeat the catechism, note in your book who come, and who do not; and who are so grossly ignorant as to be unfit for the Lord’s supper and other holy communion, and who not: and as you perceive the necessities of each, so deal with them for the future. But as to those that are utterly obstinate, and will not come to you, nor be instructed by you, deal with them as the obstinate despisers of instruction should be dealt with, in regard to sealing and confirming ordinances; which is, to avoid them, and not to hold holy or familiar communion with them in the Lord’s supper or other ordinances. And though some reverend brethren are for admitting their children to baptism (and offended with me for contradicting it), yet so cannot I, nor shall I dare to do it upon any pretences of their ancestors’ faith, or of a dogmatical faith of these rebellious parents.

11. Through the whole course of your conference with them, see that the manner as well as the matter be suited to the end. And concerning the manner observe these particulars:

(1) That you make a difference according to the character of the persons whom you have to deal with. To the youthful, you must lay greater shame on sensual voluptuousness, and show them the nature and necessity of mortification. To the aged, you must do more to disgrace this present world, and make them apprehensive of the nearness of their change, and the aggravations of their sin, if they shall live and die in ignorance or impenitency. To inferiors and the young, you must be more free; to superiors and elders, more reverend. To the rich, you must show the vanity of this world; and the nature and necessity of self-denial; and the damnableness of preferring the present state to the next; together with the necessity of improving their talents in doing good to others. To the poor, you must show the great riches of glory which are offered to them in the gospel, and how well present comfort may be spared when everlasting joy may be got. Those sins must also be most insisted on which each one’s age, or sex, or temperament, or calling and employment in the world, doth most incline them to; as in females, loquacity, evil speeches, passion, malice, pride; in males, drunkenness, ambition, etc.

(2) Be as condescending, familiar, and plain as possible, with those that are of weaker capacity.

(3) Give them Scripture proof of all you say, that they may see that it is not you only, but God by you that speaketh to them.

(4) Be as serious as you can in the whole exercise, but especially in the applicatory part. I scarce fear anything more, than that some careless ministers will slubber over the work, and do all superficially and without life, and destroy this as they do all other duties, by turning it into a mere formality; putting a few cold questions to their people, and giving them two or three cold words of advice, without any life and feeling in themselves, and not likely to produce any feeling in the hearers. But surely he that valueth souls, and knoweth what an opportunity is before him, will go through the exercise with deep seriousness, and will be as earnest with them as for life or death.

(5) To this end, I should think it very necessary that, both before and in the work, we take special pains with our own hearts, to excite and strengthen our belief of the truth of the gospel, and of the invisible glory and misery that  are to come. I am confident this work will exceedingly try the strength of our belief. For he that is but superficially a Christian, and not sound at bottom, will likely feel his zeal quite fail him, especially when the duty is grown common, for want of a belief of the things of which he is to treat. An affected hypocritical fervency will not hold out long in duties of this kind. A pulpit shall have more of it, than a conference with poor ignorant souls. For the pulpit is the hypocritical minister’s stage: there, and in the press, and in other public acts, where there is room for ostentation, you shall have his best, perhaps his all. It is other kind of men that must effectually do the work now in hand.

(6) It is, therefore, very meet that we prepare ourselves for it by secret prayer; and, if time would permit, and there be many together, it were well if we began and ended with a short prayer with our people.

(7) Carry on all, even the most earnest passages, with clear demonstrations of love to their souls, and make them feel through the whole, that you aim at nothing but their salvation. Avoid all harsh, discouraging language.

(8) If you have not time to deal so fully with each individual as is here directed, then omit not the most necessary parts. Take several of them together who are friends, and who will not seek to divulge each other’s weaknesses, and speak to them in common as much as concerneth all. Only the examinations of their knowledge and state, and of their convictions of sin and misery, and special directions to them, must be used to the individuals alone; but take heed of slubbering it over with an unfaithful laziness, or by being too brief, without a real necessity.

12. Lastly, If God enable you, extend your charity to those of the poorest sort, before they part from you. Give them somewhat towards their relief and for the time that is thus taken from their labours, especially for the encouragement of them that do best. And to the rest, promise them so much when they have learned the catechism. I know you cannot give what you have not, but I speak to them that can. And now, brethren, I have done with my advice, and leave you to the practice. Though the proud may receive it with scorn, and the selfish and slothful with distaste, or even indignation, I doubt not but God will use it, in despite of the opposition of sin and Satan, to the awakening of many of his servants to their duty, and the promoting of the work of a right reformation; and that his blessing will accompany the present undertaking, for the saving of many a soul, the peace of you that undertake and perform it, the exciting of his servants throughout the nation to second you, and the increase of the purity and the unity of his churches. Amen.

*The sermon was preached in June 1624, when Ussher was Bishop of Meath. He became Archbishop of Armagh in 1625. James I gave orders for the sermon to be published.

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This is an essential ingredient in the recovery of biblical ­Christianity. Neither the Reformers nor the Puritans envisaged their task of the public exposition of Scripture without finding ways of anchoring what was heard in the minds and memories of their hearers. Without the framework of doctrine provided in some such pedagogical tool as a catechism a person might find it extremely difficult to assimilate all they were being taught. And without the personal probing of catechetical questions they might never work the public exposition through into practical understanding and application.

The Baxter plan

Richard Baxter had two catechists in Kidderminster to share in what was in part a sophisticated, well-grounded kind of seventeenth-century Evangelism Explosion. But it was more. It was also a Pastoral Explos­ion with a fully-orbed Pauline goal: to present every man mature before God.

It was in large measure due to his vision for this work that Baxter wrote his justly famous work The Reformed Pastor. His concern was to share with his ministerial brethren the necessity of pastoral visitation and personal instruction and evangelism.

The experiences which brought him to this conviction are telling. ‘It hath oft grieved my heart’, wrote Baxter, ‘to observe some eminent able preachers, how little they do for the saving of souls, save only in the pulpit; and to how little purpose much of their labour is, by this neglect.’ In fact Baxter had come to the sobering personal discovery that many of his hearers were taking in far less of what he said than he imagined. He realized that he needed to speak with them one by one to help them understand the message of the gospel and to help them work out its significance for their lives. In a moment of tremendous candour, he writes:

For my part, I study to speak as plainly and movingly as I can … and yet I frequently meet with those that have been my hearers eight or ten years, who know not whether Christ be God or man, and wonder when I tell them the history of his birth and life and death, as if they had never heard it before. And of those who know the history of the gospel, how few are there who know the nature of that faith, repentance, and holiness which it requireth, or, at least, who know their own hearts? … I have found by experience, that some ignorant persons, who have been so long unprofitable hearers, have got more knowledge and remorse of conscience in half an hour’s close discourse, than they did from ten years’ public preaching.

It was this discovery that led Baxter to arrange for every family in his parish area to have a catechism. Then, together with his two assistants, he spent two days of each week, from morning until evening, moving from house to house in his parish, teaching, gently quizzing, and with great sensitivity leading people to Christ and to the Scriptures.

The effect on the town during Baxter’s fifteen-year ministry was revolutionary. He states that when he was installed as rector at Kidderminster perhaps one family in each street was devoted to the Lord and honoured him in family worship; when he left there were streets where only one family did not do so.

Doubtless Baxter’s gifts were unusual and perhaps the blessing of God was exceptional; but it is evident that he and others felt that the instrument of catechizing was utterly essential to the work of the pastoral ministry.

Baxter knew that there would be objections to such activity. Perhaps we might be inclined to say that in Baxter’s day, ‘He had all the time in the world.’ But not so. He tells us that when he began this work he was already fully employed (think of his well over one hundred published works, of the great folio volumes of his writings, of his magnificent The Saints’ Everlasting Rest, whose massive length might seem to require experience of its title to complete a reading!). No, Baxter saw catechizing as a work of necessity, not as an additional luxury. Furthermore he recognized that beginning such an activity would cause all kinds of disturbance, but argued that anything new has that effect. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

With Baxter, the Puritans in general realized that we cannot build for eternity with wood, hay and stubble; we must build with precious stones that will last. That may be by the use of a catechism or by some similar means. By whatever means, access must be gained to the minds, hearts and homes of the people by those who are the pastors of the flock.

The above is excerpted from Some Pastors and Teachers: Reflecting a Biblical Vision of What Every Minister is Called to Be (824 pages, £18.00), pages 189–192.

Read More:

Richard Baxter on Motives for Catechising our People

Richard Baxter on Directions for Catechising our People

Featured painting: A Pastoral Visit, Richard Norris Brooke (1881), National Gallery of Art, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund).

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The Duty of Personal Catechising and Instructing the Flock Particularly Recommended

Having disclosed and lamented our miscarriages and neglects, our duty for the future lies plain before us. God forbid that we should now go on in the sins which we have confessed, as carelessly as we did before. Leaving these things, therefore, I shall now proceed to exhort you to the faithful discharge of the great duty which you have undertaken, namely, personal catechizing and instructing everyone in your parishes or congregations that will submit thereto. First, I shall state to you some motives to persuade you
to this duty. Secondly, I shall answer some objections which may be made to this duty. Lastly, I shall give you some directions for performing this duty.

Part 1 Motives to This Duty

Agreeably to this plan, I shall proceed to state to you some motives to persuade you to this duty. The first reasons by which I shall persuade you to this duty, are taken from the benefits of it: The second, from its difficulty: And the third, from its necessity, and the many obligations that are upon us for the performance of it.

When I look before me, and consider what, through the blessing of God, this work, if well managed, is like to effect, it makes my heart leap for joy. Truly, brethren, you have begun a most blessed work, and such as your own consciences may rejoice in, and your parishes rejoice in, and the nation rejoice in, and the child that is yet unborn rejoice in. Yea, thousands and millions, for aught we know, may have cause to bless God for it, when we shall have finished our course. And though it is our business this day to humble ourselves for the neglect of it so long, as we have very great cause to do, yet the hopes of a blessed success are so great in me, that they are ready to turn it into a day of rejoicing.

I bless the Lord that I have lived to see such a day as this, and to be present at so solemn an engagement of so many servants of Christ to such a work. I bless the Lord, that hath honoured you of this county to be the beginners and awakeners of the nation to this duty. It is not a controverted point, as to which the exasperated minds of men might pick quarrels with us, nor is it a new invention, as to which envy might charge you as innovators, or pride might scorn to follow, because you had led the way. No; it is a well-known duty. It is but the more diligent and effectual management of the ministerial work. It is not a new invention, but simply the restoration of the ancient ministerial work. And because it is so pregnant with advantages to the Church, I will enumerate some of the particular benefits which we may hope to result from it, that when you see the excellency of it, you may be the more set upon it, and the more loath, by any negligence or failing of yours, to frustrate or destroy it. For certainly he who hath the true intentions of a minister of Christ will rejoice in the appearance of any further hope of attaining the ends of his ministry; and nothing will be more welcome to him than that which will further the very business of his life. That this work is calculated to accomplish this, I shall now show you more particularly.

1. It will be a most hopeful mean of the conversion of souls; for it unites those great things which most further such an end.

(1) As to the matter of it; it is about the most necessary things, the principles or essentials of the Christian faith.

(2) As to the manner of it: it will be by private conference, when we may have an opportunity to set all home to the conscience and the heart. The work of conversion consisteth of two parts:

First, the informing of the judgment in the essential principles of religion; Second, The change of the will by the efficacy of the truth. Now in this work we have the most excellent advantages for both. For the informing of their understandings, it must needs be an excellent help to have the sum of Christianity fixed in their memory. And though bare words, not understood, will make no change, yet, when the words are plain English, he that hath the words is far more likely to understand the meaning and matter than another. For what have we by which to make known things which are themselves invisible, but words or other signs? Those, therefore, who deride all catechisms as unprofitable forms, may better deride themselves for talking and using the form of their own words to make known their minds to others. Why may not written words, which are constantly before their eyes, and in their memories, instruct them, aswell as the transient words of a preacher? These ‘forms of sound words’ are, therefore, so far from being unprofitable, as some persons imagine, that they are of admirable use to all.

Besides, we shall have the opportunity, by personal conference, to try how far they understand the catechism, and to explain it to them as we go along; and to insist on those particulars which the persons we speak to have most need to hear. These two conjoined – a form of sound words, with a plain explication – may do more than either of them could do alone.

Moreover, we shall have the best opportunity to impress the truth upon their hearts, when we can speak to each individual’s particular necessity, and say to the sinner, ‘Thou art the man’; and plainly mention his particular case; and set home the truth with familiar importunity. If anything in the world is likely to do them good, it is this. They will understand a familiar speech, who understand not a sermon; and they will have far greater help for the application of it to themselves. Besides, you will hear their objections, and know where it is that Satan hath most advantage of them, and so may be able to show them their errors, and confute their objections, and more effectually convince them. We can better bring them to the point, and urge them to discover their resolutions for the future, and to promise the use of means and reformation, than otherwise we could do. What more proof need we of this, than our own experience? I seldom deal with men purposely on this great business, in private, serious conference, but they go away with some seeming convictions, and promises of new obedience, if not some deeper remorse, and sense of their condition.

O brethren, what a blow may we give to the kingdom of darkness, by the faithful and skilful managing of this work! If, then, the saving of souls, of your neighbours’ souls, of many souls, from everlasting misery, be worth your labour, up and be doing! If you would be the fathers of many that are born again, and would ‘see of the travail of your souls,’ and would be able to say at last, ‘Here am I, and the children whom thou hast given me’ – up and ply this blessed work! If it would do your heart good to see your converts among the saints in glory, and praising the Lamb before the throne; if it would rejoice you to present them blameless and spotless to Christ, prosecute with diligence and ardour this singular opportunity that is offered you. If you are ministers of Christ indeed, you will long for the perfecting of his body, and the gathering in of his elect; and you will ‘travail as in birth’ till Christ be formed in the souls of your people. You will embrace such opportunities as your harvest-time affords, and as the sunshine days in a rainy harvest, in which it is unreasonable and inexcusable to be idle. If you have a spark of Christian compassion in you, it will surely seem worth your utmost labour to save so many ‘souls from death, and to cover’ so great ‘a multitude of sins.’ If, then, you are indeed fellow-workers with Christ, set to his work, and neglect not the souls for whom he died. O remember, when you are talking with the unconverted, that now you have an opportunity to save a soul, and to rejoice the angels of heaven, and to rejoice Christ himself, to cast Satan out of a sinner, and to increase the family of God! And what is your ‘hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing?’ Is it not your saved people ‘in the presence of Christ Jesus at his coming?’ Yes, doubtless ‘they are your glory and your joy.’

2. It will essentially promote the orderly building up of those who are converted, and the establishment of them in the faith.

It hazardeth our whole work, or at least much hindereth it, if we do it not in the proper order. How can you build, if you first not lay a good foundation? or how can you set on the top-stone, while the middle parts are neglected? ‘Grace makes no leaps,’ any more than nature. The second order of Christian truths have such a dependence upon the first, that they can never be well learned till the first are learned. This makes many labour so much in vain; they are ‘ever learning, but never come to the knowledge of the truth,’ because they would read before they learn to spell, or to know their letters. This makes so many fall away: they are shaken with every wind of temptation, because they were not well settled in the fundamental principles of religion. It is these fundamentals that must lead men to further truths; it is these they must build all upon; it is these that must actuate all their graces, and animate all their duties; it is these that must fortify them against temptations. He that knows not these, knows nothing; he that knows them well, doth know so much as will make him happy; and he that knows them best, is the best and most understanding Christian. The most godly people, therefore, in your congregations, will find it worth their labour to learn the very words of a catechism. If, then, you would safely edify them, and firmly establish them, be diligent in this work.

3. It will make our public preaching better understood and regarded.

When you have instructed them in the principles, they will the better understand all you say. They will perceive what you drive at, when they are once acquainted with the main points. This prepareth their minds, and openeth a way to their hearts; whereas, without this, you may lose the most of your labour; and the more pains you take in accurate preparation, the less good you may do. As you would not, therefore, lose your public labour, see that you be faithful in this private work.

4. By means of it, you will come to be familiar with your people, and may thereby win their affections.

The want of this, with those who have very numerous congregations, is a great impediment to the success of our labours. By distance and unacquaintedness, abundance of mistakes between ministers and people are fomented; while, on the other hand, familiarity will tend to beget those affections which may open their ears to further instruction. Besides, when we are familiar with them, they will be encouraged to open their doubts to us and deal freely with us. But when a minister knows not his people, or is as strange to them as if he did not know them, it must be a great hindrance to his doing any good among them.

5. By means of it, we shall come to be better acquainted with each person’s spiritual state, and so the better know how to watch over them.

We shall know better how to preach to them, and carry ourselves to them, when we know their temper, and their chief objections, and so what they have most need to hear. We shall know better wherein to be ‘jealous over them with a godly jealousy,’ and what temptations to guard them most against. We shall know better how to lament for them, and to rejoice with them, and to pray for them. For as he that will pray rightly for himself must know his own wants, and the diseases of his own heart, so he that will pray rightly for others, should know theirs as far as possible.

6. By means of this trial and acquaintance with our people’s state we shall be much assisted in the admission of them to the sacraments.

Though I doubt not a minister may require his people to come to him at any convenient season, to give an account of their faith and proficiency, and to receive instruction, and therefore he may do it as a preparation for the Lord’s supper, yet because ministers have laid the stress of that examination upon the mere necessity of fitness for that ordinance, and not upon their common duty the reformed pastor to see the state and proficiency of each member of their flock at all fit seasons, and upon the people’s duty to submit to the guidance and instruction of their pastors at all times, they have occasioned people ignorantly to quarrel with their examinations. Now, by this course we shall discover their fitness or unfitness, in a way that is unexceptionable; and in a way far more effectual than by some partial examination of them before they are admitted to the Lord’s table.

7. It will show men the true nature of the ministerial office, and awaken them to the better consideration of it, than is now usual.

It is too common for men to think that the work of the ministry is nothing but to preach, and to baptize, and to administer the Lord’s supper, and to visit the sick. By this means the people will submit to no more; and too many ministers are such strangers to their own calling, that they will do no more. It hath oft grieved my heart to observe some eminent able preachers, how little they do for the saving of souls, save only in the pulpit; and to how little purpose much of their labour is, by this neglect. They have hundreds of people that they never spoke a word to personally for their salvation; and if we may judge by their practice, they consider it not as their duty; and the principal thing that hardeneth men in this oversight is the common neglect of the private part of the work by others. There are so few that do much in it, and the omission hath grown so common among pious, able men, that the disgrace of it is abated by their ability; and a man may now be guilty of it without any particular notice or dishonour. Never doth sin so reign in a church or state, as when it hath gained reputation, or, at least, is no disgrace to the sinner, nor a matter of offence to beholders. But I make no doubt, through the mercy of God, that the restoring of the practice of personal oversight will convince many ministers, that this is as truly their work as that which they now do, and may awaken them to see that the ministry is another kind of business than too many excellent preachers take it to be. Brethren, do but set yourselves closely to this work, and follow it diligently; and though you do it silently, without any words to them that are negligent, I am in hope that most of you who are present may live to see the day, when the neglect of private personal oversight of all the flock shall be taken for a scandalous and odious omission, and shall be as disgraceful to them that are guilty of it, as preaching but once a day was heretofore. A schoolmaster must take a personal account of his scholars, or else he is like to do little good. If physicians should only read a public lecture on physic, their patients would not be much the better of them; nor would a lawyer secure your estate by reading a lecture on law. Now, the charge of a pastor requireth personal dealing, as well as any of these. Let us show the world this by our practice; for most men are grown regardless of bare words.

The Banner publishes a number of confessions and catechisms. See the following:

• The Westminster Shorter Catechism (booklet)
• The Westminster Larger Catechism (booklet)
• The Heidelberg Catechism (gift ed.)
• The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith (gift ed.)

Featured painting: John Frederick Herring, 1795–1865, British, Harvest, 1857, Oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1981.25.332.

The post Catechising Our People: Motives for Pastors appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, in which I had been brought up, had been advertising for another Missionary to join the Rev. John Inglis in his grand work in the New Hebrides. Dr. Bates, the excellent convener of the Heathen Missions Committee, was deeply grieved, because for two years their appeal had failed. At length, the Synod, after much prayer and consultation, felt the claims of the Heathen so urgently pressed upon them by the Lord’s repeated calls, that they resolved to cast lots, to discover whether God would thus select any Minister to be relieved from his home charge, and designated as a Missionary to the South Seas. Each member of Synod, as I was informed, agreed to hand in, after solemn appeal to God, the names of the three best qualified in his esteem for such a work, and he who had the clear majority was to be loosed from his Congregation, and to proceed to the Mission field–or the first and second highest, if two could be secured. Hearing this debate, and feeling an intense interest in these most unusual proceedings, I remember yet the hushed solemnity of the prayer before the names were handed in. I remember the strained silence that held the Assembly while the scrutinizers retired to examine the papers; and I remember how tears blinded my eyes when they returned to announce that the result was so indecisive, that it was clear that the Lord had not in that way provided a Missionary.

The cause was once again solemnly laid before God in prayer, and a cloud of sadness appeared to fall over all the Synod. The Lord kept saying within me, “Since none better qualified can be got, rise and offer yourself”. Almost overpowering was the impulse to answer aloud, “Here am I, send me.” But I was dreadfully afraid of mistaking my mere human emotions for the will of God. So I resolved to make it a subject of close deliberation and prayer for a few days longer, and to look at the proposal from every possible aspect. Besides, I was keenly solicitous about the effect upon the hundreds of young people and others, now attached to all my Classes and Meetings; and yet I felt a growing assurance that this was the call of God to His servant, and that He who was willing to employ me in the work abroad, was both able and willing to provide for the on-carrying of my work at home. The wail and the claims of the Heathen were constantly sounding in my ears. I saw them perishing for lack of the knowledge of the true God and His Son Jesus, while my Green Street people had the open Bible and all the means of grace within easy reach, which, if they rejected, they did so wilfully, and at their own peril. None seemed prepared for the Heathen field; many were capable and ready for the Calton service. My medical studies, as well as my literary and divinity training, had specially qualified me in some ways for the Foreign field, and from every aspect at which I could look the whole facts in the face, the voice within me sounded like a voice from God.

It was under good Dr. Bates of West Campbell Street that I had begun my career in Glasgow–receiving £25 per annum for district visitation in connection with his Congregation, along with instruction under Mr. Hislop and his staff in the Free Church Normal Seminary–and oh, how Dr. Bates did rejoice, and even weep for joy, when I called on him, and offered myself for the New Hebrides Mission! I returned to my lodging with a lighter heart than I had for some time enjoyed feeling that nothing so clears the vision, and lifts up the life, as a decision to move forward in what you know to be entirely the will of the Lord. I said to my fellow-student, who had chummed with me all through our course at college, “I have been away signing my banishment” (a rather trifling way of talk for such an occasion).” I have offered myself as a Missionary for the New Hebrides.”

After a long and silent meditation, in which he seemed lost in far wandering thoughts, his answer was, “If they will accept of me, I am also resolved to go!” I said, ” Will you write the Convener to that effect, or let me do so?” He replied, “You may.” A few minutes later his letter of offer was in the post office. Next morning, Dr. Bates called upon us early, and after a long conversation, commended us and our future work to the Lord God in fervent prayer. This fellow-student, Mr. Joseph Copeland, had also for some time been a very successful City Missionary in the Camlachie district, while attending along with me at the Divinity Hall. The leading of God, whereby we both resolved at the same time to give ourselves to the Foreign Mission field, was wholly unexpected by us, as we had never once spoken to each other about going abroad. At a meeting of the Foreign Missions Committee, held immediately thereafter, both were, after due deliberation, formally accepted, on condition that we passed successfully the usual examinations required of candidates for the Ministry. And for the next twelve months we were placed under a special committee for advice as to medical experience, acquaintance with the rudiments of trades, and anything else which might be thought useful to us in the Foreign field.

When it became known that I was preparing to go abroad as Missionary, nearly all were dead against the proposal, except Dr. Bates and my fellow-student. My dear father and mother, however, when I consulted them, characteristically replied, that “they had long since given me away to the Lord, and in this matter also would leave me to God’s disposal.” From other quarters we were besieged with the strongest opposition on all sides. Even Dr. Symington, one of my professors in divinity, and the beloved Minister in connection with whose congregation I had wrought so long as a City Missionary, and in whose Kirk Session I had for years sat as an Elder, repeatedly urged me to remain at home. He argued, that “Green Street Church was doubtless the sphere for which God had given me peculiar qualifications, and in which He had so largely blessed my labours; that if I left those now attending my Classes and Meetings, they might be scattered, and many of them would probably fall away; that I was leaving certainty for uncertainty-work in which God had made me greatly useful, for work in which I might fail to be useful, and only throw away my Iife amongst Cannibals.”

I replied, that “my mind was finally resolved; that, though I loved my work and my people, yet I felt that I could leave them to the care of Jesus, who would soon provide them a better pastor than I; and that, with regard to my life amongst the Cannibals, as I had only once to die, I was content to leave the time and place and means in the hand of God, who had already marvellously preserved me when visiting cholera patients and the fever-stricken poor; on that score I had positively no further concern, having left it all absolutely to the Lord, whom I sought to serve and honour, whether in life or by death.” The house connected with my Green Street Church was now offered to me for a Manse, and any reasonable salary that I cared to ask (as against the promised £120 per annum for the far-off and dangerous New Hebrides), on condition that I would remain at home. I cannot honestly say that such offers or opposing influences proved a heavy trial to me; they rather tended to confirm my determination that the path of duty was to go abroad. Amongst many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, “The Cannibals! You will be eaten by Cannibals!” At last I replied, “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.” The old gentleman, raising his hands in a deprecating attitude, left the room exclaiming, ” After that I have nothing more to say!”

My dear Green Street people grieved excessively at the thought of my leaving them, and daily pled with me to remain. Indeed, the opposition was so strong from nearly all, and many of them warm Christian friends, that I was sorely tempted to question whether I was carrying out the Divine will, or only some headstrong wish of my own. This also caused me much anxiety, and drove me close to God in prayer. But again every doubt would vanish, when I clearly saw that all at home had free access to the Bible and the means of grace, with Gospel light shining all around them, while the poor Heathen were perishing, without even the chance of knowing all God’s love and mercy to men. Conscience said louder and clearer every day, ” Leave all these results with Jesus your Lord, who said, ‘Go ye into all the world, preach the Gospel to every creature, and lo! I am with you alway.”‘ These words kept ringing in my ears; these were our marching orders.

Some retorted upon me, “There are Heathen at home; let us seek and save, first of all, the lost ones perishing at our doors.” This I felt to be most true, and an appalling fact; but I unfailingly observed that those who made this retort neglected these Home Heathen themselves; and so the objection, as from them, lost all its power. They would ungrudgingly spend more on a fashionable party at dinner or tea, on concert or ball or theatre, or on some ostentatious display, or worldly and selfish indulgence, ten times more, perhaps in a single day, than they would give in a year, or in half a lifetime, for the  conversion of the whole Heathen World, either at home or abroad. Objections from all such people must, of course, always count for nothing among men to whom spiritual things are realities. For these people themselves I do, and always did, only pity them, as God’s stewards, making such a miserable use of time and money entrusted to their care.

On meeting with so many obstructing influences, I again laid the whole matter before my dear parents, and their reply was to this effect:- “Heretofore we feared to bias you, but now we must tell you why we praise God for the decision to which you have been led. Your father’s heart was set upon being a Minister, but other claims forced him to give it up. When you were given to them, your father and mother laid you upon the altar, their first-born, to be consecrated, if God saw fit, as a Missionary of the Cross; and it has been their constant prayer that you might be prepared, qualified, and led to this very decision; and we pray with all our heart that the Lord may accept your offering, long spare you, and give you many souls from the Heathen World for your hire.” From that moment, every doubt as to my path of duty forever vanished. I saw the hand of God very visibly, not only preparing me for, but now leading me to, the Foreign Mission field.

Well did I know that the sympathy and prayers of my dear parents were warmly with me in all my studies and in all my Mission work; but for my education they could, of course, give me no money help. All through, on the contrary, it was my pride and joy to help them, being the eldest in a family of eleven; though I here most gladly and gratefully record that all my brothers and sisters, as they grew up and began to earn a living, took their full share in this same blessed privilege. First, I assisted them to purchase the family cow, without whose invaluable aid my ever-memorable mother never could have reared and fed her numerous flock; then, I paid for them the house-rent and the cow’s grass on the Bank Hill, till some of the others were more able, and relieved me by paying these in my stead; and finally, I helped to pay the school-fees and to provide clothing for the younger ones–in short, I gave, and gladly, what could possibly be saved out of my City Mission salary of £40, ultimately advanced to £45 per annum. Self-educated thus, and without the help of one shilling from any other source, readers will easily imagine that I had many a staggering difficulty to overcome in my long curriculum in Arts, Divinity, and Medicine; but God so guided me, and blessed all my little arrangements, that I never incurred one farthing of personal debt.

There was, however, a heavy burden always pressing upon me, and crushing my spirit from the day I left my home, which had been thus incurred. The late owner of the Dalswinton estate allowed, as a prize, the cottager who had the tidiest house and most beautiful flower-garden to sit rent-free. For several years in succession, my old seafaring grandfather won this prize, partly by his own handy skill, partly by his wife’s joy in flowers. Unfortunately no clearance-receipt had been asked or given for these rents, the proprietor and his cottars treating each other as friends, rather than as men of business. The new heir, unexpectedly succeeding, found himself in need of money, and threatened prosecution for such rents as arrears. The money had to be borrowed. A moneylending lawyer gave it at usurious interest, on condition of my father also becoming responsible for interest and principal.

This burden hung like a millstone around my grandfather’s neck till the day of his death; and it then became suspended round my father’s neck alone. The lawyer, on hearing of my giving up trade and entering upon study, threatened to prosecute my father for the capital, unless my name were given along with his for security. Every shilling that I or any of our family could save, all through these ten years, went to pay off that interest and gradually to reduce the capital; and this burden we managed, amongst us, to extinguish just on the eve of my departure for the South Seas. Indeed, one of the purest joys connected with that time was that I received my first Foreign Mission salary and outfit money in advance, and could send home a sum sufficient to wipe out the last penny of a claim by that money-lender or by any one else against my beloved parents, in connection with the noble struggle they had made in rearing so large a family in sternly noble Scottish independence. And that joy was hallowed by
the knowledge that my other brothers and sisters were now both willing and able to do more than all that would in future be required–for we stuck to each other and to the old folks like burs, and had all things in common,” as a family in Christ–and I knew that never again, howsoever long they might be spared through the peaceful autumn of life, would the dear old father and mother lack any joy or comfort that the willing hands and loving hearts of all their children could singly or unitedly provide. For all this I did praise the Lord! It consoled me, beyond description, in parting from them,
probably for ever, in this world at least.

The Directors of Glasgow City Mission, along with the Great Hamilton Street congregation, had made every effort to find a suitable successor to me in my Green Street work, but in vain. Despairing of success, as no inexperienced worker could with any hope undertake it, Rev. Mr. Caie, the superintendent, felt moved to appeal to my brother Walter–then in a good business situation in the city, who had been of late closely associated with me in all my undertakings–if he would not come to the rescue, devote himself to the Mission, and prepare for the Holy Ministry. My brother resigned a good position and excellent prospects in the business world, set himself to carry forward the Green Street Mission, and did so with abundant energy and manifest blessing, persevered in his studies despite a long-continued illness, and became an honoured Minister of the Gospel, in the Reformed Presbyterian Church first of all, and thereafter in the Free Church of Scotland.

On my brother withdrawing from Green Street, God provided for the district a devoted young Minister, admirably adapted for the work, Rev. John Edgar, M.A., who succeeded in drawing together such a body of people that they hived off and built a new church in Landressy Street, which is now, by amalgamation, known as the Barrowfield Free Church of Glasgow. For that fruit too, while giving all praise to other devoted workers, we bless God as we trace the history of the Green Street Mission. Let him that soweth and him that reapeth rejoice unfeignedly together. The spirit of the old Green Street workers lives on too, as I have already said, in the new Halls erected close thereby; and in none more conspicuously than in the son of my staunch patron and friend, another Thomas Binnie, who in Foundry Boy meetings and otherwise devotes the consecrated leisure of a busy and prosperous life to the direct personal service of his Lord and Master. The blessing of Jehovah God be ever upon that place, and upon all who there seek to win their fellows to the love and service of Jesus Christ. When I left Glasgow, many of the young men and women of my Classes would, if it had been possible, have gone with me, to live and die among the Heathen. Though chiefly working girls and lads in trades and mills, their deep interest led them to unite their pennies and sixpences, and to buy web after web of calico, print, and woollen stuffs, which they themselves shaped and sewed into dresses for the women, and kilts and pants for men, on the New Hebrides. This continued to be repeated year by year, long after I had left them; and to this day no box from Glasgow goes to the New Hebrides Mission which does not contain article after article from one or other of the old Green Street hands. I do certainly anticipate that, when they and I meet in Glory, those days in which we learned the joy of Christian service in the Green Street Mission Halls will form no unwelcome theme of holy and happy converse!

That able and devoted Minister of the Gospel, Dr. Bates, the Convener of the Heathen Missions, had taken the deepest and most fatherly interest in all our preparations. On the morning of our final examinations he was confined to bed with sickness, yet could not be content without sending his daughter to wait in an adjoining room near the Presbytery House, to learn the result, and instantly to carry him word. When she, hurrying home, informed him that we both had passed successfully, and that the day of our ordination as Missionaries to the New Hebrides had been appointed, the apostolic old man praised God for the glad tidings, and said his work was now done, and that he could depart in peace having seen two devoted men set apart to preach the Gospel to these dark and bloody Islands, in answer to his prayers and tears for many a day. Thereafter he rapidly sank, and soon fell asleep in Jesus. He was from the first a very precious friend to me, one of the ablest Ministers our Church ever had, by far the warmest advocate of her Foreign Missions: and altogether a most attractive, white-souled, and noble specimen of an ambassador for Christ, beseeching men to be reconciled to God.

The above excerpt is from John G. Paton: The Autobiography of the Pioneer Missionary to the New Hebrides (Cloth-bound, 540 pages, £14.50).

Featured Image: William Clark, 1803–1883, British, The English Merchant Ship ‘Malabar’, 1836, Oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1981.25.106.

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(1 Timothy 2:1-2)

As long as we are busy doing good, the devil has less opportunity to draw us into his nets since he does not find us unoccupied. On the other hand those who indulge in idle fantasies are vulnerable to Satan, who is able to carry them this way and that with ease. That is why we see so much error in the world, and why so many fall victim to false and evil teaching. By nature we are inclined to vanity and we happily indulge this vice. Satan is thus much freer to draw us after him, so that we often notice that people who begin well not only turn back and retreat but become mortal enemies of God and of religion. Accordingly Paul now urges Timothy to make sure that the faithful strive with all their might to pray to God not only for themselves and for the church but for all mankind. Earlier he had spoken of many who were given to pointless curiosities from which no benefit could be had. Here, then, he provides a sure and appropriate remedy to shut the door to Satan: we are to think of those practices which meet with God’s approval.

Prayer is the first and foremost exercise expected of God’s children. It is by prayer that we test the genuineness of our faith, when we turn to our God and call upon his name, and when we do not think only about ourselves and our concerns but generally include all who are joined to us and who are in one way or another close to us. God has established the bond of unity between all men, so that they should acknowledge each other as brothers or else as neighbours. So in our prayers this is the practice we should follow: our prayers should not be concentrated only on ourselves or on our acquaintances; our love and concern should extend to everyone, whether great or small, whether intimate friends or strangers. Of course nothing stops us respecting those relationships which Scripture itself commends to us. If we want to pray to God for all men, we must begin with those who are united with us in faith and in obedience to the gospel, for they are members, so to speak, of God’s household. Nevertheless in our prayers for the faithful we should feel compassion and pity for helpless unbelievers who continue to walk in error and ignorance. We should entreat God to draw them to us, so that together we may be of the same mind. Such is Paul’s purpose in this passage—to show that God’s children should not spend their time in useless and unprofitable labours but should call on God that he might have a care for the salvation of all. Morning and evening this ought to be our task. The door will thus be shut to Satan. He will not be able to deceive men or to lead them into wicked and futile speculations. We have now to consider Paul’s words in detail: Before all else I urge that petitions, requests and prayers be made, and thanksgivings offered to God. In saying ‘before all else’ he emphasizes that we must have a special regard for prayer. These are words worth weighing.

As I have said, those who pray to God in a cold and careless way show that they have no faith, for it is here that faith proves itself. The true test of whether we have profited from the gospel is this: whether we are fervent in praying to God and have a compelling desire to pray night and day. The person who says that he trusts God and believes the gospel but who has no interest in prayer proves that he is a scoffer and a hypocrite. If we accept God’s promises and are certain of what he tells us, we will surely seek him out, for he undertakes to be our Father and Saviour, invites us to come to him and stretches forth his hand. All he asks is that, having been called to the knowledge of his truth, we beg him to fulfil the things which we hope to have from him. Those, therefore,whose mouth is closed and who are mindless or indifferent, show clearly that they have never savoured God’s promises. It is with good cause that Paul puts prayers and supplications ahead of everything else in God’s church. His point is that these must be our main preoccupation. That, then, is one lesson. Consider, however, what kind of Christianity we have. We see very few who strive in prayer to God. If we pray, it is done simply as a duty, for form’s sake. In short, it is like a performance devoid of any effectiveness or zeal. And if we are cool about prayers in public, think of what it is like when each of us is at home and in private! Since we have progressed so little in the practice of prayer to God, it should be obvious that we have not yet grasped the power of the gospel, that we possess scarcely one drop of faith and, even worse, that as far as we are able we smother what little light we have received. So let this be an incentive which helps us to pray, and may we go about it with more enthusiasm than we have so far shown. That is what Paul is urging us to do. In mentioning ‘petitions, supplications and prayers’, he means to emphasize a particularly important point. He could have said, more briefly, ‘Let prayer be offered and requests made.’ However, not content with one word only he uses three whose sense is the same. When Paul stresses an idea he seeks to impress it on us and to touch us more closely, as if to wake us up because we have grown much too sleepy.

We learn then from this passage not to relax too soon in the matter of prayer to God. We imagine that it is enough if we lift up our minds for a minute of our time. We should be more disciplined, and if we feel our thoughts wandering we should act so as to take ourselves captive. This is something we must train ourselves to do, for Paul thrice reins us in, as it were, in order to hold us down. ‘Pray to God!’ he says. How then shall we pray? He knows that we are always straying to one side or another. ‘Come back,’ he cries, ‘make known your requests!’ Then, perceiving that we are so erratic and that it is not enough to have said the same thing twice, he applies the reins a third time: ‘Make your prayers!’ Note that the Holy Spirit, speaking by the mouth of Paul, here remedies our frivolity, because he sees that we are hardly ever constant in prayer, and that when we do pray almost anything will distract us, for it is hard for us to be as firm and steadfast as we should be. Thus the apostle tells us to concentrate on prayer and to give ourselves strenuously to prayer and supplication, not only for ourselves and our own affairs but for the whole church and for everyone in general.

We turn now to those for whom Paul says we ought to pray: for all men, for kings and for those who are highly placed and in authority. When he bids us pray for all men, he means us to show love one to another, asking God to be merciful to all and to gather us together into the heavenly inheritance, for he has made and fashioned us in his own image. We must, I repeat, pray earnestly first of all for God’s church, and because we are joined to one another God allows and indeed commands us to feel all the more concern for each other. What other purpose does our common brotherhood serve? Paul naturally has no wish to do away with the close relationships which Scripture everywhere commends. Still, his meaning is that we should not only pray for the faithful who already have fellowship with us, but for all who are far off—for unhappy unbelievers. Although they seem distant and separated from us by a thick wall, we must feel pity that they are lost and should entreat God to draw them to himself.

Since this is so we must see how wicked it is if each of us seeks only his own profit and has no care or regard for his fellow-men. Our Lord did not create an infinite number of worlds in which we should each dwell apart, living for ourselves and for our personal advantage. He made us to be together, one with another. He intended us to live together, and therefore bound us to each other, reminding us that we must share with our neighbours. That was why he created us with the same nature. When I look at someone I am meant to discern my image in him, seeing myself in his person and recognizing myself in him. Even more noteworthy, however, is the fact that God’s image is impressed on every human being. So if we honour and reverence God in any way at all, we cannot scorn his image which is engraved on all men. We must remember what Scripture says: ‘No one hates his own flesh’ (Eph. 5:29). That would be monstrous, contrary to human nature. Now the word ‘flesh’ applies to all of us, both great and small, and to those who are furthest removed from us, just as the prophet Isaiah says (Isa. 58:7). God has brought us together on the condition that we each help our neighbour to the best of our ability and as our means allow.

This ought to be clear from the prayers we make to God, for this is the best way we can assist those who need our help. If I intend to serve those to whom God has bound me, I must of course consider the means I have to hand and I must act as the opportunity arises. Nevertheless the greatest good which we can do for men is to pray to God for them and to ask him for their salvation. It is precisely here that Paul bids all believers demonstrate their love. And if our concern must extend to unbelievers who have no common bond with us, what must we do for those who bear the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who share in the same baptism and who are members of the church? What thought should we give to them? If we are rebuked for forgetting or despising unbelievers and those outside Christ’s flock, what shall we say of those whom God explicitly commands us to love? Such is the duty which this text lays on us. We are to have a special regard for all who bear the name of Jesus Christ, to love them as brothers and to be joined and united with them. Otherwise we do not deserve to be reckoned by God as his children. For when we rend the body of Jesus Christ, what part and portion can we claim of that immortal heritage to which we are called? Do we not see that, if we are members of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, God has adopted us as his children, but only as we are joined to each other by brotherly love? If I separate myself from those whom God wills to be his, I do all I can to break apart the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I banish myself from the kingdom of heaven.

This is a truth which we all too often overlook, as we know from experience. Where is that unity among us which God has hallowed and which we should consider sacrosanct? Today we talk only of devouring one another. We fight like cats and dogs. Far from remembering that we are members of our Lord Jesus Christ, we act as if kindness had ceased to exist among us. Where do we find the honesty and sense of justice which are expected of us? Where is the compassion and sympathy we should show in helping one another? We see none of it, for we seem to have conspired to destroy the entire order which God has willed for us. Instead of caring for our brothers, endeavouring to do them good and ensuring their safety and well-being, we only want to bring them down and contrive their ruin. Can we not see that by doing this we profane God’s name, and that though we boast of being Christians we are nothing of the kind? We should thus be even more careful to heed Paul’s appeal that we pray for all men.

We ought also to pity the poor souls who are wandering to their doom, however undeserving they may be, however hostile to the church and however remote from us. May we be more mindful of these things than we have been in the past. The apostle, having urged us to make requests for all men, adds that we should particularly pray for kings and for those in high office. Here he stresses something which I have already said, that since God would have us serve each other, this must be our guiding thought, so that it becomes a spur to further action. If it is true that, through the agency of rulers, magistrates and government, we receive singular—I might even say, unimaginable—blessings from God, rulers are rightly commended to us and we should put them ahead of everyone else. That is what Paul means. Accordingly he briefly spells out the benefits which come to us from the civil order which God has established in the world: first, that we live in peace and tranquillity; second, that God is served and honoured; third, that men lead decent lives, so that being constrained by fear they avoid all excess and disorder.

Now Paul might have said much more, but the fact is that he has omitted nothing important in briefly sketching the advantages which we derive from earthly governments and from those appointed to run them. We should recognize, however, that in his own day he had a special reason for commending magistrates: all of them were enemies of the gospel who persecuted hapless Christians. They were murderers and godless men, bitter opponents, in a word, of true and pure religion. Believers might have thought that to pray for such as these made no sense. ‘What? You want me to pray for enemies of the truth who want to stamp out the gospel and all memory of our Lord Jesus Christ? For those who cruelly kill believers? It’s as if I were to wish a deadly plague on the church of God!’ Yet Paul makes it clear that this should not stop us praying for all magistrates. Why? We are not to consider their persons, whether they themselves today are faithful to their duty. We must rather think of the order willed by God. It can never be broken because of the malice of men; it cannot be completely abolished without some trace surviving. So although those who are in authority and who wield the sword of justice may behave badly, although they may commit injustice after injustice and wreak worse havoc than those who have no such office and responsibility, and although they may even be sworn enemies of God, we must nevertheless acknowledge that God has set up kingdoms, principalities and the seat of justice so that we may live peaceably in his fear and may lead decent lives. This, I say, cannot be swept away by
the wickedness of men.

We do indeed see that when tyrants reign, dreadful evils abound. Yet even this is more tolerable than if there were no order at all! Supposing we weigh on one side of the scales one tyrant, or many, who behave most brutally, robbing one man and killing another, and who commit many other heinous crimes in the name of justice; and on the other side let us put a people who have no leader, no magistrate or anyone in authority, a people where all are equal. We can be sure that there would be much greater and more terrible confusion when no one was supreme than if the worst possible tyranny prevailed. Why should that be? Because although ferocious devils might occupy the seat of justice and do all kinds of mischief, God does not permit them to overturn all justice: some vestige of good remains.

However, when we pray for those in high office, we do not do so for this reason alone. We pray in order that God may use them to help us enjoy the good things mentioned in our text. And when justice is abused, when theft and extortion occur and when instead of equity and decency, partiality, hatred and other such things flourish—well, we have to think about our sins, for all this is their fruit. God is paying us back with the coin we deserve. If we were worthy of living under his rule, it is certain that he would choose good authorities for us who would faithfully fulfil his commands. But since we are intractable and will not have him to rule over us, and since we are so incensed against him that we only want to throw off his yoke, he withdraws from us and remains aloof. At the same time he gives us the magistrates we deserve. If we know this we should first sigh and groan and bow our heads, for we are being punished for our sins. Then we should call upon God that he might raise up such magistrates as will restore justice among us, so that we may serve and worship him with one accord, may see an end to all unruly, base and evil conduct, may know peace and concord and no longer be like wild beasts. This is how we are to pray for magistrates and for all in authority. We pray, then, for magistrates in the same way as we are asked to intercede for all men generally. For if we see rulers who mistreat their subjects, who overturn the purity of the gospel, who are intent on trampling everything down and who have no time for religion, we should feel pity and compassion for those who, under them, suffer such distress. Thus the requests we make for kings and rulers are not simply for those who govern us. We must remember not only those under whom we live, but must pray for all who exercise rule. Note, however, that if we are to pray
for those who are unknown to us and who do not control our lives, how much more should we pray for those who protect us, to whom we owe obedience and whom God has placed over us!

We are to submit to them, as Scripture says (Rom. 13:1-6; Titus 3:1; 1 Pet. 2:13-15). It is true that we must give first place in our prayers to the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. It has priority over all principalities on earth, not only because his rule is supreme and because all loftiness and power must bow to it, but because it is the key to our ultimate happiness and deliverance. Nevertheless, since all the principalities on earth are like an image and symbol of Christ’s kingdom, we should cherish them and ask God to preserve and prosper them. (I am speaking more particularly of lawful kingdoms.) When each of us lives under a ruler or magistrate in a free city, he is to remember them in his prayers to God. Yet there is more. Let those who are ruled by tyrants pray especially for them, since they hold power and occupy the seat of justice. Why do I say that? ‘Pray to God for Babylon,’ says the prophet Jeremiah, ‘for in its peace you too have peace’ (Jer. 29:7). Here we see the Jews who had been carried off to Babylon—not that the Babylonians had any rights over them, but because God, for a time, had chosen to afflict them. So because God had allowed the Babylonians to rule over the Jews, they had to pray for the king and for the government of his realm. It is therefore clear what we must do when we have Christian magistrates who protect religion, the social order and the rule of justice. How much more fervent should we be in
commending them to God!

This is the pattern which we need to follow. We should recognize overall that, because God ordained government in this world, we must value it, which is why we pray for those who are our leaders and in authority. But let each of us pray for his own ruler or magistrates according to the order which prevails, having a special regard for them. Then if, thanks to the magistrates who govern us, religion grows and thrives, let God be honoured and served as is only right. Let there be calm and tranquillity. Let us realize that in this way God gives us further cause to pray that he might maintain this order and not allow it to decay, much less to perish, but that instead it might increase and go from strength to strength. This is what Paul had in mind when he bade us pray for those in authority.

Observe again what was said before: Paul sets before us the benefits which God liberally confers on us by the hand of magistrates, so that we feel all the more goodwill toward them. For we know just how proud we are until God tames us by his Holy Spirit and teaches us the meaning of humility. We would all love to be king over everyone else, and there is no one who does not believe that he deserves to be first before all others. So although we are persuaded that we cannot do without some sort of government, we cannot submit unless God presses us hard and forces us to see sense. Most people, admittedly, know that they are not capable of being rulers, and so they tolerate government. Yet they do not do so cheerfully unless God has taught them—for this is Paul’s point—that he has freely chosen those who rule us as ministers of his goodness, and that he is pleased to govern by their hand. Since God must be our head, he chooses whomever he wills, so that the responsibilities they exercise are his. If we are convinced of this we will willingly submit to the justice of those who rule; but until we concede this truth we will always be unmanageable.

Paul thus confronts us with the fact that thanks to those who govern us we may live together in peace and harmony, honestly and with godly fear. That is one point. So it is a terrible pestilence when men attempt to change things round and to overthrow the civil order. Such people must be mad: the devil has bewitched them. In our own time that is what some have tried to do. Under the pretext of Christianity they have sought to do away with all government in this world. They pretended of course to be spiritual men, but they were devils who were out to corrupt the whole human race, and to create such chaos that it would have been better for men to become brute beasts or werewolves than to suffer such confusion! They claim that our Lord Jesus Christ has renewed the world, and that his kingdom is spiritual, that there is no need for the spiritual sword, that force and coercion should no longer be used, and so on.* Can this be right? When it is said that Jesus Christ came to renew the world, is this renewal finished and completed in one day? Far from it! To grow in newness of life is the work of a lifetime. Jesus Christ indeed undertakes, as Scripture says, to make us new creatures (Isa. 65:17; 2 Cor. 5:17). Still, we are partly in thrall to our old skin, so that much of the old nature remains in us. Until, therefore, we are like the angels in paradise, we need some kind of order and restraint to keep us under control, until we are fully remade in the image of God. Paul teaches that we are to obey magistrates not only out of fear of punishment, since they have the sword in their hand, but because they are ministers of God’s grace whom we ought to honour and love. And if we reject them or speak ill of them, it is a wrong we do to God himself and not to mortal men. It is also proof of our ingratitude. Thus in the thirteenth chapter of Romans the apostle writes: ‘Whoever despises authority is a rebel against God’ (Rom. 13:2). Why? Because it is no accident that men now rule and that lords command as we see them do today; it is the mark of God’s providence. Hence we are to submit to magistrates, not for wrath’s sake but for the sake of conscience. We are doubly liable, however, in the sense that we are even worse rebels against God, and our ingratitude is all the more vile, if we do not obey good and faithful magistrates through whom God imparts his gifts to us. Our life would be worse than brutish if there was neither government nor authority over us. Notice, in conclusion, that Paul’s remarks cover everything that serves to preserve humankind. These things are singled out: ‘peace, religion and decency’. By peace he means to show that although men have the same nature, they could not manage unless there was something to rein them in. Wolves recognize each other in the forests and woods, as do the other wild animals. But our nature is so twisted that although we are created in God’s image, if God did not keep us in check we could scarcely tolerate our fellow-men for a single day! Clearly this is not something of which we are always aware, but, all things considered, we must admit that it is just as Paul says.

In the second place there is something even more deserving of our reverence and respect: godliness, when magistrates are committed to defending true religion. That, alas, is a duty not much practised nowadays, for those who now rule, instead of upholding God’s honour, suppress it and trample it underfoot. Yet it is the responsibility of rulers and magistrates to see that God is honoured and worshipped. Even the heathen knew this, blind wretches though they were, despite the fact that they replaced God’s proper worship with many evil superstitions and idolatries. Nevertheless they held it to be an evident and universal rule that some system of justice was needed to ensure that God was duly served. Since God has greatly honoured magistrates this way, let us not be slow for our part to render them the service which is asked of us, by obeying them and thus acknowledging the debt we owe them. The third thing which Paul mentions is decency. The word also has the sense of sobriety, signifying that the task of magistrates is to take due care that men do not become dissolute.** Unless they are watchful the distinction between right and wrong will vanish. None will blush at the evil they do and everything will go to the dogs. In short, men will forget their real nature unless the Lord by the hand of magistrates bestows his good gift on us. This should encourage us all the more to pray that he may preserve the civil order which he has established among us, and that, by his Holy Spirit, he may govern those whom he has placed in the seat of justice.

May he so guide them in all goodness and integrity as to show that he is master over them, and through them, over us, so that we in turn may honour and serve him with one accord. May his hand be continually stretched out to protect us, so that we may be kept in perfect peace as we submit to those who lead us. And may we look to that eternal kingdom which he has prepared for us, and which has been won for us by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now may we cast ourselves down before the face of our good God, acknowledging our faults and beseeching him to make us feel them all the more, so that, being ashamed of ourselves, we may turn to him, entreating his mercy and pardon for the many wrongs which we have done. May he be pleased from this time forth to correct all our trespasses and sins, to the end that we may seek to glorify his holy name and to shut the mouths of all who speak and do evil. And may each of us maintain peace and concord with his neighbour, so that we may live together in brotherly unity to serve the glory of our great God, in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

*The preacher may possibly have an attitude such as Castellio’s in mind, but a more likely target is the Anabaptists, who were required to renounce everything which lay outside ‘the perfection of Christ’, including recourse to the law, the swearing of oaths, the use of force and the exercise of temporal power. Cf. the following sermon, where Calvin argues that the exercise of political and judicial power is a valid Christian calling, without which civil society could not exist.

**The Greek text has semnotes, ‘gravity, dignified seriousness’: proper conduct befitting the godly.

This sermon was excerpted from John Calvin, Sermons on 1 Timothy, translated by Robert White. You can buy the book here.

Featured Photo by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos on Unsplash.

The post The Priority of Prayer: <br> John Calvin Sermon appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

The love of Christ compels me to give testimony to my conversion from the Roman Catholic priesthood to the born-again life in Jesus Christ. For twenty-five years I was a Roman Catholic priest, strictly following the rituals of a system that enveloped me as a huge and indomitable fortress of darkness and ignorance of the written Word of God.

The Lord Teaches Me

I baptized many infants, pouring water on their heads. I officiated at public processions in honour and veneration of dead ‘saints’, holding their wooden images, even though the second commandment of God strictly forbids even the making of graven images. I offered the daily Mass, which I falsely believed was the repetition of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary, and I believed that the bread and wine literally became Jesus’ flesh and blood. Only later, when I had studied and prayed over the words of Jesus, as recorded in the Bible, were my eyes opened. The Lord taught me that there could not be a repetition of the consummated sacrifice on the cross, nor did Jesus literally change bread and wine into his body and blood when he instituted the last supper.

Very seriously, steadfastly, and sincerely, I sought the intercession of dead ‘saints’ and prayed for the dead in purgatory, not knowing the biblical teaching that there is only ‘one God and one Mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’ (1 Tim. 2:5). He alone died in place of the believer and paid the full ransom for sin. This being true, we understand why there is no mention in the Bible
of a place of expiation called purgatory, where souls are released through suffering and the prayers of those living on earth. As a sincere Catholic, I had great faith in the veneration of relics and the
sacraments to which are attributed divine power when they are used for spiritual needs.

Only God Can Forgive Sin

While a priest, I heard many confessions and ‘absolved’ the sins of others, being ignorant of the biblical teaching that only God can forgive sin. The Bible says, ‘And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?’ (Luke 5:2). Remember this, ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9). I adhered to these and other beliefs and disciplines not only because I was born and brought up in that traditional system, but mainly because I was obliged to obey, for I believed the lie that ‘outside the Roman Catholic Church there is no salvation’. The teaching of the Church called the Magisterium, based on tradition, was accepted as the final authority, not the written Word of God, the Bible (which was an unopened book, even for those studying for the priesthood).

No Peace Apart from God

My education for the Roman Catholic priesthood was in Rome. I took my Doctorate in Theology in 1954, and afterwards did post-graduate studies in economics in Canada. For eight years I was Professor of
Economics at B.C.M. College for Women, Kottayam, India. I was also the principal of St Stephen’s College, Uzhavoor, for nine years. These were high positions that gave me regard in society and material
prosperity. During twenty-five years as a priest, I did not have spiritual joy or peace of soul even when performing the various rituals. There was an increasing sense of darkness and emptiness growing in my soul until I felt that there was no meaning in infant baptism, confession of sins, the ‘real presence of Christ’ in the Mass — or in any of the other rituals. I did not know what to do. I turned to smoking, drinking,
gluttony, theatre attendance, and other secular activities in an effort to gain happiness and peace. But none of this could give me what my spirit needed. Those were years of agony and spiritual unrest. What I needed was eternal salvation.

Thy Word is a Light unto My Path

Somehow, I began to turn my attention to the Bible. Certain verses caught my attention. ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away’ (Mark 13:31). I realized that this was because ‘All
scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good
works’ (2 Tim. 3:16–17). I thank God for bringing into my life some born-again men who helped in my study. The Word of God became the ‘lamp unto my feet’ and the ‘light unto my path’. I became convinced of the reason for my spiritual aridity and emptiness of soul: ‘Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son’ (2 John 1:9). Even though I had been very religious, I was not abiding in the doctrine of Christ. My eyes were opened to the doctrine of Christ as found in the Bible – the only ‘power of God unto salvation’. The eternally meaningful question of Jesus in Matthew 16:26 seemed to ring in my ears: ‘For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?’

Through the Word of God, I became convinced that it takes more than baptism to make a person a Christian. Infant baptism certainly cannot do it. An infant cannot believe, experience conviction, confess sin; cannot trust and accept Jesus Christ as personal Saviour. Soon, I realized my spiritual need and was convicted of my sin and of Christ’s righteousness.

A New Creature

I praise the Lord for granting me the courage and strength to leave everything behind and trust Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour and Lord. The day was 5 April 1980. After I was born again by his Spirit and baptized in water, the Lord filled me with a divine peace, a joy of heart, and a meaning in my life. The emptiness of soul that had plagued me for so long vanished and I now know what it means to become a new creature. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Satan, however, has not left me alone. He has been roaming about like a roaring lion. He began to make use of his agents to persecute me through physical assaults, isolation, ostracism, and false litigation
against me. I have suffered the kinds of persecution described in Psalm 69:4, 8 and 12. Through all this, the Lord remained my comfort and strength. He has never failed nor forsaken me. His words
in Psalm 27:10 and Luke 6:22–23 have given me added confidence, inspiration, and even joy.

The Lord blessed me with a Christian wife, formerly a nun for twelve years, and we have been living by faith and serving the Lord ever since. I have travelled to many places in India and abroad to
preach the truth about the saving power of Jesus Christ and give the testimony of my conversion. I have visited many families and individuals in an effort to bring them to the Lord. It seems miraculous to realize how the Lord took my family and me from place to place in India in spite of the persecution. Finally, in 1987, He opened a way for me to take my family to America. Soon, through Dr Bart Brewer of Mission to Catholics International, we were introduced to Pastor Ted Duncan of Liberty Baptist Church in San Jose, California. I will ever remain grateful to these men for their benevolence and spiritual
help to us. They were indeed good Samaritans. My wife and I have been blessed with a son, Jimon, and a daughter, Jintomol. Our family resides in San Jose, and we worship at Liberty Baptist Church.

Dear Reader, look to Jesus Christ. There is power in his atoning blood to wash away your sins as he did mine. No one can limit the efficacy of the precious blood of Christ. Trust on him alone, and be ‘justified freely by [God’s] grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 3:24).

The post Simon Kottoor: There is Power in Christ’s Atoning Blood appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

Having laid the groundwork of the truth to be addressed and improved, I will now make this observation:  It is the great duty of all believers to use all diligence in the ways Christ has appointed, so as not to fall into temptation.

I know God is ‘able to deliver the godly out of temp­tations.’ I know also, that he is ‘faithful’ and will not ‘suffer us to be tempted above that we are able,’ but will ‘make a way to escape.’ I shall seek, however, to convince all who will pay attention to what I say that it is our great duty and concern to use all diligence, watchfulness, and care that we enter not into temptation; and I shall prove this by the following considerations:

First, In the ample instructions given us by our Saviour concerning what we should pray for, this matter of not entering into temptation is prominent. Our Saviour knew how important it was for us to not enter into temptation, in that he gave it as a special topic in our daily dealing with God, ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’ (Matt. 6:13). The order of the words also shows us how important it is. If we are first led into tempt­ation, evil will befall us more or less. Christ’s purpose for us is to seek his help in our daily prayers that we may be powerfully delivered from that evil which attends every entry into temptation.

Our blessed Saviour knows full well our state and condition. He knows the power of temptations, having experienced it (Heb. 2:18). He also knows our vain con­­fidence in our ability to deal with temptations, as he found in Peter. He knows our weakness and folly, and how soon we are cast to the ground. That is why he has provided this important instruction. We greatly need to be aware how important this instruction is to us. If we trust the wisdom, love, and care of Christ Jesus toward us, we must accept the importance of this instruction.

Second, Christ promises freedom and deliverance from temp­tation as a great reward for obedience (Rev. 3:10). This is the great promise made to the church of Philadelphia, in which Christ found nothing to blame, that they would be kept from the hour of temptation. Note that Christ did not say that he would keep them through temptation, but from it! ‘There is,’ said our Saviour, in effect, ‘an hour of tempt­ation coming; a season that will make havoc in the world. Multitudes shall fall from the faith, and deny and blaspheme me. Oh, how few will be able to stand and hold out! Some will be utterly destroyed, and perish forever. Others will get wounds to their souls that shall never be thoroughly healed while they live in this world. They will have their bones broken, and limp all their days!’ Christ promises, however, that because some have kept the word of his patience, he will be tender towards them and keep them from this hour of temptation. Certainly that which Christ has promised to his beloved church, as a reward for her service, love, and obedience, is no light thing. Whatever Christ has promised to his spouse is the fruit of unspeakable love. This is just what is promised as a reward for special obedience.

Third, Consider some consequences of falling into temptation, in the case of both bad and good men, ungrounded professors and the choicest of saints.

Firstly, as to ungrounded professors, consider Luke 8:13: ‘They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy, and have no root, but for a while believe.’ Well! How long do they believe? They are affected with the preaching of the word, believe in it, make a profession, bring forth some fruits, but until what point do they abide? – ‘In the time of temptation they fall away.’ When once they enter into temptation, they are gone forever! Temptation withers all their profession, and slays their souls. We see this happening every day. Men have heard the preaching of the gospel, have been affected and delighted with it, have made a profession of it, and have been looked on, it may be, as believers, and thus have continued for some years, and yet no sooner does vigorous and continued temptation befall them than they turn out of the way, and are gone for ever. They come to hate the word they once delighted in. They despise the professors of it, and are hardened by sin. So Matthew 7:26: ‘He that hears these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, is like unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand.’ What does this house of profession do for a man? It shelters him, keeps him warm, and stands for a while. But note verse 27: When the rain descends, when temptation comes, it falls utterly, and its fall is great.

Judas followed our Saviour three years, and all went well with him. Then as soon as he entered into tempt­ation, Satan got him, and winnowed him, and he was gone! Demas preached the gospel until the love of the world fell on him, and he utterly turned aside. It would be an endless task to give instances. Entering into tempt­ation, with this sort of men, is surely an entrance into apostasy, more or less, in part or in whole.

Secondly, consider the outcome of entering into temp­tation for the saints of God themselves.

Adam was the ‘son of God’ (Luke 3:38), created in the image of God, full of that integrity, righteousness, and holiness which were eminently like the holiness of God. He had a far greater inherent stock of ability than we, and he had nothing in him to entice or seduce him. But as soon as Adam entered into temptation he was gone, lost, and ruined, he and all his posterity with him! What can we expect, if we also enter into temptation? We, like him, have the temptation and the cunning of the devil to deal with, but we also have a cursed world and a corrupt heart to increase the power of temptation.
Abraham was the father of the faithful, set forth as an example for all believers to follow. Yet he, entering twice into the same temptation, fear about his wife, was twice overpowered by it, to the dishonour of God, and no doubt to the disturbance of his own soul (Gen. 12:12, 13; 20:2).

David is called a man after God’s own heart, by God himself (1 Sam. 13:14), yet what a dreadful thing is the story of his entering into temptation! He was no sooner entangled but he was plunged into adultery. He then sought deliverance by his own invention, and like a poor creature in a net, he was entangled more and more until he lay down as one dead under the power of sin and folly.
I might mention Noah, Lot, Hezekiah, Peter and others whose temptations and falls are recorded for our instruct­ion. Certainly any with a heart for these things will cry, ‘How shall I stand, O Lord, if such mighty pillars have been cast to the ground? If such great cedars were blown down, how shall I stand before temptations? Oh, keep me that I do not enter into temptation!’ Beholding the footsteps of those who have entered, do you see any that do not have a wound, or at least a blemish?

Paul encourages us on this account to exercise tenderness towards those who have fallen into sin, ‘considering ourselves, lest we also are tempted’ (Gal. 6:1). He does not say ‘lest you sin, or fall, or be overtaken with a fault,’ but, ‘lest you are tempted.’ As we see the temptation of others, we do not know how soon we too might be tempted, or how we would fare!
Assuredly, he who has seen many stronger men failing, and being cast down in trial, will seek to avoid the battle at all costs. Is it not madness for a man that can barely crawl up and down since he is so weak (which is the case for most of us) if he does not avoid that in which he has seen giants foiled in undertaking it? If you are yet whole and sound, take heed of temptation, lest it happens to you as with Abraham, David, Lot, Peter, Hezekiah, and the Galatians, who fell in time of trial.

The folly of the hearts of men is nowhere shown more openly in the days in which we live than by a cursed boldness and neglect of the warnings of God, and by a lack of consideration of so many that have already fallen into such a sad estate. Yet men run into and put themselves under the power of temptation. They will risk anything, not consider­­ing their own weakness, or the concerns of their poor souls. They walk over the dead and slain who have fallen on this path. They see others fall before their eyes, but on they go without regard or trembling! Through this snare hundreds and thousands of professors have fallen within just a few short years.

4. Let us also consider ourselves and our great weakness. Let us consider what temptation is, its power, its effectiveness, and to what it leads. As to ourselves, we are weakness itself. We have no strength or power to withstand. The confidence we have in our own strength adds to our weakness, as it did in Peter. He that boasts he can do anything, can do nothing as he should.

What makes this even worse is that it is a weakness from deception, which is the worst kind of weakness. If a castle is very strong and well fortified, and yet there is a traitor on the inside who is ready to betray it at the first opportunity, that castle is not secure from the enemy. We have traitors in our very heart that are ready to take part and unite against us at every temptation. They will argue for us to give up in the assault; they will even solicit and bribe the temptation to do its work, just as a traitor incites the enemy.

Do not flatter yourself that you can hold out. There are secret lusts that lie dormant, lurking in your hearts, tempor­arily quiet, waiting for the opportunity of temptation to befall you. They will then rise, argue, cry, disquiet, seduce, with perseverance, until either they are killed or satisfied. He who promises himself that the frame of his heart will be the same under the power of a temptation as it was before is woefully mistaken! ‘Am I a dog, that I should do this thing?,’ says Hazael (2 Kings 8:13). Yes, you will be such a dog, if you are ever king of Syria. The temptation of self-interest will break your resolve.
He whose heart currently abhors the thoughts of a particular sin will be powerfully inflamed towards it when he enters into temptation. All contrary reasonings and objections will be overpowered and silenced. He will deride his former fears, cast aside his scruples, and condemn his former convictions. Little did Peter ever think he could so easily deny his Master as soon as he was pressed to admit he knew him. When the hour of temptation came, all ­resolutions were forgotten and all love to Christ was buried. The present temptation united with Peter’s carnal fear and carried all before it.

Featured photo by Wendy Aros-Routman on Unsplash

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I owe more, I think, to John Owen than to any other theologian, ancient or modern, and I am sure I owe more to his little book on mortification¹
than to anything else he wrote. Let me explain.

I was converted – that is, I came to the Lord Jesus Christ in a decisive commitment, needing and seeking God’s pardon and acceptance, conscious of Christ’s redeeming love for me and his personal call to me – in my first university term, a little more than half a century ago. The group nurturing me was heavily pietistic in style, and left me in no doubt that the most important thing for me as a Christian was the quality of my walk with God: in which, of course, they were entirely right. They were also, however, somewhat elitist in spirit, holding that only Bible-believing evangelicals could say anything worth hearing about the Christian life, and the leaders encouraged the rest of us to assume that anyone thought sound enough to address the group on this theme was sure to be good. I listened with great expectation and excitement to the preachers and teachers whom the group brought in week by week, not doubting that they were the top devotional instructors in Britain, perhaps in the world. And I came a cropper.

Whether what I thought I heard was what was really being said may be left an open question, but it seemed to me that what I was being told was this. There are two sorts of Christians, first-class and second-class, ‘spiritual’ and ‘carnal’ (a distinction drawn from the King James rendering of 1 Cor. 3:1-3). The former know sustained peace and joy, constant inner confidence, and regular victory over temptation and sin, in a way that the latter do not. Those who hope to be of use to God must become ‘spiritual’ in the stated sense. As a lonely, nervy, adolescent introvert whose new-found assurance had not changed his temperament overnight, I had to conclude that I was not ‘spiritual’ yet. But I wanted to be useful to God. So what was I to do?

‘LET GO, AND LET GOD’

There is a secret, I was told, of rising from carnality to spirituality, a secret mirrored in the maxim: ‘Let go, and let God’. I vividly recall a radiant clergyman in an Oxford pulpit enforcing this. The secret had to do with being Spirit-filled. The Spirit-filled person, it was said, is taken out of the second half of Romans 7, understood (misunderstood, I would now maintain) as an analysis of constant moral defeat through self-reliance, into Romans 8, where he walks confidently in the Spirit and is not so defeated. The way to be Spirit-filled, so I gathered, was as follows.

First, one must deny self. Did not Jesus require self-denial from his disciples (Luke 9:23)? Yes, but clearly what he meant was the negating of carnal self — that is to say self-will, self-assertion, self-centredness and self-worship, the Adamic syndrome in human nature, the egocentric behaviour pattern, rooted in anti-God aspirations and attitudes, for which the common name is original sin. What I seemed to be hearing, however, was a call to deny personal self, so that I could be taken over by Jesus Christ in such a way that my present experience of thinking and willing would become something different, an experience of Christ himself living in he, animating me and doing the thinking and willing for me. Put like that, it sounds more like the formula of demon-possession than the ministry of the indwelling Christ according to the New Testament. But in those days I knew nothing about demon-possession, and what I have just put into words seemed to be the plain meaning of ‘I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me’ (Gal. 2:20, KJV) as expounded by the approved speakers. We used to sing this chorus:

O to be saved from myself, dear Lord,
O to be lost in thee;
O that it may be no more I
But Christ who lives in me!

Whatever its author may have meant, I sang it whole-heartedly in the sense spelled out above.

The rest of the secret was bound up in the double-barrelled phrase consecration and faith. Consecration meant total self-surrender, laying one’s all on the altar, handing over every part of one’s life to the lordship of Jesus. Through consecration one would be emptied of self, and the empty vessel would then automatically be filled with the Spirit so that Christ’s power within one would be ready for use. With consecration was to go faith, which was explained as looking to the indwelling Christ moment by moment, not only to do one’s thinking and choosing in and for one, but also to do one’s fighting and resisting of temptation. Rather than meet temptation directly (which would be fighting in one’s own strength), one should hand it over to Christ to deal with, and look to him to banish it. Such was the consecration-and-faith technique as I understood it – heap powerful magic, as I took it to be, the precious secret of what was called victorious living.

But what happened? I scraped my inside, figuratively speaking, to ensure that my consecration was complete, and laboured to ‘let go and let God’ when temptation made its presence felt. At that time I did not know that Harry Ironside, sometime pastor of Moody Memorial Church, Chicago, once drove himself into a full-scale mental breakdown through trying to get into the higher life as I was trying to get into it; and I would not have dared to conclude, as I have concluded since, that this higher life as described is a will-o’-the-wisp, an unreality that no one has ever laid hold of at all, and that those who testify to their experience in these terms really, if unwittingly, distort what has happened to them. All I knew was that the expected experience was not coming. The technique was not working. Why not? Well, since the teaching declared that everything depends on consecration being total, the fault had to lie in me. So I must scrape my inside again to find whatever maggots of unconsecrated selfhood still lurked there. I became fairly frantic.

And then (thank God) the group was given an old clergyman’s library, and in it was an uncut set of Owen, and I cut the pages of volume VI² more or less at random, and read Owen on mortification – and God used what the old Puritan had written three centuries before to sort me out. Here was God’s chemo for my cancered soul.

Reaching across those three centuries, Owen showed me my inside – my heart – as no one had ever done before. Sin, he told me, is a blind, anti-God, egocentric energy in the fallen human spiritual system, ever fomenting self-centred and self-deceiving desires, ambitions, purposes, plans, attitudes, and behaviours. Now that I was a regenerate believer, born again, a new creation in Christ, sin that formerly dominated me had been de-throned but was not yet destroyed. It was marauding within me all the time, bringing back sinful desires that I hoped I had seen the last of, and twisting my new desires for God and godliness out of shape so that they became pride-perverted too. Lifelong conflict with the besetting sins that besetting sin generates was what I must expect.

What to do? Here was Owen’s answer, in essence: Have the holiness of God clear in your mind. Remember that sin desensitises you to itself. Watch – that is, prepare to recognise it, and search it out within you by disciplined, Bible-based, Spirit-led self- examination. Focus on the living Christ and his love for you on the cross. Pray, asking for strength to say ‘no’ to sin’s suggestions and to fortify yourself against bad habits by forming good ones contrary to them. And ask Christ to kill the sinful urge you are fighting, as the theophanic angel in C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce tells the man with the lizard to do.

Does it work? Yes. Nearly seventy years on, I can testify to that.

Does Owen’s book minister to others as it ministered to me? Yes. From prison just recently came the following:

I found this book … near a toilet on the floor …. Immediately after I finished reading Owen’s Mortification of Sin I got on my knees on the floor of my cell and begged for Jesus to come into my miserable life and redeem me … and for the first time in my entire life I meant every single word that I professed …. Thank you, Jesus!

Owen is one of the dead who still speak.

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As the Countess’s chapels began to increase, so did the administrative labour of ensuring that the pulpits were supplied with preachers – a task she undertook singlehanded at this time. The men on whom she could call early in the 1760s were few in number so she had to organize a system of constant replacements. If Berridge were preaching for two months in Brighton, someone had to care for his people. So while Madan went to Everton for that purpose, Romaine would have to serve for him at the Lock Hospital.

Or if Fletcher came to Ote Hall, Venn might find himself asked to go to Madeley for a few weeks. Accustomed to issuing orders to her domestic staff, the Countess could sometimes sound more than a little peremptory in her instructions on such arrangements. Usually her friends were happy to comply, but with the needs of their own congregation a first responsibility, some found they had to refuse her pressing invitations. A letter from Berridge, who was never unduly overawed by the Countess, illustrates the point:

My Lady, I cannot see my call to Brighthelmstone; and I ought to see it for myself, not another for me. Was any good done when I was there? It was God’s doing, all the glory be to him … I am not well able to ride so long a journey; and my heart is utterly set against wheel-carriages on these roads. Indeed I see not my call; I cannot think of the journey; and therefore pray your ladyship to think no more of it. I write plainly, not out of forwardness, I trust, but to save your ladyship the trouble of sending a second request, and myself the pain of returning a second denial. You threaten me, madam, like a pope, not like a mother in Israel, when you declare roundly, that God will scourge me if I do not come; but I know your ladyship’s good meaning … Whilst I was looking towards the sea, partly drawn thither with the hope of doing good, and partly driven by your Vatican bull, I found nothing but thorns in my way; but as soon as I turned my eyes from it, I found peace [1].

Whether the Countess shared Berridge’s sense of humour, we do not know. She certainly did not appear to resent his way of speaking. Rumours were rife about the financial rewards these men enjoyed as a result of their services. Jealous minds assumed that her two chaplains, Romaine and Whitefield, as well as the other preachers, were secretly amassing small fortunes as a result of their labours. Thomas Haweis, later to become a chaplain to the Countess himself, is categorical on this point:

I believe I may venture to say that his [Romaine’s] labours were without the least expectation of any remuneration, and that all he ever got from Lady Huntingdon barely paid his journeys and his expenses. I mention this because many have circulated the basest stories respecting him and Mr. Whitefield. But I may venture to say that neither of the former were ever a shoe-latchet the richer for any service done her Ladyship.

But in case any should come to the opposite conclusion and judge the Countess mean in not recompensing these men more adequately, Haweis added:

Not that this is meant to impeach her ladyship’s boundless liberality. Never perhaps did mortal make nobler use of what she possessed, live less attached to earth or dispense it with more open hand. I have often said she was one of the poor who lived upon her own bounty, and if she grudged anything, it was to herself … Never did human being sit more loose to money or more jealously watch over the distribution of it … I leave this testimony to her worth in this respect, that every shilling she possessed should be employed for the glory of God. But with all her fortune and self-denial her finances were inadequate to her calls, and it was impossible that she could have done the noble acts that marked her character if she had not found such men as these with disinterested zeal. [2].

A further testimony to the Countess’s unstinted generosity, even to the point of stringent self-denial, comes from the pen of her friend William Grimshaw who sent a ‘begging letter’ on behalf of one of his young converts, Titus Knight, who had established an Independent church in Halifax. His people were too poor to finance a much needed building but Grimshaw knew of one who would help if she could:

I have had two visits from Mr Knight … The people among whom he is sowing the seed of the kingdom are poor and their means are very limited, yet the Lord has put it in their heart to build a house for his word. Now I have come to the point – can your Ladyship spare a mite to aid these worthy souls? The demands on your generosity I know to be great, and on that account I feel a repugnance at asking, because I am persuaded you would give even to the gown on your back if the case required it .. .’ [3].

Needless to record, the Countess did help the struggling cause and the chapel was built. [4].

To suggest, therefore, that Selina was less than open-handed towards her chaplains and helpers would be misleading. A letter from Fletcher, written shortly before his settlement at Madeley and after he had spent some weeks preaching in Brighton, refers to a generous gift he had just received, a gift that would ‘deprive [him] for many months of the unspeakable advantage of living upon Providence’. [5].

Throughout his early years in Madeley, Fletcher turned constantly to the Countess for advice, and not advice only but also for consolation when trials seemed to weigh him down and his mind was distressed by spiritual failure. In January 1761 he wrote:

‘I had a secret expectation to be the instrument of a work in this part of the church; I did not despair of soon being a little Berridge; and thus warmed by sparks of my own kindling I looked out to see the rocks broke in pieces … but to the great disappointment of my hopes I am now forced to look within and see the need I have of being broken.’

And in another letter he wrote:

‘Conscious that few people can sympathise with me in so feeling a manner as your Ladyship, I shall make no apology for pouring out my complaints before you in this letter.’ [6].

The term ‘a mother in Israel’, first used of Deborah in the book of Judges, has been applied, and justly, to many women over the centuries of Christian history, but its use seems particularly apt in reference to the Countess. Perhaps her wealth, her social status, her strength of character and intellectual calibre were factors that initially attracted some. But it was other qualities that drew men – often themselves wise and experienced Christians – to her for advice and consolation. Ronald Knox comments on this surprising situation:

She did not domineer over them, did not put herself forward as a prophetess in the style of Madame Guyon. She devoted herself to praying for the effectiveness of their preaching … No, it is difficult to accuse her of going beyond her measure. And yet the ascendancy she seems to have established over their minds may well leave the reader gasping. [7].

Although her grasp of Christian doctrine and innate practical wisdom were also clearly reasons for this, it was the godliness of her life, her width of compassion and her deep concern for the progress of the kingdom of God that lay at the root of her influence.

Footnotes

1 Berridge, Works, p. 455.

2 Haweis, Life of Romaine, p. 85-6.

3 Quoted more fully in my William Grimshaw of Haworth, p. 235.

4 Known as Square Chapel, Halifax, this was the church in which J. H. Jowett was later brought up.

5 Seymour, Countess, vol. 1, p. 234.

6 Ibid., p. 240.

7 Robert Knox Enthusiasm (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950), p. 487.

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First, in the doctrine of them; and so they are hid to them that are out of the church.

And then, secondly, in the spiritual meaning of them; and so they are hid to carnal men in the church.

And then, thirdly, in regard of the full comprehension of thern, as they are indeed; and so they are reserved for heaven. We have but a little glimpse of them, a little light into them in this world.  Now, in this place is meant the things that are discovered in the gospel, especially as they are apprehended by the Spirit, together with the consummation of them in heaven. For they differ only in degree, the discovery of the heavenly things in the gospel here; the privileges, and graces, and comforts of God’s children, and the consummation of them in heaven. And we may reason from the lesser to the greater, if so be that a natural man–though he have natural eyes, and ears, and wits about him–cannot conceive the hidden mysteries of the gospel spiritually with application; much more unable is he, and much less can he conceive, those things of a better life. Now the things of the gospel, the privileges, the graces, and comforts which Christ, the spring and head of them all, in whom all are, and whence we have all, cannot be comprehended by a natural man. He can discourse of them as far as his natural wit conceives them, but not under­stand heavenly things in their own light as heavenly things, as the things of the gospel. They can talk of repentance–that we commonly speak of, which is a mystery–but notwithstanding who knows repentance by the light proper to it, but he that by the Spirit of God hath sin discovered to him in its own colours! He knows what it is to grieve for sin.

The sick man knows what it is to be sick. The physician knows it by definition, by books, and so he can enlarge it; but if he be not sick, the sick patient will speak to better purpose. So there is a mystery in the common things of the gospel, repentance and grief for sin. A holy man feels it another matter, because he feels sin discovered by the Spirit of God. And so in faith, in the love of God, and every grace of the gospel is a mystery. If one come to the Schoolmen, they will tell you of faith, and dispute learnedly of it, and deduce this from that ; but when he comes to be in extremity, when the terrors of the Lord are upon him, when he comes to use it, he is a mere stranger to it ; to cast himself, being a sinful creature, into the arms of God’s mercy, he cannot do it without a further light of the Spirit discovering the hidden love of God to him in particular; and so for other graces. Therefore they do but speak of these things­ men that are unsanctified-as a blind man doth of colours. They inwardly scorn the truth they speak of; and those to whom they speak, if by the power of God’s Spirit they come to profit by the things they teach, if themselves be carnal, they hate them. A carnal man believes not a whit of what he saith; he hath only a common light for the good of others, a common illumination to understand and discover things, and a doctrinal gift to unfold things for others, and not for themselves. For themselves they scorn them in their hearts, and in their lives and conversations, and they will speak as much when it comes to self-denial in preferment, in pleasures, in anything that is gainful. Tush! tell him what he hath taught, or what he knows out of the book of God, he cares not, he knows them only by a common light; but for a particular heavenly light with application and taste to himself, springing from an alteration by the Spirit, he never knows them so. Therefore content not thyself with a common light, for together with our understanding God alters the taste of the whole soul; he gives a new eye, a new ear, to see and hear to purpose, and a new heart to conceive things in another manner than he did before.

But you will ask, How can a godly man know them at all, seeing ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,’ &c.?

I answer, first, the things of another life, as we see here, are known by negation, as God is, by way of removing imperfections. The natural eye sees them not, nor the natural ear hears them not, &c. No; nor the spiritual eye nor ear in a full measure.  So things transcendent, that are above the reach of man, are described in the Scriptures by the way of denial, which is one good way of knowledge.

That ‘ye may know the love of God that is above knowledge,’ saith the apostle, Eph. 3:19 ; that ye may know it more and more.  But it is above all knowledge in regard of the perfection of it.  As a man may see the sea, but he cannot comprehend the sea.  He may be much delighted in seeing the sea, but he sees neither the bottom nor the banks; he can­ not comprehend such a vast body.  He may see the heavens, but he can­ not comprehend them. So a man may know the things when they are revealed, but he cannot comprehend them; apprehension is one thing, and comprehension  is another. There may be apprehension in a poor degree, suitable to the capacity of the soul here; but, alas! it is far from the comprehension that we shall have in heaven. That is one way of knowing them, by way of negation and denial of imperfections to them.

And then, secondly, they are known, as we call it, by way of eminence; that is, by comparing them with other things, and preferring them before all other excellencies whatsoever; as we may see the sun in water by resemblance. For God borrows from nature terms to set out grace and glory, because God will speak in our language.  For they are called a ‘kingdom’ and a ‘ feast,’ and a ‘crown’ by way of comparison.  Shallow men think there is a great deal in a kingdom; and indeed so there is, if there were no other.  There is great matters in a ‘crown,’ in ‘the feasts’ of kings, and the like.  But alas! these be shadows; and there is no rhe­toric or amplification in this, to say they be shadows.  A shadow is as much in proportion to the body as these are to eternal good things. The true reality of things are in the things of another world, for eternity. If we talk of a kingdom, let us talk of that in heaven; if of a crown, of that wherewith the saints are crowned in heaven. If we talk of riches, they are those that make a man eternally rich; that he shall carry with him when he goes out of the world. What riches are those that a man shall outlive, and die a beggar, and not have a drop to comfort him, as we see Dives in hell had not? Luke 16:19ff. Here are riches indeed. So if we talk of beauty, it is the image of God that sets a beauty on the soul, that makes a man lovely in the eye of God. True beauty is to be like God. And to be born anew to that glorious condition is the birth and inheritance.  All these poor things are but acting a part upon a stage for a while, as the proudest creature of all that is invested in them will judge ere long; none better judges than they. This is one way of knowing the things of the gospel, by naming of them in our own language. As if a man go into a foreign country, he must learn that language, or else hold his peace : so God is forced to speak in our own language, to tell us of glory and happiness to come, under the name of crowns and kingdoms, and riches here. If God should set them out in their own lustre, we could not conceive of them.

But, thirdly, the most comfortable way whereby God’s people know the things of heaven, and of the life to come, is in regard of some taste; for there is nothing in heaven but God’s children have a taste of it before they come there in some measure. They have a taste of the communion that is in heaven, in the communion they have on earth: they have a taste of that eternal Sabbath, by some relish they have of holy exercises in these Christian Sabbaths. A Christian is as much in heaven as he can be, when he sanctifies the holy Sabbath, speaking to God in the congregation by prayer, and hearing God speak to him in the preaching of the word. That peace that we shall have in heaven, which is a peace uninterrupted, with­out any disturbance, it is understood by that sweet peace of conscience here ‘that passeth all understanding,’ Eph. 3:19. We may know, there­fore, what the sight of Christ face to face will be, by the sight we have of Christ now in the word and promises. If it so transform and affect us, that sight that we have by knowledge and faith here, what will those sights do? So that by a grape we may know what Canaan is: as the spies, they brought of the grapes of Canaan into the desert. We may know by this little taste what those excellent things are.

The fourth way is by authority and discovery.  St Paul was rapt up in[to] the third heaven; he saith, they were such things that he saw, that could not be spoken of, strange things, 2 Cor. 12:4. And Christ tells us of a kingdom. Christ knew what they were. And the word tells us what they are. Our faith looks to the authority of the word, if we had not the first fruits, nor any other discovery.  God that hath prepared them, he saith so in his word, and we must rest in his authority. And there are some that have been in heaven. Christ our blessed Saviour, that hath taken into a perpetual union the manhood with the second person, which he hath knit unto it, he knows what is there; and by this means we come to have some kind of knowledge of the things to come.

Fifthly, Again, by a kind of reasoning likewise from the lesser to the greater, we may come to know not only the things, but the greatness of them. As, is there not comfort now in a little glimpse, when God shines upon a Christian’s soul, when he is as it were in heaven? Is there such content­ment in holy company here, what shall there be in heaven? Is there such contentment in the delights of this world, that are the delights of our pilgri­mage ? (They are no better; our houses are houses of pilgrimage; our contentments are contentments of passengers.) If the way, the gallery that leads to heaven, be so spread with comforts, what be those that are reserved in another world! A man may know by raising his soul from the lesser to the greater. And if the thing that God hath provided in common for his enemies as well as his friends (as all the comforts of this world, all the delicacies and all the objects of the senses, they are comforts that are com­mon to the enemies of God, as well as his friends): if these things be so excellent, that men venture their souls for them, and lose all to be drowned in these things, Oh what peculiar things are they that God hath reserved for his own children, for those that love him, when those that are common with his enemies are so glorious and excellent! These kind of ways we may come to know them by the help of the Spirit.

Those unmixed joys, those pure joys, that are full of themselves, and have no tincture in heaven, are understood by those joys we feel on earth; the joy of the Holy Ghost, which is after conflict with temptations, or after affiictions, or after hearing and meditating on good things. The heavenly joys that flow into the soul, they give us a taste of that full joy that we shall have at the right hand of God for evermore. That comfort that we shall have in heaven, in the presence of God, and of Christ, and his holy angels, is understood in some little way by the comfortable presence of God to the soul of a Christian, when he finds the Spirit of God raising him, and cheering him up, and witnessing his presence; as ofttimes, to the comfort of God’s people, the Holy Ghost witnesseth a presence, that now the soul can say, God is present with me, he smiles on me, and strength­eneth me, and leads me along. This comfortable way God’s children have to understand the things of heaven, by the first fruits they have here. For God is so far in love with his children here on earth, and so tender over them, that he purposes not to reserve all for another world, but gives them some taste beforehand, to make them better in love with the things there, and better to bear the troubles of this world. But alas! what is it to that that they shall know? as it is 1 John 3:2, ‘Now we are the sons of God, but it appears not what we shall be.’  That shall be so great in comparison of that we are, that it is said not to appear at all. It appears in the first fruits in a little beginnings; but alas! what is that to that glory that shall be!  ‘Our life is hid with Christ in God,’ Col. 3:3.  It is hid.  There is no man knows it in regard of the full manifestation; because here it is covered with so many infirmities, and affiictions, and so many scorns of the world are cast upon the beauty of a Christian life; it is hid in our head Christ. It is not altogether hid, for there is a life that comes from the root, from the head Christ to the members, that quickens them; but in regard of the glory that shall be, it is a hidden life.

This piece is exerpted from the second sermon (on 1 Corinthians 2:9 – ‘As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, &c.’) in A Glance of Heaven, which is found in Volume 4 of the Works of Richard Sibbes.

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THE ejection of two thousand ministers by the Act of Uniformity in 1662 could not fail to make a great impression on the minds of the people of England, and especially of the ministers who were ejected, and of the people who had enjoyed their ministry. The last utterances of these ministers in the pulpits which they were about to quit were naturally listened to with peculiar interest. Many of these were published from notes taken by hearers; and in the following year, 1663, these were collected and published in a volume, under the title of ” Farewell Sermons.” In this volume, that by Dr Manton occupies the second place, coming immediately after that of Mr Calamy. From this volume it is now reprinted.

FAREWELL SERMON.

Wherefore, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. HEB. XII. 1.

IN the former chapter you have a spiritual chronicle, or a catalogue of the Lord’s worthies, and all the eminent effects of their faith; and now the apostle comes to make use of this history, that he had produced through so many successions of ages, of all the holy men of God that excelled in faith: ‘Wherefore, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,’ &c.

The text is wholly hortatory. In it observe:-

First, the premises or principle the apostle worketh upon: seeing we are compassed, &c.

Second, The practical inferences which are deduced from thence, and they are two:-

One concerning the privative part of our duty: let us lay aside every weight, &c. There is something external and without, like to clog us in our way to heaven: every weight; and something within that will hinder and trouble us within; therefore he saith, and the sin which doth so easily beset us.

Here is the positive part: let us run with patience the race that is set before us. There is motion: run; the manner: with patience; the stage or way: the race that is set before us. My purpose is to give you some brief thoughts upon this useful and practical inference of the apostle from the histories of the faithful before recorded. Therefore I will sum up the whole text in this point:-

Doct. The people of God, that have such a multitude of examples of holy men and women set before them, should prepare themselves to run the spiritual race with more patience and cheerfulness. There are two things in this doctrine-the encouragement and the duty. I shall open both with respect to the circumstances of the text.

First, the encouragement: a multitude of examples; or, as in the text, ‘seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.’ Mark, here are witnesses: a great cloud of witnesses; and these compassing us round about. First, here are witnesses. By that term we are to understand those worthy saints mentioned and reckoned up in the former chapter, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, &c., all the saints of God that have had experience of the goodness of his providence to them, and the fulfilling of his promises. They are all called witnesses. Why? Because they depose a testimony for God, and speak to future generations to be constant, as they were, that they might receive the like reward. This witness was partly in their faith, and partly in the fruit of their faith.

One, they witnessed by their faith: John iii. 33, ‘He that hath received his testimony, hath set to his seal that God is true.’ A man that hath soundly digested the promises, that expresses his faith by cheerfulness and patience under all difficulties, troubles, delays, and those sundry trials that he meets with, he gives it under hand and seal, proclaims it to the world that he hath to do with the true God.

Two, they witnessed in the fruits of their faith, as they give us an instance of God’s fidelity towards them that faithfully adhere to and firmly believe in his promises; so it is said, Heb. vi. 12, ‘ Be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promise.’ Let faith but set patience a-work, do but hold out a little while with God, and you may learn by the example of all those holy men we shall inherit the promises; they shall be made good to a tittle, and not one thing fail of all that the Lord hath spoken; as these holy men were exercised and tossed to and fro, but it succeeded well with them at the last. Oh! then, let us hearken to the deposition of these worthy witnesses that are recorded in the scripture, and with such an invincible resolution as theirs was, let us hold on our course towards true happiness. If we do not, they that are now propounded as witnesses to us, will, at the day of judgment, be produced as witnesses against us. And pray, also, let us remember that we are to continue and keep afoot that testimony to succeeding generations; for not only the prophets and holy men of God were God’s witnesses, but all God’s people also are his witnesses, Isa. xliii. 10; by their faith, patience, diligence, constancy, and cheerfulness under afflictions, they are to give it under hand and seal to the world that God is a true and faithful God. But now, if we, either by our sinful walking or by our drooping discouragements, discredit Christ and his profession, then we are witnesses against him; we deny that religion which we would seem to profess and cry up: Titus i. 16, ‘They profess they know God, but in works they deny him;’ and the more dangerous because deeds are more deliberate than words, and so a greater evidence of what we think in our hearts. If we, by drooping discouragements and sinful walking, discredit religion, we deny it, and do in effect put the lie upon Christ. Therefore let us remember they were witnesses, and so must we.

Secondly, By a figurative speech they are called a cloud-having a cloud of witnesses. Why so? I might trouble you with many conceits interpreters have had of this word cloud. Say some, because of the raisedness of their spirits, because clouds fly aloft. Clouds, for the fruitfulness of their doctrine, as clouds send down fruitful showers upon the earth; and clouds, because they cool and cover us from the heat; so some would gloss for our comfort. Others, with more judgment, say, a cloud with allusion to the pillar of cloud which conducted the Israelites to Canaan: yet neither doth this come up fully to the scope of the apostle; for the apostle speaks not of a cloud that goes before us, but of a cloud that compasses us round about, and therefore a cloud. The reason why it is called so, is the number and multitude of those witnesses, as a cloud is made up of a multitude of vapours gathered together and condensed into one body; and so the expression is often used: Ezek. xxxviii. 9, ‘Thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land,’ &c., noting the increase of the people when God would restore them, the multitude of converts. And so, in profane authors, Livy hath such an expression; an army of men is called a cloud. But this is enough to show the intent of this expression, that there are a multitude, a very great number. Though the godly, comparatively, and with respect to the wicked, are a few; yet, considered in themselves, they are a great number; for if the martyrs and those glorious instances of heroic faith, and that under the Old Testament, when God’s interest was more confined to one people, if there were such a church then of so great a number, what will the whole church of the Old and New Testament be, when we shall meet together in heaven? We are often discouraged with the paucity of professors, and are apt to think ourselves to be left alone, I Kings xix. 10. But let us remember there is a cloud of witnesses; we are not solitary now, and certainly we shall not want company when we come to heaven, ‘To the innumerable company of,’ &c. Again, it meets with an ordinary and strong temptation which Satan suggests to the hearts of the godly, that they are singular and matchless in their afflictions, that none of the people of God have ever undergone such difficulties as they are exposed unto ; and this makes them question their Father’s affection, and put themselves out of the number of his children. Ay! but all these things are accomplished in the saints of God before you. Here is a cloud of witnesses that have been exercised and tried to purpose, I Peter v. 9. They are troubled with a busy devil, a naughty world, a corrupt heart; all have had their trial from God’s correcting hand: ‘The same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.’ So that we have many fellows; our lot is no harder than the saints of God that have gone before us, for there is a cloud of witnesses. Thirdly, Observe the apostle calls it a cloud that compasses us round about—i.e., we have instances for every trial, temptation, duty, that we are put upon. Here we have examples of those that have fulfilled the commands of Christ on this side with an undaunted courage; and the examples of those that have borne the cross of Christ with an invincible patience. Here we have examples of those that have conquered right-hand temptations, that have despised the delights of the world; and there are those that have conquered left-hand temptations, that have not been broken and affrighted with the terrors of the world. All the saints of God have trodden that way, the same paths wherein we are to walk after them. We cannot look this way or that way, but we have instances of faith, confidence in God, and patience: ‘We are compassed about,’ &c. In short, here lies the encouragement that Christians should propound to themselves.

First, That there are examples. Christians of later times have more to answer for their infidelity than those of former ages. They that first believed the promises believed without such a cloud of witnesses, or multitude of examples. Many have gone before us that have broken the ice, and that found good success from their own experience; they have commended God to us as a true and faithful God, and will not you go on? When Jonathan and his armour-bearer climbed up the rocks of the Philistines, then the people were encouraged to go up after. So here are some that have gone before you, and it hath succeeded well with them.

Second, These examples are many; not one or two, that might be supposed to be singularly assisted, and to have eminent prerogatives above the rest of their brethren; but many in every age-a whole cloud of them.

Third, There are examples of many rare and excellent men, the best that ever lived under heaven: ‘Take, my brethren, the prophets for an example,’ &c., James v. 10.

Fourth, They are propounded to us, not for their words only, and for their profession, but for their deeds, for their bitter sufferings; and they abundantly manifest to us that there is nothing impossible in our duty, or anything so difficult but may be overcome through Christ’s strength enabling us. They all had the same nature we have; they were of the like passion with us, flesh and blood as we are, of the same relations and concernments. And then, on the other side, we have the same cause with them, the same recompense of reward to encourage us, the same God and Saviour to recompense us. He suffered for us as well as for them; therefore we should follow in their steps, and hold fast our confidence to the end; for they have showed us that poverty, reproaches, death itself, and all those things that would look harsh and with a ghastly aspect upon the eyes of the world, are no such evils but that a believer may rejoice in them, and triumph over them. I say, they have showed the blandishments of the world have not such a charm, but they may be renounced without any loss of considerable joy and contentment; and that the duties of Christianity are not so hard but that a little waiting upon God will bring in grace enough to perform them; therefore saith the apostle, ‘Seeing we have a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside,’ &c.

And so I come to the encouragement, to the Second thing, and that is the duty here pressed. (1.) Here is the privative. (2.) The positive part of our duty. Here is mortification and vivification. Mortification: ‘Let us lay aside,’ &c.; vivification: ‘Let us run with patience,’ &c. In both the branches he alludes to terms proper to races. In a race, you know, men strip themselves of their clothes and whatever is burdensome and heavy, that they may be the more light of foot; and so the apostle bids us ‘lay aside every weight;’ and they did withal diet themselves, that they might have no clog from within: 1 Cor. ix. 25, ‘Every man that striveth for the mastery, is temperate in all things;’ i.e., they took care that they did not clog and indispose themselves for the race they were to run. But they verily run only for a corruptible crown; we for a crown that is incorruptible and glorious; so, according to this double practice of racers, we are to cast aside every weight from without, &c. So here is a double object—laying aside every weight, and every sin. There is onus externum—the weight without that presses us down and hinders our speed; and then there is impedimentum internum, there is sin, that which weakens within. By reason of the former we make little speed, by reason of the latter we are often interrupted; and therefore we must do as they, that they might be swift and expedite: ‘Lay aside every weight,’ and be more ‘temperate in all things.’ Herein a runner in a race differs from a traveller: a traveller strengthens himself for his journey as well as he can, his clothes on, sometimes carries a great burden with him; but a runner of a race makes himself as light as he can. But to come more particularly to the words. First, ‘Lay aside every weight.’ By weight is meant those things that burden the soul, and make our heavenly progress more tedious and cumbersome; and by weight is meant (I think) the delights and cares of the world, the multitude of secular business, all our earthly contentments and affairs, so far as they are a burden to us, hinder us in our way to heaven; these must all be put off: Luke xxi. 34, saith Christ, ‘Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life,’ &c. The heart that is depressed cannot be so free for God and the offices of our heavenly calling, when we give way to surfeiting, drunkenness, and cares of this world.

First, The heart may be overcharged with the delights of the world. Surfeiting and drunkenness must not be taken in the gross notion; you must not think of spewing, reeling, vomiting, as if to avoid these were a full compliance with Christ’s direction; the heart may be overcharged when the stomach is not. There is a dry drunkenness and a more refined surfeiting; and that is when the heart grows heavy, unfit for prayer, relishes not the things of the Spirit; when the delights of the flesh clog the wheel, abate that vigour and cheerfulness that we should show forth in the worship of God and holy actions. When the delights of the flesh withdraw us from that watchfulness and diligence that is necessary in taking care for our souls, then the heart is overcharged. Voluptuous living is a great sin, it chokes the seed of piety so soon as planted in the heart, so that they can bring nothing to perfection; it brings a brawn and a deadness upon the conscience and affections; there is nothing that hardens the heart so much as the softness of carnal pleasure: Jude 19, ‘Sensual, having not the Spirit.’ Sensuality quenches our natural bravery and the briskness of spirit that becomes a man; much more doth it hinder the sublime operations of the Spirit of God. Well then, remember, Christians, you are not only travellers by the way, but runners in a race. If we were to speak to you only under the notion of travellers in a way, this were enough to wean you from the delights of the flesh: 1 Peter ii. 11, ‘As strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.’ The more you indulge these fleshly lusts, the more you hearten and strengthen the great enemy of your souls, and starve the better part. But you are as runners in a race. By this metaphor the duty is more bound upon you; much more should you beat down the body and keep it in subjection. The apostle hath a notable word: 1 Cor. ix. 27, ‘I keep under my body, and bring it in subjection,’ &c. I beat down my body; you must either keep under pleasures, or pleasures will keep you under; for a man is soon brought under the power, dominion, and tyranny of evil customs and some brutish pleasure by indulging the lusts of the flesh, 1 Cor. vi. 12. Be but a little addicted to any one thing, and you are brought under the power of it. The flesh waxes wanton and imperious, and a slavery grows upon you by degrees. The more you cocker carnal affections, the more they increase upon you; and therefore you must hold the reins hard, exercise a powerful restraint. Solomon in his penitentials gives us an account of his own folly, and how fearfully he was corrupted this way: Eccles. ii. 10, ‘Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy,’ &c. This was that which brought him to such a lawless excess, and at length to fall off from God. When we give nature the full swing, and use pleasure with too free a license, the heart is insensibly corrupted, and the necessities of life are turned into disease, and all that you do it is but in compliance with your lusts; your eating and drinking is but a meat-offering and drink-offering to lusts and carnal appetite. I remember Solomon saith, Prov. xxix. 21, ‘ He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child, shall have him become his son at length’ i.e., allow a servant too much liberty, and he will no more know his condition, but grow contemptuous, bold, and troublesome; so it is here. We are all the worse for license. Natural desires, unless they feel fetters and prudent restraints, grow unruly and excessive; and therefore it is good to abate the liberty of the flesh, that the body may be a servant and not a master. When you deny yourselves in nothing, but satisfy every vain appetite, custom grows upon the soul, and intemperance proves a trade and a habituated distemper, so that you cannot when you would, upon prudent and pious respects, refrain and command your desires; and therefore it is good sometimes to thwart and vex the flesh, as David poured out the water of Bethlehem that he longed for, 2 Sam. xxiii. 17. Not to deny ourselves in what we affect and covet, lust grows into a wanton, and bold and imperious, and so prescribes upon us, and we are ‘brought under the power of these things. Second, The business and cares of this world; for these immoderately followed, and not in obedience to God, are a sore burthen, and makes the soul heavy, and allows no time and strength for God and his service, and those happy opportunities of private communion with him. When we are ‘encumbered with much service,’ we neglect that ‘one thing necessary,’ Luke x. 42; and therefore Christians must take heed that the lean kine do not devour the fat, that Sarah be not thrown out of doors instead of Hagar, that religion be not thrust to the walls, which should be our prime and chief business, while every business hath its time and course. The scriptures, knowing the proneness of our hearts to temporal things, deal with us as we do with a crooked stick; we bend it so much the other way, and therefore sometimes they forbid necessary labour: John vi. 27, ‘Labour not for the meat which perisheth,’ &c. The meaning is, not chiefly, but it bends the stick another way: ‘Set not your affections on things on the earth.’

A man must have some kind of affection to his work here below; but we had need to be bent the other way. We may gather this from this precept: It is better to encroach upon the world, than the world should encroach upon godliness. In short, things are a burden and clog to us, according as our delight and scope is. If the pomp and increase of the world be our end and scope, then religion will be looked upon as a burden, that will be a weight, and all duties of godliness as a melancholy interruption; as they, Amos viii. 5, ‘When will the sabbath be over?’ The exercise of godliness will be a troublesome thing, and we shall go about the work of religion as if we went about it not. But on the other side, if heaven and heavenly things be our scope, then the world is a burden, and then we shall use it in the way, but not abusing, as taking up our rest here, 1 Cor. vii. 31, 32. Man hath a body and soul, and he doth provide for both; but for one in subordination: the soul is the chief, and therefore we must not so look after the interests and concernments of the bodily life as to forget the interests of the soul, or to neglect them. Many will not so grossly idolise present things so as to renounce things to come. Ay! but they so often follow the things of the world that they neglect their eternal concernments. The happiness of a people lies in communion with God, and therefore that must be looked after; we must take heed that the cares of the world have not such a hand and power over us as either to divert us from, or unfit us for, these higher and nobler pursuits, the enjoyment of God in Christ. This is the first thing the apostle speaks to these spiritual racers, to lay aside every weight; that is, the delights of the flesh and the cares of the world. Secondly, the next thing to be laid aside is ‘sin, which doth so easily beset us.’ As we must guard against things without, so we must mortify our corrupt inclinations within, or else it will soon make us weary of our heavenly race, or faint in it. Sin, you know, is twofold- original and actual. Actual sin is not meant primarily, for that is not peccatum agens, sin that easily besets us, but peccatum transiens, the sin that passes from us; and original sin is that which is emphatically called sin, Rom. vii. 8. Now this original corruption may be considered as merely native, or as acquired and improved into evil customs and habits; for according to men’s tempers and constitutions, as they are severally disposed, so by the corruption of nature they are inclined to one sin more than another: as the channel is cut, so corrupt nature finds a vent and issue. In every man there is some predominant sin, and in every regenerate person some relics of that sin, from whence is the greatest danger of his soul; thus David speaks of his iniquity, Ps. xviii. 23. Well, then, this is that sin that doth easily beset us; original sin improved into some tyranny or evil custom, which doth increase and prevail upon us more and more. Now, this is said easily to beset us for three reasons. Partly because it hath a great power and restraint over us, and implies the whole man, the members of the body, the faculties of the soul; so great an interest hath it acquired in our affections, it doth easily beset us, it hath great power and command over us. Partly because it sticks so close that we cannot by our own strength lay it aside: Jer. xiii. 23, ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?’ &c. A man can as soon change his skin as lay aside his customs, that are so deeply engraven as the blackness of an Ethiopian or the spots of the leopard. And partly because it mingles itself with all our motions and actions, Rom. vii. 21, &c. It easily besets us, it is present with us, it impels us, and solicits us, and draws us to sin further and further, and doth make us negligent in what is God’s; we cannot do or speak anything but it will infest us in all our duties of piety, charity, justice; on every side it is interposing, vexing, thwarting the motions of the Spirit, and so abates our strength, vigour, and agility, and retards our course towards heaven and glory. Therefore lay aside, as every weight, so every sin, &c. Quest. Now, what is it to lay aside, or how can we lay aside, since sin sticks so close to us, and is engraven in our natures? Ans. Certainly something may be done by us, for this is everywhere pressed as our duty: Eph. iv. 22, ‘ Put off the old man;’ and 1 Peter ii. 11. We may put it off more and more, though we cannot lay it aside. Then we are said to lay aside the sin that so easily besets us, when we prevent and break the dominion of it that it shall not reign over us: Rom. vi. 12, ‘Let not sin reign,’ &c. Though it dwells in us, lives in us, and works in us, yet it should not overcome us and bring us into bondage, and so it will not be imputed to our condemnation; and at length, when the soul shall be separated from the body, we shall be wholly free from it. Quest. Ay! but what must we do that we may so repress it (the question returns), that we may break the dominion of it? Ans. I answer-This is the work of the Spirit of God; but we must know the Spirit of God doth work the work of mortification two ways—by regeneration and after regeneration. By regeneration, and so he doth immediately, without any co-operation of ours, mortify the deed of sin, gives sin its death-wound: that which is left is as a thing mortified, it is broken. The scripture often speaks of this first work of regeneration: Rom. vi. 6; Col. ii. 11. First, when we are planted into Christ, then we put off the body of sin; and though it doth not presently die, yet it is weakened, that it cannot reign, though it be not destroyed.

After regeneration the Spirit doth more and more destroy sin, the relics of sin, this crucified body of sin, till it dieth wholly away; this he doth in us, but not without us: Rom. viii. 13, ‘Through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body.’ Not the Spirit without us, nor we without the Spirit, but ‘ye through the Spirit.’ What is then required of us ? [1.] Seriously purpose not to sin, and promise to God to yield him unfeigned obedience. Especially should we make this promise in the use of those solemn rites by which the covenant between God and us is confirmed. Take up a solemn purpose not to grieve the Spirit, nor to break his law: Ps. cxix. 106, ‘I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments.’ This purpose of heart is the root of all good actions; therefore, in the confidence of God’s help, in the sense of thy own weakness, Ps. cxix. 32. We cannot lay wagers upon our own strength, yet it is our duty to engage our hearts to God. To sin against the light of our own conscience, and illumination of the Spirit, and the chastening and instruction of our own reins, that aggravates our sin; but to sin against and besides our fixed purpose of not sinning, that lightens sin; for then it is a sin of weakness and infirmity, not of wilfulness and malice. And then we can say, as Paul, Rom. vii. 19, when the heart is fixedly bent towards God, ‘The evil which I would not, that do I.’ Two ways may we be said to sin against purpose: either when we are overborne besides our purpose, our purpose still remains to please God; as when the water breaks over the bank, the bank remaining; in such a case the fault is not in the bank, but in the violence of the flood; or, secondly, when we break off our purpose, or consent to do evil; as when we cut through the bank the water may easily make through. There is a great deal of difference between sin dwelling in us, and sin entertained by us, between sin remaining and sin reserved. When you have a firm purpose against all sin, there is sin remaining, but it is not reserved, it is not kept and allowed. [2.] Watch over thyself with a holy self-suspicion, because thou hast sin within thee that doth easily beset thee; therefore ‘consider thy ways,’ Ps. cxix. 59 ; guard thy senses, Job xxxi. 1; but, above all, keep thy heart, Prov. iv. 23. Conscience must stand porter at the door, and examine what comes in and what goes out. – watch over the stratagems of Satan, and seducing motions of thy own heart. [3.] Resist and oppose strongly against the first risings of the flesh and the tickling and pleasing motions of sin that doth easily beset us when it doth entice us away from God, or to do anything that is unseemly and contrary unto the duties of our heavenly calling. Oh! remember we are not debtors to the flesh, Rom. viii. 20. Thou art tied to the Lord by all obligations and indulgence; therefore break the force of sin by a serious resistance; check it, and let thy soul rise up in indignation against it: my business is not to pleasure the flesh, but to please the Lord. [ 4.] Bewail thy involuntary lapses and falls with penitential tears, as Peter ‘went out and wept bitterly,’ Mat. xxvi. 75. Godly sorrow is of great use for laying aside of sin, as salt potions kill worms. When children are troubled with worms we give them salt potions; so these bitter penitential tears are the means God hath appointed to mortify sin. That is the reason the apostle saith, 2 Cor. vii. 10, ‘Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of.’ It is not only a part of repentance, but worketh preserving durable resolutions, a walking closely with God; it is a means God hath blessed to this end and purpose. [5.] Recover from thy falls, renew thy combat; as Israel, when they were overcome in battle, they would try it again and again, Judges xx. 28. Take heed of ceasing for the present; for though thy enemy seems to prevail, though the flesh seems to prevail against the spirit in the battle, yet thou shalt have the best of it in the war; by the power of grace thou shalt have the victory. Thus have I gone over the privative part of our duty: ‘Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us.’ I should have come to the positive: ‘Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.’ There is the duty, let us run the race that is set before us; and there is the manner of the duty, let us run with patience. I should have shown you that a Christian’s life is like a race from earth to heaven, in a way of holiness and exercise of grace. This race it continues as long as we continue in the world, from our nativity to our death; after death the strife is ended. Now, in this race we must run, and so run that we may obtain the crown, 1 Cor. ix. 24. Running is a motion, and a speedy motion; there is no lying, sitting, or standing, but still there must be running. We must make a further progress in the way to heaven, ‘forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,’ Phil. iii. 13. The runner was not to inquire how much of the way already was past, but to strain himself to overcome what was yet behind. And so should we consider what sins are yet to be mortified, what duties yet untouched, almost untouched; what hard conflicts are yet to be undergone, and still to hold on our way without turning aside or halting because of difficulties, discouragements, stumbling-blocks. And there are fellows and co-partners with us that run this race, with whom we may strive in a holy emulation who should go forwardest, who should be most forward in the course of pleasing God. O Christians! there are many contentions amongst us, but when shall we have this holy contention? Heb. x. 24. In a race there is the agonotheta, the judge of the sports; so here God observes all. No matter what the standersby say, the judge of the sports must decide who must have the crown, 1 Cor. xiv. 3, 4. And then at the end of the race there is the crown: 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8, ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,’ &c. In a race there are spectators; so there are here God, angels, and men: 1 Cor. iv. 9, ‘We are a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men,’ &c. Thus, for the similitude of our race in our way to heaven. Now wherein it differs. This is a race, not undertaken out of wantonness, but out of necessity. God hath called us to this course; and if we run not in this race, we are undone for ever. And in other races but one had the crown; here all are crowned, 2 Tim. iv. 8, though they be not so eminent as the apostle. Here all are crowned that run in the manner God hath required: ‘Henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto them that love his appearing.’ For the manner, with patience: ‘Let us run with patience.’ Patience is necessary:- 1. Partly because of the length of the race, and the distance between us and the promised reward. Our race cannot be ended but after some degree of time; long waiting is troublesome to the flesh, and therefore we have need of patience. 2. Because we meet with many impediments, troubles, and temptations by the way; there are spiritual adversaries with whom we must fight; for we go on, we not only run, but fight; therefore ‘run with patience.’ 3. Because the spectators will be ready to discourage us. We are set forth not only as a spectacle to God and angels, but to the world; and they will be ready to deride, scorn, and oppose us for our zeal to God, and our forwardness in the ways of God, to discourage us by bitter mockings, &c.; therefore ‘Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.’

Thomas Manton (1620–1677) was a puritan pastor, whose works consist mostly of sermons preached in the congregations he pastored in Middlesex and London, and some before parliament. A thorough, clear expositor of the Scriptures, Manton was respected by a range of figures from across the political and religious spectrum of his day. In 1662 he joined with that company of men, comprising about 2,000 in all, which was ejected from ministry in the Church of England because of the Act of Uniformity of that year. The above sermon is his farewell to the congregation of the Church of Saint Paul, Covent Garden, preached on 17 August 1662.

The Trust is pleased to publish and sell Manton’s Works in 22 volumes, and also as nine separate subsets.

Featured picture: Pieter Angillis, 1685–1734, Flemish, active in Britain (from ca. 1715), Covent Garden, ca. 1726, Oil on copper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1976.7.91.

The post Thomas Manton’s Farewell Sermon appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

‘FROM Irvine, being on my journey to Christ’s Palace in Aberdeen, August 4th 1636.’ So runs the inscription on a letter written by Samuel Rutherford to Robert Cunningham, another servant of Christ called upon to suffer for the sake of the truth. The ecclesiastical court that had met in Edinburgh in July of that year had passed an order of banishment on Rutherford, stipulating that he should report in Aberdeen by August 20. So with some days to spare, he had first journeyed west to Irvine to spend time with his friend, David Dickson.

Since entering the ministry in 1618, David Dickson had preached at Irvine with the exception of a short period when he too had been banished to the north of Scotland for his refusal to compromise his principles over the Articles of Perth, ratified by law in 1621 and intended to re-introduce pre-Reformation forms into church worship. Here was a kindred spirit indeed and we can only guess at the warmth of fellowship those two men shared in the time allowed to them. Doubtless Dickson, who was seventeen years the senior, would have encouraged Rutherford with his own testimony of God’s goodness in time of trial and assured him that Christ would sweeten his sufferings with comforts of grace. Perhaps he told his friend of that day when God came to him and filled his soul with ‘such joy and approbation. . . that he scarcely ever had the like in all his life.’ [1] This was God’s answer of approval when Dickson had steadfastly withstood the pressure brought upon him even by Christian friends to swerve from his fearless stand over the Articles of Perth for which he had been exiled. Maybe they talked together of the glorious end of sorrow for the children of God and urged each other on in the sure anticipation of the ultimate triumph of the cause of Christ.

The letter that Rutherford wrote from Irvine takes pride of place as Letter 1 in M‘Ward’s first edition of Mr Rutherford’s Letters, setting the tone for the whole. It retains this position in most subsequent editions, including one as late as 1875, edited by Dr Thomas Smith. Its themes may well reflect the topics covered by Dickson and Rutherford as they spoke together. Certainly Rutherford was sometimes cast down as he faced the prospect of banishment: ‘I am a faint, deadhearted, cowardly man, oft borne down, and hungry in waiting for the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ But the hope of glory sustained his spirit: ‘When I look over beyond the line, and beyond death, to the laughing side of the world, I triumph, and ride upon the high places of Jacob.’ [2] Rutherford and Dickson were men of like mind. Dickson, born in 1583, was also an excellent scholar, preacher and pastor. Both had a poetic strain in their natures and Dickson had written several well-loved poems. ‘O mother dear, Jerusalem’ was the title of one of his best known. John Livingstone in his Memoirs includes delightful pen sketches of ‘ministers in the Church of Scotland eminent for grace and gifts, for faithfulness and success’ [3] and as David Dickson was a close friend of Livingstone’s, he recounts interesting details of Dickson’s life.

Livingstone tells us that Dickson ‘was a man singularly gifted with an edifying way of preaching’, [4] and able to follow up such preaching with a penetrating understanding of the human heart. Men and women in spiritual need and perplexity would travel from many miles around to seek counsel from the pastor of Irvine. Little wonder then that the English merchant who heard Rutherford and Blair preach at St Andrews about the year 1650 also comments that in Irvine he heard ‘a well-favoured proper old man with a long beard and that man showed me all my heart.’ [5]

A brazen act of literary piracy has secured for posterity a choice little account of the life and ministry of David Dickson. A man by the name of George Sinclair translated a Latin treatise of Dickson’s and published it under the title Truth’s Victory Over Error, with his own name affixed. Any kudos was short-lived because Robert Wodrow, whose own fame rests on his monumental work, The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland published in 1722, promptly republished the treatise in 1684 with its rightful author’s name and added a biographical sketch. This sketch supplements much of our information about Dickson’s ministry at Irvine. His early years there had proved to be an era of God’s manifest power as revivals spread through all the west of Scotland. Stewarton, only eight miles from Irvine, witnessed moving scenes as God displayed His grace and many were convicted and converted. David Dickson would often travel across and with sensitivity and wisdom counsel the people, dealing tenderly with wounded consciences. Scarcely a week passed during these days but that some were effectively converted through the power of God.

From Wodrow’s sketch we learn interesting details of Dickson’s style of preaching—details that John Howie later incorporated into his chapter on Dickson in The Scots Worthies, first published in 1775. ‘I have some of Mr Dickson’s sermons at Irvine, taken from his mouth. They are full of solid substantial matter, very spiritual, and in a very familiar style, not low, but extremely strong, plain and affecting. It is somewhat akin to Mr Rutherford’s in his admirable Letters.’ [6] We are not surprised then that Rutherford and Dickson should have had so much in common. David Dickson is chiefly remembered today by his writings. A plan had been inaugurated amongst several ministers of that day to write short commentaries on many of the books of the Bible, aiming above all to help ordinary Christians to love and understand the Word of God. From a reference in one of Rutherford’s letters it is clear that Dickson’s work on the Epistle to the Hebrews, published in 1635, was already in demand. [7] His later contributions on the other epistles and on Matthew’s Gospel and the Psalms were also popular. These works are still read and valued even today, though more than three hundred years have elapsed since
they were first published. [8]

Rutherford planned to write a commentary on Hosea, but this he never achieved. His main contribution to the scheme, however, was a commentary on Isaiah. He gave himself to this work with unrelenting diligence during the last years of life, fearful lest he should die leaving the task unfinished. It was to be his literary magnum opus and Robert M‘Ward tells us ‘His heart travailed more in the birth of this piece than ever I knew him of any.’ He was willing to have ‘his heaven suspended for a season’, [9] M’Ward adds, if only he might finish the work. This was the manuscript that was lost when many of Rutherford’s papers were confiscated and taken to London at the Restoration.

So it was that, after a few days with David Dickson, Rutherford continued on his way to Aberdeen. Four letters found their way to the manse at Irvine from his period of lonely exile. Heart speaks to heart and these letters demonstrate the depths of friendship and trust that the two men shared. Rutherford is able to confide his sorrows: ‘I am often laid in the dust with challenges and apprehensions of His anger and then, if a mountain of iron were laid upon me, I cannot be heavier.’ But sweeter far were the revelations of Christ’s love that he was favoured to experience: ‘My life is joy; and such joy through His comforts, as I have been afraid lest I should shame myself and cry out, for I can scarce bear what I get. Had I known what He was keeping for me, I should never have been so faint-hearted.’ [10]

It was wrong to seek to live on experiences and Rutherford acknowledges this to Dickson: ‘I would fain learn not to idolize comfort, sense, joy, and sweet felt presence. . . the Bridegroom Himself is better than all the ornaments that are about Him.’ [11] And it is also to Dickson that Rutherford confides that some of his highest experiences of Christ’s conscious presence were only fleeting in nature: ‘Sometimes, while I have Christ in my arms, I fall asleep in the sweetness of His presence, and He, in my sleep, stealeth away out of my arms; and when I awake, I miss Him.’ [12] Sorrows overwhelmed Rutherford at times. Wistfully he thought of the joys of worship in Anwoth and could even envy the ‘sparrows and swallows that build their nests in the Kirk of Anwoth, blessed birds.’ [13] But he turns his sad thoughts to good purpose in a stimulating letter to David Dickson: ‘I pray God that ye never have the woeful and dreary experience of a closed mouth; for then ye shall judge the sparrows that may sing on the church of Irvine, blessed birds. O man of God, go on, go on. . . I dare write, that Christ will be glorified in David Dickson, howbeit Scotland be not gathered.’ [14]

Without doubt God had further purposes for Dickson, for he played a strategic role in the events leading up to the historic signing of the National Covenant. During the remainder of that unforgettable year Dickson’s wisdom and learning were used under God’s hand and most particularly at the crucial General Assembly that was held in Glasgow in November 1638. In August 1639 he was chosen almost unanimously as the Moderator of the next General Assembly to be held in Edinburgh, so demonstrating the esteem in which he was held. In 1648 there came from his pen a work entitled Therapeutica Sacra or Cases of Conscience Resolved. In this way he passed on to posterity the gathered fruits of his years of pastoral counselling. This book was considered by his contemporaries to be his most important. Happily, the same wisdom and understanding of the human heart shines through in his commentaries and so is not lost to us today.

In David Dickson’s family circumstances he experienced much trial, as a number of his children died in the early years of life. A last letter from Rutherford to Dickson, written in 1640, has survived the centuries and is an example of the great letter-writer’s ability to console the bereaved. One secret of his effectiveness lay in a sensitivity of spirit that felt the griefs of others as if they had been his own. On hearing of his friend’s bereavement, Rutherford is said to have called for pen and ink declaring: ‘When one arm is broken off and bleeds, it makes the other bleed with it.’ [15] Only a meek acquiescence in the sovereign will of God can calm the heart, Rutherford maintained in this letter to David Dickson. This sorrow was ‘lustred with mercy’, he assures his friend, and his affection shines out clearly in the final exhortation:

‘Dearest brother, go on, and faint not. Something of yours is in heaven, beside the flesh of your exalted Saviour; and ye go on after your own.’ [16]

‘I am made of extremes’, [17] Rutherford once confessed to Dickson and this was demonstrated most painfully in the experience of these two men during the 1650s. As already noted, they were found on opposing sides of the controversy between the Resolutioners and the Protesters that rent the Scottish Church throughout that decade. Dickson, who was by then Professor of Divinity at Edinburgh University, espoused the Resolutionist position and his influence can be traced behind many of the pamphlets that poured off the presses urging its case. Rutherford, on the other hand, supported the Protesters’ cause but he was sadly guilty of bitter invective in propagating his views. Dr A. B. Grosart speaks of Rutherford’s attitudes in grieved astonishment, maintaining that they demonstrate ‘such assumption of personal infallibility. . . such unmeasured vituperation. . . and such suspicion of all who differed from him as is alike wonderful and sorrowful.’ [18]

It would seem that the Resolutioners’ views were coloured by the critical need for the unity of the nation in an hour of crisis. However, without any doubt the Protesters stood firm on the principles that lay at the heart of the National Covenant, and even Dickson is said to have admitted this on his death-bed in 1662. ‘I must confess, madam,’ he said to a lady who came to visit him, ‘that the Protesters have been much truer prophets than we were.’ [19] Samuel Rutherford, though many years younger, ended his pilgrimage before his friend. After a long and useful life, David Dickson was also to experience something of the malicious treachery of Charles II, who dismissed him from his position as Professor of Divinity in Edinburgh. But Dickson had his eyes set on an eternal kingdom and was able to say to John Livingstone, a fellow-sufferer for Christ’s sake, just days before he died: ‘I have taken all my good deeds and all my bad deeds and cast them through each other in a heap before the Lord, and have betaken me to Jesus Christ and in Him I have full and sweet peace.’ [20]

Footnotes:

1 ‘Memorable Characteristics’, in Scottish Puritans: Select Biographies (Wodrow Society, 1845, repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2008), vol. 1, p. 318.

2 Letters of Samuel Rutherford [henceforth LSR] 63, p. 142.

3 ‘Memorable Characteristics’, in Scottish Puritans, p. 295.

4 ‘Memorable Characteristics’, p. 316.

5 Wodrow’s MSS, Advocate’s Library, Edinburgh. Quoted by Thomas McCrie, The Story of the Scottish Church (Free Presbyterian Publications, 1988), p. 242.

6 Robert Wodrow, ‘Life of David Dickson’, in Scottish Puritans (Wodrow Society, 1847, repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2008), vol. 2, p. 9.

7 LSR 110, p. 226.

8 Republished by The Banner of Truth Trust, 1959, 1978, 1981.

9 A. Bonar, Introduction to LSR, p. 19.

10 LSR 119, p. 241.

11 LSR 168, p. 316.

12 LSR 259, p. 508.

13 LSR 167, p. 314.

14 LSR 168, pp. 315-6.

15 Bonar’s Introduction to LSR 298, p. 602.

16 LSR 298, p. 602.

17 LSR 168, p. 315

18 A. B. Grosart, Representative Non-Conformists (1879), p. 202.

Illustration: ‘People Repairing to David Dickson’s Lecture’, from Witnesses for the Truth in the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh: 1843).

The post ‘He Showed Me All My Heart’: The Tender Ministry of David Dickson appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

Evangelist Kim Yoonsup was born in the village of In-doo in Syenchun County of North Pyengan Province. He was brought up in a non-Christian home and was known as one of the ‘bad boys’ of the village. But when he was about twenty years old he became a Christian. After experiencing regeneration, his life was filled with ‘much grace,’ according to Elder Chung Bongsung, one who later shared imprisonment with him, and to whom I am indebted for filling in many of the details of Yoonsup’s life.

Kim had two years beyond grammar school in formal secular education. Following his baptism, he entered the North Pyengan Presbytery’s Bible Institute and led ser­vices in a small country church until his graduation. After graduation, he gave himself to full-time work for the Lord and pioneered churches in Duk-in and Wul-wha villages, helping to carry the stones himself for the first little chapel at Duk-in. The grace of the Lord was upon him and the work prospered wherever he went. He was large, over six feet tall, healthy, had a good voice and was in demand as a leader in the churches of the area.
When the Assembly of the Korean Presbyterian Church yielded to government pressure and formally declared that shrine worship was not idolatry, but merely a patriotic act, Kim was greatly disturbed in his mind and preached a strong sermon entitled, ‘Daniel’s Purposed Aim’, which greatly moved the hearts of the hearers. The police got wind of his preaching, and detectives in his audience reported the things he said. As a result he was arrested and exposed to various kinds of torture, one being the famed ‘water cure,’ in which the prisoner is stretched out, face upwards, on a narrow bench, hands tied under the bench, head hanging down over the end of the bench. Water is then poured from a kettle down his nostrils, practically drowning him. Sometimes red pepper is added to the water as a special refinement of the torture. At another time, Kim was branded with a hot iron. On one occasion, he told me, several police seized him and, using the back of a chair as a fulcrum, tried to bend his rigid body in a bow toward the shrine in the corner of the police station, thinking that if they could make him bow, even against his will, he would feel compromised and weaken. But Kim, being tall and strong, resisted vigorously, lying on the floor and kicking like a baby. He was kicked in the head and body and his clothes torn, but he still refused to bow, and they seemed unable to make him do so.

At other times the police resorted to kindly talk, and sought to reason him into bowing. ‘Christianity was a Wes­tern religion’ and Westerners were not as strict about keep­ing God’s commandments as they expected Orientals to be, or even as demanding as Kim was of himself, they argued. Also many Christians, including some missionaries and ministers, saw nothing wrong in Shinto worship. Even the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, the leaders of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and the Vatican it­self, had approved of it. Did he think he was the only good Christian in the world?

But whether it was torture or argument or blandish­ments, Kim met each testing with prayer for strength and wisdom and with God’s Word. Perhaps the most difficult form of temptation was freedom itself. When the authorities were not able to break him in other ways, they gave him up as a hopeless case and released him, but at the same time warning him that he would be arrested again if he con­tinued to teach as before. As with the apostles in Acts 4:17, it was a case of ‘let us threaten them and let them go.’ How precious freedom is after imprisonment! But, for Kim, it could be had only at the price of keeping his mouth shut. Only one who has been through such a trial (and the writer speaks from experience) can know the strength of such a temptation to silence. But Kim did not yield to the temptation. On his release, he continued preaching as before. He was arrested again. The torturing was more severe. This arrest-and-release policy was repeated until he had been imprisoned eight times.

It was while in prison for his eighth time that Kim broke. This all happened before I ever met him. I have read and even heard, from such men as Evangelist Pak, several accounts of Kim’s compromise, in which they say that it came about under pressure of torture,  water-cure, branding and so forth. Such reports are liable to discourage Christ­ians and make them feel, ‘If a man like Kim finally broke, dare I think I could hold out?’ Even before I met Kim, I used to doubt the validity of the ‘lesson’ people drew from Kim’s compromise, namely, ‘You had better not fall into the hands of the police. Flee! You won’t be able to hold out any more than Kim did.’ God’s Word says, ‘There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear.’ I was glad, therefore, when I eventually met Kim and heard from his own lips the true story of his compromise.

He said he had been brought to prison for his eighth time. Prison, torture, even death, were not so hard to en­dure or face as were the periods of release, when, against what seemed to be common wisdom, he must carry on the struggle. It was the times when he would be torn from his wife and children that were hard. His wife bravely en­couraged him, but the little four-year-old boy would cry inconsolably when his father was led away again by the police. And so, like Elijah under the juniper tree, he came to the point when he wanted to die.

It was just while he was attempting suicide that the guard called him from his cell for another period of exami­nation. On all previous occasions, such a summons turned him to the Lord for strength and wisdom, and the Lord sustained him. He told me that sometimes, under the severest torture, he actually rejoiced in the Lord. But on this occasion it was different. The sin of attempted suicide had broken fellowship with the Lord and such fellowship is not easily or quickly restored. He followed the guard, numb and prayerless of soul. As a matter of form he was again ordered to bow to the shrine, and to the surprise of the police, he meekly obeyed. They were delighted at his change of mind and asked him to put his seal to a statement that it was not idolatrous to bow to a shrine. Again, in a numb way, he submitted. He was now released and told he was free to preach and hold meetings. But like Peter, Kim went out and wept bitterly.

Kim resigned his work as an evangelist and moved to Manchuria. He was not only strong of body but good at mechanics. Before becoming a Christian, he had handled different kinds of machines in his farm village. His family had to live, so he started a rope-making factory, which pro­vided a good living for himself and other Christian fugi­tives from Korea. But he was not happy. He had a calling from the Lord, and the voices in the church, speaking out against the idolatry of shrine worship, were so few! But what could he do? He had compromised. Furthermore he had sinned wilfully. Was there any forgiveness for him? And under the circumstances, how could he lead others?

He had heard of our work in North Manchuria, and, in his distress, he came to me. It was my privilege to point out to him that ‘there is no more sacrifice for sin’—fastings, prayers, nothing whatsoever can be added to what Christ has done. ‘He who knew no sin became sin for us,’ he did it ‘once for all,’ and ‘if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ It was not a new story to Kim, but it helped to turn his eyes to Jesus alone, and in turning he found for­giveness and victory.

He wrote to the police, retracting his signed statement, and subsequently found much liberty in expounding God’s Word and in exhorting Christians to stand. He went from place to place strengthening the Christians. He was much in demand. Often, after the close of the regular evening meeting, Christians would gather about him, asking him to give them proof-texts to meet particular phases of the whole shrine problem. Such informal meetings would last far beyond midnight, and no one seemed to get tired; their lives were at stake.

About a month after the writing of his retraction, police came from Korea to arrest him. He was at our home at the time, and when a messenger from his home came, saying they were looking for him, we had prayer together and then he went fearlessly and cheerfully to meet them. And so he was imprisoned for his ninth time. The date was March or April, 1940.

During this imprisonment Kim suffered from dysentery and malnutrition. In December of 1940, shortly after Miss Ahn Youngae had been released only to die, Kim’s wife received word to come and remove her husband, as he too was dying and they were releasing him. When she arrived at the prison, she found her husband lying on the frozen ground. His underwear had long since been torn up for bandages with which to bind up the wounds of other prisoners, and his big Korean jacket had slipped up, leav­ing his bare back against the hard frozen ground. He was too weak even to adjust his clothes to protect himself. She got him home in a Russian taxi.

I did not learn of Kim’s release until the next morning. When I arrived at the home, I found him being tenderly cared for, lying on the warm, heated Korean floor. He tried to lift his head, but fell back. He tried to speak, but I could not hear him across the little room. I bent close to him and he uttered the two words: ‘Immanuel,’ ‘Hallelujah,’ Im­manuel, God with us, and Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. His greatest awareness was that God was with him and in his suffering he was praising the Lord!

But that was not the end. He began to improve. Towards Christmas time, the members of the church went together to buy him a warm, fur-lined overcoat. We were having our services in different houses, and, though proscribed by the government, Kim’s home was one of the regular meet­ing places. As Kim got better he led the services in his home, though still having to lean on a big stick to move himself around. I especially recall the communion service which I led there. Christians from our various meeting places had gathered for it. Kim gave the message. Thumb­ing quickly and familiarly through his big Bible, he brought us a two-hour message on ‘Fear not.’ ‘It’s wrong to fear,’ he declared. He took us through the Scriptures to show why it is wrong to fear, opening up the many promises the Lord gives us for times of danger.

‘How do you have the courage to keep going in the face of constant arrests?’ Kim was asked at about this time. ‘When I became a Christian, I died with Christ,’ was his humble answer, ‘and once you are dead, what men do to you cannot hurt you.’

Even on the day of the communion, every knock at the door made us wonder if it was not another call from the police. It was not many weeks after this, early in 1941, that Kim, still leaning on his stick, was arrested for the tenth and last time. It was a time when the authorities arrested about seventy Christians, called by the press ‘the death pact band’ (Kyul Sa Dan) because of the covenant to which they had subscribed. They were brought from all parts of Man­churia. The press made it appear that a great conspiracy against the government had been uncovered, though we had been quite open in urging subscription to the covenant. While trying to make it appear that the members of the ‘band’ were enemy agents disloyal to the government, the press also spoke of them as people who had no awareness of the world about them, as people who were ‘looking only for the coming of Jesus on the clouds.’

It was the writer’s privilege to be in prison with Kim in the same penitentiary in Antung, Manchuria, between November 22 and December 5, 1941. I saw Kim several times and talked with him briefly, though somewhat in­directly, once. We were both trying to witness to the Ko­rean guard who was watching us. I had told the guard of Kim’s many imprisonments for Christ, and that we were both ‘in’ for the same reasons.

‘Aren’t you afraid you will die in prison?’ the guard asked, for prison conditions were not meant to do more than barely sustain life, and the death of prisoners was not uncommon. I told him that eternal life meant so much to us that, while death was not pleasant to contemplate, it was not such a fearful thing in comparison to the loss of eternal life. Kim spoke up saying, ‘Pastor, I practically died again this time. It was from a case of typhoid fever. I was even un­conscious for a time.’ Then he added, ‘But, Pastor, when you know Jesus, it’s cheap to die’ (Chooknan gussi hul hayo).

Kim’s sanity and lack of fanaticism impressed me on one particular occasion during our imprisonment in Antung together. One of our fellow Christians, Choi Hanki, had lost his mind under the torture. Strangely enough, the guards had called Mrs Roy Byram and myself from our cells to pray with him, possibly, like Herod, hoping to see some miracle. Choi had been an attractive young evangel­ist with a wife and two lovely children. I was shocked when I saw him, broken in mind, sitting slumped in a chair, his clothes disarranged, his wrists tied with leather thongs to a great leather belt around his waist so he could not hurt himself. His eyes were like those of a wild animal. Mrs Byram and I had prayer for him there in the prison dis­pensary and then were taken back to our respective cells. What I had seen kept haunting me. I could not get Choi and his family out of my mind. As I prayed for him the verse kept recurring to me, ‘This kind can come out by nothing, save by prayer and fasting.’ In spite of the fact that prison fare always left me hungry, I determined to set aside a day for fasting and prayer. Through one of our inter-cell contacts, I suggested that Kim, who had done much prayer and fasting before imprisonment, should join me. He sent word back that his body was greatly weakened (it being his tenth imprisonment) and he would join me in prayer for Choi, but that he felt he must conserve his strength for whatever lay ahead, so he would not fast. This rejoiced me more than if he had agreed to fast. Choi, it should be added, was released within a week and later recovered sanity and was being greatly used of the Lord in North Korea when last heard of before the Communists com­pletely clamped down on the church.

Kim, with thirteen other Christians, was finally brought to trial in January 1942. The charges against them were the same as those made against the prisoners in Korea: violating the public peace; lèse majesté; irrever­ence; and giving aid to the enemy. Kim was recognised by the authorities as the leader. The judges’ questions were mostly addressed to him. His fellow prisoners, including Pak Eehum, who was himself quite outstanding, recognised the firm but gentle Kim as their spokesman.

On the first day of the trial, the judge said to Kim, ‘According to your beliefs, if a man serves any god except your Jehovah God he will be cast into hell; do you then believe that His Majesty the Emperor who serves the gods of his ancestors will go to hell?’

‘Yes, he will’ (‘Hai, soo desu’), Kim replied.

‘Do you really mean it?’ the judge asked (‘his eyes wide as saucers and his face red with anger,’ according to Elder Chung Bongsung, one of the fourteen being tried).

‘Do you mean it?’ (‘Hontoka?’), the enraged judge  re­peated for the third time.

Without hesitation, but with a prayer in his heart, Kim answered, ‘Yes, he will.’ Despite his boldness, he seemed calm and relaxed.

The trial was not over in one or two days. It ran on for ten days. Gradually the atmosphere in the court room changed. The grace of the Lord seemed to be on his ser­vants as, with the help of the Holy Spirit, they gave their strong testimony. As the trial proceeded, the judges them­selves became more ‘strained,’ as though they were the ones who were on trial. The Lord provided a ‘gracious atmosphere’ making the court become more like a church, with Kim preaching the Word of God, Elder Chung said. He also reported that the prisoners were made to remember the words of the Lord in Matthew 10:18–20: ‘It shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak, for it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.’

On the last day but one of the trial, two of the fourteen gave in, and agreed to shrine worship—Kim Choongdo a public school teacher who was given ‘eight years,’ and Evangelist Kim Kyungduk who was given ‘twelve years.’ The others felt, on the one hand, the grim agony ‘of this break in their ranks and at the same time were moved to tears of thankfulness for the grace of God without which they knew they themselves could not stand.’

Following the preliminary summing up of the case, all fourteen were moved from the big common cells where they had been held, to the block of smaller cells, usually reserved for ‘foreign prisoners,’ the very cells where Dr Byram of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions and I had been held for a month and a half, just a few months prior to this. Kim Kyungduk, after yielding, sobbed pitifully all night, and declared that on his release he would withdraw his consent to shrine worship, but does not seem to have had the courage to do so.

On the last day of the trial, when the prisoners were brought from their respective cells and were waiting in the basement of the court house to be led into the court room, Evangelist Kim Yoonsup said to his fellow prisoners: ‘Brothers, since we have reached the end of the road, the opportunity further to admonish or reprove others is past. Every one is free. As we are at the fork in the road of life and death, those who would die for Jesus will die together, and those who would live will do as they wish. But there is one thing to remember, the mouths of the lions which wanted to swallow Daniel were only open mouths; they could not actually eat Daniel, could they?’ These words were a great strength to his friends. Thus Evangelist Kim helped the others and was like a general commanding troops on the front line. When Evangelist Pak Eehum spoke of him admiringly as ‘General,’ Kim Yoonsup with his characteristic faith and humility said that he could not be General, ‘Jesus is our General.’

During the noon recess of the preceding day, after two of the men had capitulated, the prisoners were all sent back to the cells in the courthouse basement and given their usual cake of steamed corn-meal. The cells are built around the walls, facing inward, with an open space in the middle, so that the guard sitting in this space can keep an eye on all the prisoners. The occasion was fraught with emotion. It was drawing to the close of a long struggle. Though each ate his or her corn-cake in a separate cell, they did so in a kind of circle about the open space. With charges having been pronounced against them, the prisoners felt bound together as never before, and their noon meal
became a kind of ‘sacrament’ of the Lord’s body. Kim, the spokes­man, referring to it, said, ‘The Lord has, as it were, pre­pared for us his holy meal, how good is this time!’ What added poignancy and heightened the meaning of the ‘com­munion’ was that just as they bowed their heads in prayer and were about to eat, for some reason, the two men who had recanted were called out by the guards, and had to leave their meal untouched. This strange differentiation between the two and the twelve occurred again on the fol­lowing and last day. The sentences had been pronounced. The court had kindly allowed friends and relatives to buy dishes of ‘domburi,’ (a rice, meat, and egg, one-dish meal, common in Japan) for each of the prisoners, before they started serving their long sentences. Again, just as they were about to eat, the two who had recanted were called from the room and had to leave the food they so craved, untouched. Kim said, ‘This is the supper the Lord has provided and he has not allowed those to join us who have refused to take this stand of separation from idols with us.’ The following are the names of the twelve who were finally sentenced on February 3, 1942, and the terms to which they were sentenced:

Kim Yoonsup, Evangelist – 15 years
Pak Eehum, Evangelist – 12 years
Chun Bongsung, Evangelist and Elder – 10 years
Kim Yangsoon, Evangelist – 10 years
Sin Okyuh, Bible Woman – 10 years
Kim Sinbok, Bible Woman – 10 years
Pak Myungsoon, Bible Woman – 8 years
Han Soochan, Deacon – 8 years
Chun Chooduk, Deacon – 8 years
Kim Ungpil, Deacon – 8 years
Kim Taikyung, Nurse (Deaconess) – 8 years
Chun Choisun Yungsoo, Church Leader – 6 years

As the tide of World War II turned against the Japan­ese, free civilians were so restricted, and rationing so strict that the whole country became like a vast concentration camp, and the life of criminals in the penitentiaries propor­tionately difficult. The twelve prisoners were moved from the Antung penitentiary to Mukden.

Kim was skilful with machinery and could have received preferential treatment as a ‘technician’ but because it meant Sabbath work he chose rather to be an ordinary labourer and worked in the print shop. The guards respec­ted him and he had a great influence among the prisoners. Two robbers from Youngchun in North Pyenyan Province, who had received seven-year sentences, were led to the Lord by Kim. They prayed and studied their Bibles with him and upon their release proved the sincerity of their Christian profession. Some details of Kim’s last days were learned through them.

At one time, a Japanese prisoner appeared to be con­verted through Kim’s preaching, but he in turn tried to weaken Kim in his stand. This proved to be a severe test­ing of Kim’s faith. He wondered later whether the Japan­ese prisoner had not been purposely ‘planted’; for when Kim refused to change his stand, the Japanese turned against him, speaking ill of him. As long as he lived, Kim encouraged his fellow sufferers and constantly challenged them to more saintly living by his own words and life. The prison fare was ‘not one fifth’ what a man of his size and energy would want, ‘if he ate it all,’ but he used to divide his food ‘not only with his friends but with others.. ‘He did not stop praying, singing, or wit­nessing in prison, and became known as a “man of God.”’ In his struggle for truth he was bold as a lion, but in his dealing with those about him he was humble and merciful so that even from the lips of one of the Japanese guards was wrung the tribute to his saintliness, ‘Anatawa Kamisama desu’ (You are a god).

Hard labour and lack of nourishment following on the tortures and sickness during the more than two years of imprisonment before his trial began to tell. His lungs be­came affected, and at last, too weak to work in the print shop, he was sent to the prison infirmary. He was now cut off from any contact with his fellow Christians. The loss of his buoyant leadership was des­cribed as having a ‘suffocating’ effect on them. Only occa­sional news of him leaked through the infirmary walls, by way of other patients hospitalized for shorter periods. Thus his last days were spent wholly among non-Christians and it was through the lips of non-Christians who were near him and saw him at the time, that we know of his death. In bed he continued to witness to all—prisoners, jailers, and clerks. Those who were there always spoke of him with pity and admiration and were sure he had gone to the heaven of which Christians speak.

For three or four days before his death he kept singing hymns, with a beaming face, like an angel, and repeating, ‘It’s time for someone from my home to come.’ His sing­ing could be heard by well-nigh a thousand prisoners await­ing trial in the floors above and below the infirmary. Listening in the tomb-like silence of the prison, they would, in spite of regulations, occasionally break into applause.
On the last morning, May 3, 1943, when Kim received his morning meal, he divided it carefully into four parts as usual, ate two parts himself, gave the other equally divided parts to two other patients, then fell back in final and peaceful sleep. He had served only fifteen months of his fifteen-year sentence, a month for a year.

The song sung so much during those last days seems to have been the Korean translation of the ‘Glory Song’,

When all my labours and trials are o’er
And I am safe on that beautiful shore,
Just to be near the dear Lord I adore
Will through the ages be glory for me.

O, that will be glory for me! Glory for me!
Glory for me! When, by His grace, I shall look on His face,
That will be glory, be glory for me!

His last act of sharing, followed by the peaceful passing in sleep, graphically sealed to the non-Christians among whom he died the testimony concerning his hope of heaven and joy in seeing the Saviour, concerning whom he had been singing so much during his final days.

Photograph: Kim Yoonsup and his family after his release from one of his imprisonments.

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The Epistle to the Reader

It was the observation of the learned Gerson (when the world was not so old by many years as now it is) that mundus senescens patitur phantasias [‘As the world grows old, it suffers illusions.’]: The aged world, like aged persons, dotes and grows whimsical, in its old age; the truth of which observation is confirmed by no one thing more, than the fond and groundless dreams and phantasms of tranquillity, and continuing prosperity, wherewith the multitude please themselves, even whilst the sins of the times are so great, and the signs of the times so sad and lowring as they are.

It is not the design of this Manual to scare and affright any man with imaginary dangers, much less to sow jealousies, and foment the discontents of the times; it being a just matter of lamentation that all the tokens of God’s anger produce with many of us no better fruit but bold censures and loud clamours, instead of humiliation for our own sins, and the due preparation to take up our own cross, and follow Christ in a suffering path, which is the only mark and aim of this tract.

We read the histories of the primitive sufferers, but not with a spirit prepared to follow them. Some censure them as too prodigal of their blood, and others commend their courage and constancy; but where are they that sincerely resolve and prepare to be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises? Heb. 6:12, or take them for an ‘example of suffering, affliction, and of patience,’ James 5:10.

It is as much our interest as it is our duty to be seasonably awakened out of our pleasant but most pernicious drowsiness. Troubles will be so much the more sinking and intolerable, by how much the more they steal upon us by way of surprizal. For look, as expectation deflowers any temporal comfort, by sucking out much of the sweetness thereof beforehand, and so we find the less in it when we come to the actual enjoyment: So the expectation of evils abates much of the dread and terror, by accustoming our thoughts beforehand to them, and making preparation for them: So that we find them not so grievous, amazing, and intolerable when they are come indeed.

This was exemplified to us very lively by holy Mr Bradford the martyr, when the keeper’s wife came running into his chamber, saying, ‘O Mr Bradford, I bring you heavy tidings, for tomorrow you must be burned, your chain is now buying, and presently you must go to Newgate.’ He put off his hat, and looking up to heaven, said, ‘O Lord, I thank thee for it; I have looked for this a long time; It comes not suddenly to me, the Lord make me worthy of it.’ See in this example the singular advantage of a prepared and ready soul.

Reader, The cup of sufferings is a very bitter cup, and it is but needful that we provide somewhat to sweeten it, that we may be able to receive it with thanksgiving; and what those sweetening ingredients are, and how to prepare them, you will have some direction and help in the following discourse; which hath once already been presented to the public view; and that it may at this time also (wherein nothing can be more seasonable) become farther useful and assisting to the people of God in their present duties, is the hearty desire of

Thine and the Church’s Servant in Christ,

JOHN FLAVEL

***

Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep, and to break my heart? For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. – Acts 21:13.

Chapter 1

Wherein the text is opened, and the doctrine propounded.

The Divine providence is not more signally discovered in governing the motions of the clouds, than it is in disposing and ordering the spirits and motions of the ministers of the gospel, who, in a mystical sense, are fruitful clouds, to dispense the showers of gospel blessings to the world. The motion of the clouds is not spontaneous, but they move as they are moved by the winds; neither can gospel ministers choose their own stations, and govern their own motions, but must go when and where the Spirit and providence of God directs and guides them; as will evidently appear in that dangerous voyage to Jerusalem in which the apostle was at this time engaged, Acts 20:22. ‘And now, behold, I go bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem’ [bound in the Spirit]: Alluding to the watery vapours which are bound up in clouds, and conveyed according to the motions of the wind. This journey was full of danger; Paul foresaw his business was not only to plant the gospel at Jerusalem with his doctrine, but to water it also with his blood; but so effectually was his will determined by the will of God, that he cheerfully complies with his duty therein, whatsoever difficulties and dangers did attend it.
And indeed it was his great advantage, that the will of God was so plainly and convincingly revealed to him touching this matter; for no sooner did he employ himself to obey this call of God, but he is presently assaulted by many strong temptations to decline it.

The first rub he met in his way was from the disciples of Tyre, who pretending to speak by the Spirit, said unto Paul, that he should not go up to Jerusalem, Acts 21:4. The Lord by this trying the spirit of his apostle much, as he did the young prophet coming from Judea to Bethel, 1 Kings 13:18, but not with like success. His next discouragement was at Caesarea, where Agabus (whom Dorotheus affirms to be of the seventy-two disciples, and had before prophesied of the famine in the reign of Claudius, which accordingly came to pass) takes Paul’s girdle, and binding his own hands and feet with it, said, ‘Thus saith the Holy Ghost, so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles,’ Acts 21:11. And surely he was not ignorant what he must expect whenever he should fall into their hands; yet neither could this affright him from his duty. But then, last of all, he meeteth with the sorest trial from his dearest friends, who fell upon him with passionate entreaties and many tears, beseeching him to decline that journey: O they could not give up such a minister as Paul was! this even melted him down, and almost broke his heart, which yet was easier to do, than to turn him out of the path of obedience: Where, by the way, we may note two things:

First, That divine precept, not providence, is to rule out our way of duty.

Secondly, That no hindrances or discouragements whatsoever will justify our neglect of a known duty.

All these rubs he passes over; all these discouragements he overcame, with this heroic and truly Christian resolution in the text; ‘What mean ye to weep, and to break my heart? For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord Jesus.’

In which words we have,

1. A loving and gentle rebuke.
2. A quieting and calming argument.

First, He lovingly and gently rebukes their fond and inordinate sorrow for his departure, in these words, What mean ye to weep, and to break my heart? As if he should say, What mean these passionate entreaties and tempting tears? To what purpose is all this ado? They are but so many snares of Satan, to turn my heart out of the way of obedience: You do as much as in you lies to break my heart; let there be no more of this I beseech you.

Secondly, He labours to charm their unruly passions with a very quieting and calming argument; For I am ready, etc. ἑτοίμως ἔχω [hetoimos echo], parate habeo. I am prepared and fitted for the greatest sufferings which shall befall me in the pursuit of my duty; be it a prison, or be it death, I am provided for either: Liberty is dear, and life much dearer, but Christ is dearer than either.

But what was there in all this, to satisfy them whose trouble it was to see him so forward? Let the words be considered, and we shall find divers things in them to satisfy and quiet their hearts, and make them willing to give him up.

First, I am ready; that is, God hath fitted and prepared my heart for the greatest sufferings; this is the work of God: flesh and blood would never be brought to this, were not all its interests and inclinations subdued, and overruled by the Spirit of God. What do ye therefore in all this, but work against the design of God, who hath fitted and prepared my heart for this service?

Secondly, I am ready; that is, my will and resolution stands in a full bent, my heart is fixed, you cannot therefore study to do me a greater injury, than to discompose and disorder my heart again, by casting such temptations as these in my way, to cause the flesh to rebel, and the enemy that is within to renew his opposition.

Thirdly, I am ready; that is, my heart is so fixed to follow the call of God, whatever shall befall me, that all your tears and entreaties to the contrary are but cast away; they cannot alter my fixed purpose; you had as good be quiet, and cheerfully resign me to the will of God.

Thus you see the equipage and preparation of Paul’s spirit to receive both bonds and death for Christ at Jerusalem; this made him victorious over the temptations of friends, and the malice and cruelty of his enemies: By this readiness and preparation of his mind, he was carried through all, and enabled to finish his course with joy. From hence the observation is,

Doctrine. That it is a blessed and excellent thing for the people of God to be prepared, and ready for the hardest services, and worst of sufferings, to which the Lord may call them.

This is that which every gracious heart is reaching after, praying, and striving to obtain; but, ah! how few will attain it! Certainly there are not many among the multitudes of the professors of this generation that can say as Paul here did, ‘I am ready to be bound, or to die for Christ.’

Preparations for Suffering, Or, The Best Work in the Worst Times, is published by the Banner of Truth in Volume 6 of Flavel’s Works (Set price £85.00) and as a Puritan Paperback (£5.50).

Featured Picture: “The man with the burden”, by Rachael Robinson Elmer (d. 1919) illustration from John Bunyan’s dream story (based on Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress) (p. 18) abridged by James Baldwin (1841-1925). Public Domain.

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Richard Cameron (1648? – 1680)

Cameron of the Covenant stood
And prayed the battle prayer;
Then with his brother side by side
Took up the Cross of Christ and died
Upon the Moss of Ayr.
Henry Inglis,
Hackston of Rathillet

Sanquhar Town, 12 June 1680. A band of about twenty horsemen are clattering up the High Street to the Town Cross. People are running to see them. ‘It’s Richie!’ they cry, ‘it’s Richie Cameron! Here are the Hillmen!’ It is Richard Cameron, Lion of the Covenant, a Richard Coeur-de-Lion, indeed, with some of the faithful remnant. He and his brother Michael dismount. The others form a circle about them. It is the first anniversary of the Bothwell Brig slaughter, and for the murder of their comrades, this is their answer—the inestimably brave Sanquhar Declaration. In clear and solemn tones, Michael Cameron reads that they ‘disown Charles Stuart, who hath been reigning, or rather tyrannizing, as we may say, on the throne of Britain these years bygone, as having any right, title to, or interest in, the said crown of Scotland for Government, as forfeited several years since by his perjury and breach of covenant both to God and His Kirk, and usurpation of His Crown and Royal Prerogatives therein . . . As also we, being under the standard of our Lord Jesus Christ, Captain of Salvation, do declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper, and all the men of his practices, as enemies to our Lord Jesus Christ, and His Cause and Covenants, and against all such as have strengthened him . . . As also we disown, and, by this, resent the reception of the Duke of York, that professed Papist, as repugnant to our principles and vows to the Most High God.’ That high-born wretch, the Duke of York, had sneeringly threatened to make parts of Scotland like a hunting field. From the hunt­ed, who knew him as ‘the devil’s lieutenant’, this was the answer. Thomas Campbell nailed up the fearless words. Another prayer, a verse or two of a Psalm, and those men of forfeited lives disappeared among their welcoming hills. Eight years later, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons of England, with the Estates of Scotland, flung out King James Stuart, and put William and Mary upon the British throne. It was but a following of the brave, resolute few of the Sanquhar Declaration. As Carlyle has it, ‘How many earnest rugged Cromwells, Knoxes, poor peasant Coven­­anters wrestling, battling for very life, in rough miry places, have to struggle, and suffer, and fall, greatly censured, be­mired, before a beautiful Revolution of Eighty-Eight can step over them in official pumps and silk stockings with uni­ver­sal three times three!’ Richard Cameron truly prophesied, ‘Ours is a standard which shall overthrow the Throne of Britain.’ It did.

* * *

To-day Northern Ireland is probably the most evangelically Christian part of Britain. This is the work of God. Had the south of the island known the gracious change experienced by the rest of Britain at the glorious Reformation, the history of our nation, religiously, socially and politically, would have been vastly different, and all for the better. It does not carry the light of the Reformation, the light of the gospel. But Ulster is part of God’s answer. And Ulster is a Covenanting triumph, and it was right that the last crushing blows against Stuart Romanism should be struck by Covenanter and Puritan at Londonderry, Enniskillen and the Boyne. It was in Ulster that Covenanters with Puritans settled in their godly thousands, and moved, as they termed it, ‘from one bloody land to another’. The ‘No Surrender’ of Derry is the echo of the Coven­anter cry, ‘The Lord our Righteousness.’ And so the blessing of God on the generations has lasted through the centuries, and is there to-day. It is not political partition only that is in Ireland. It is a fundamental partition. It is that be­tween people and people, between the open Bible and pure evangelical faith, and a power that would draw back again into a dense darkness from which there has been a merciful deliverance. But there are two great dangers in Ulster as else­where in this country. These are mere nominal Protestantism and Modernism. May the people so blessedly placed inherit their heritage, winning Christ! The present compilers of the Scottish National Dictionary have not forgotten Ulster either, and say, ‘The Scottish National Dictionary deals with the vocabulary of literary and spoken Scots, including the dialects of the mainland, Orkney, Shetland and Ulster from 1700 to the present day.’ Ulster is a British Covenanting triumph, and God’s blessing still is there. May the people speaking the language of their fathers, speak it in the Grace of God, as their fathers most clearly did. The United States of America, too, is a great result of the further development of the Reformation in the orderings of the Most High. It might have been settled by Spanish or Portuguese, and therefore, now been as South America, Romish, backward and dark. But in genius and constitution, in its strong depths and on its grand heights, it is a Protestant land. This is because of a people, such a people, in moral and spiritual stature incomparable, the finest expositors of Scripture ever known, the English Puritans. Carrying banished men and women, with their little children, the Mayflower was an earnest of a summer of spiritual bloom to be followed by a great harvest. The people of God suffer but to reign. Through going the way of the cross there was for them a fulfilment of the promise of the love and grace of God. And so these blood-brothers of the Covenanters went out and founded a nation like their own—lands of free men, lands of the gospel of the grace of Christ from which to other races the message of the redeeming love of God has been taken forth unceasingly. It was King Charles Stuart that caused these people to go, but God meant it unto good. Other ships were making ready to sail, but Charles of Divine Right imperiously forbade their going. Had he but known he would have had them go, and that quickly, for two of the names of the would-be Pilgrim Colonists were Oliver Cromwell and John Hampden! Oh those days of seeming calamity to those brave and noble hearts! Those were days of the planting of the Lord. The British Commonwealth and the United States of America owe much to sufferers for His Name’s sake, enduring and achieving by faith.

* * *

Alan Cameron, believing merchant in Falkland, Fife, had three sons of whom Richard was the eldest. The other two, Michael and Alexander, were also believers, and followed the Covenanting banner of blue. The only daughter, Marion, was a sincere Christian woman who died at the hands of violent dragoons. After his university days, Richard Cameron was a school­master, but he knew not the Saviour. Sometimes he listened to the here-on-earth-to-day and there-in-heaven-to-morrow field preachers, and one day, obtaining mercy and finding grace, listened unto life. His own voice was soon heard among theirs, as of a trumpet clear and certain, and thousands listened to him. He was white-hot himself and had little use for the lukewarm. By his sincere example he inspired many. Even in the cold shadow of the gallows, just before they went into his Presence, there were those who testified to the blessing of God by him. But flat, haven-affording Holland soon had to receive him, and from that easy vantage point along with other exiles he often looked back with loving longing on ‘the land of blood’. While abroad godly hands were laid on his head, and he was set apart to the work to which he was surely called—the ministry of the gospel. After Brown, and Koelman, a Dutch minister, had lifted their hands, the great McWard kept his upon Cameron’s light brown locks saying, ‘Here is the head of a faithful minister and servant of Jesus Christ who shall lose the same for his Master’s interest, and it shall be set up before sun and moon in the public view of the world.’ A Covenanting minister’s ordination! Secretly he got back to Scotland, and soon his name was linked with the very fragrant names of Cargill, Welwood and Hall. Donald Cargill, ‘blest singular Christian, faithful mini­ster and martyr’; Henry Hall of Haugh-head, ‘worthy gentle­man, martyr and partaker of Christ’s sufferings’; and ‘bur­dened and temperate John Welwood,’ who, seeing from his cold den his last dawn upon his native hills, said, ‘Wel­come Eternal Light, no more night or darkness for me.’ The course of Richard Cameron was as swift and bright as that of a blazing meteor. He was fiercely hunted, but kindly housed, and although there was a huge price on his head, there was none that would betray him. Closely sought, he was ever sheltered; greatly loved, and that unto death, ever with his brother Michael by his side. His sermons were full of the warm welcoming love of the Lord Jesus Christ for poor helpless sinners: ‘Will ye take him? Tell us what ye say! These hills and mountains around us witness that we have offered him to ye this day. Angels are wondering at this offer. They stand beholding with admiration that our Lord is giving ye such an offer this day. They will go up to report at the Throne what is everyone’s choice.’ He preached memorably from such texts as these: Jeremiah 3:19, ‘How shall I put thee among the children?’; Matthew 11:28, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’; Isaiah 32:2, ‘And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest’; Isaiah 49:24, ‘Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive de­livered?’; and John 5:40, ‘And ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life.’ In the midst of this sermon, seeking to make a contract between human hearts and Christ, he fell a-weeping, and crowds wept with him, their hearts tendering to the Man of Calvary. As was Cameron’s preach­ing, so was his praying, and his practising. Such as he believed what James Fraser, fellow-sufferer in the same cause, said ‘Of a Minister’s Work and Qualification’: ‘That which I was called to was to testify for God, to hold forth his name and ways to the dark world, and to deliver poor captives of Satan, and bring them to the glorious liberty of the children of God. This I was to make my only employment, to give myself to, and therein to be diligent, taking all occasions.’ And thus he goes on, clear in his apprehension as to the greatest calling on earth, and finishing so markedly, ‘And my own soul to lie at the stake to be forfeit if I failed; and this commission might have been discharged though I had never taken a text or preached formally.’ May we all be delivered from merely taking a text and preaching formally! Then came the magnificently brave Sanquhar Declaration, and the savagely intensified hunt of the men of blood. Less than three weeks before fierce Ayrsmoss, Richard Cameron said, ‘I shall be but a breakfast to the enemies shortly.’ After a day of prayer, twelve days from the end, his word was, ‘my body shall dung the wilderness within a fortnight.’ And ‘he seldom prayed in a family, or sought a blessing, or gave thanks, but he requested that he might wait with patience till the Lord’s time came.’ The last Sabbath of his life he spent with the dauntless veteran, Donald Cargill, and preached from Psalm 46.10, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ The next Sabbath Cargill was preaching from the words, ‘Know ye not that there is a great man and prince fallen this day in Israel.’ It was a time of eating of the bread of affliction. The last week of Richard Cameron’s life was lived with about sixty others. Patrick Walker, the Covenanter Pedlar, the Covenanting John Bunyan, says of them in his unique re­cord, ‘They were of one heart and soul, their company and converse being so edifying and sweet, and having no certain dwelling-place they stayed together, waiting for further light in that nonesuch juncture of time.’ They were somewhat armed, and about twenty of them had horses. Some may feel that they should not have taken up arms at all. Many Coven­anters themselves felt like this, believing that there was a better testimony to be gained by suffering than by resisting. Their own outlawed ministers and writers counselled them to be ‘as jewels surrounded by the cutting irons’, and so, ‘to seal from your own experience the sweetness of suffering for Christ,’ since ‘there is an inherent glory in suffering for Christ’. Bur there were many others who, while they could go through much themselves, could not endure seeing others subjected to the utmost miseries and cruelties, and were as those when ‘every man had his sword upon his thigh’. Whatever we feel, we cannot but love them, these rebels so glorious, so brave for God. It was of them Delta Moir wrote:

We have no hearth—the ashes lie
In blackness where they brightly shone;
We have no home—the desert sky
Our covering, earth our couch alone;
We have no heritage—depriven
Of these, we ask not such on earth;
Our hearts are sealed; we seek in Heaven
For heritage, and home, and hearth.

O Salem, city of the Saints,
And holy men made perfect! we
Pant for thy gates, our spirits faint
Thy glorious golden streets to see;
To mark the rapture that inspires
The ransomed and redeemed by grace,
To listen to the seraph’s lyres
And meet the angels face to face.

The Lion of the Covenant spent his last night on earth at Meadowhead Farm, the home of William Mitchell. In the morning he washed his face and hands in an old stone trough. On drying himself, he looked at his hands and laying them on his face, he said to Mrs Mitchell and her daughter, ‘This is their last washing. I have need to make them clean, for there are many to see them.’ At this Mrs Mitchell wept. That day at about four in the afternoon, the dragoons came upon that Bible-reading band ‘in the very desert place of Ayrsmoss’. The Covenanters gathered around their young leader with the horsemen on either side of those on foot. He led them in prayer, appealing three times to the Lord of Sabaoth, to ‘spare the green, and take the ripe’. Looking on his younger brother, he said to him, ‘Come, Michael, let us fight it out to the last; for this is the day that I have longed for, to die fighting against our Lord’s avowed enemies; and this is the day that we shall get the crown.’ To his loved fellows he said, ‘Be encouraged, all of you, to fight it out valiantly, for all of you who fall this day I see heaven’s gates cast wide open to receive them.’ Then, ‘with eyes turned to heaven, in calm resignation they sang their last song to the God of salvation.’ The dragoons, emboldened by greater numbers and better arms, attacked at once. The wanderers, as was their wont, defended bravely, and David Hackston says, ‘The rest of us advanced fast on the enemy, being a strong body of horse coming hard on us; whereupon, when we were joined, our horse fired first, and wounded and killed some of them, both horse and foot. Our horse advanced to their faces, and we fired on each other; I being foremost after receiving their fire, and finding the horse behind me broken I then rode in amongst them, and went out at a side without any wrong or wound. I was pursued by several, with whom I fought a good space, sometimes they following me, and sometimes I follow­ing them.’ At last with a treacherous and unfair blow David Hackston was struck down, but, he says, ‘they gave us all testimony of being brave resolute men.’ Nine were slain ‘of that poor party that occasionally met at Ayrsmoss only for the hearing of the gospel’. Among them had flashed to God the dauntless spirit of him known among men as the Lion of the Covenant, Richard Cameron. And Michael, the inseparable, went with him. Most escaped into the wild wide mosses. Six prisoners only were taken. These were William Manuel, John Vallance, John Pollock, David Hackston, John Malcolm, and Archibald Alison. From the severity of his wounds and from the harsh treatment he received, William Manuel died as he was being carried into the Edinburgh Tolbooth. From the same causes John Vallance died the day following. John Pollock was most cruelly treated, but in the midst of it was steadfast and cheerful, and was banished as a slave to the American Plantations with the marks of his torture still upon him.

* * *

From whom did the early American slaves wrested from Africa hear the gospel? No doubt from Puritans and Quakers. But such were not fellow slaves. The former lived more in their own settlements, and the latter to their ever­lasting credit would not hold slaves. Whosoever got to a Quaker settlement was at once a free man. To the West Indies, Barbados and South Carolina many Covenanters were sent as slaves. The accounts of their tragic hell-ships make painful reading. Hundreds of these godly men and women, shipped to be sold as slaves, perished in most terrible con­ditions through disease, and in fearful storms were drowned miserably battened under hatches. From those who reached the Plantations black slaves heard the gospel, and thus white-skinned slave and black rejoiced in one common Lord. In our young years we were rightly familiar with Long­fellow’s poem, beginning: Beside the ungathered rice he lay, His sickle in his hand, but it is possible that it was not always an African who so lay. Now and again it may have been one who in his last visions saw not himself as if ‘once more a king he strode’, but one who was back once again in fellowship among the hunted ‘of one heart and one soul’. The Negro Spirituals always have a hearing. The words of worship there united with the moving melody are a living union. But such melodies, it seems, may be sought for in vain in the negroes’ own native land, Africa. Whence came they? Out of something wondrously new, the dark soul meeting with the Light of Life, Christ Jesus? Yes! And out of fellow­ship in his sufferings, and the fellowship of Christ Jesus in the slaves’ sufferings. Yes, no doubt of that. But there are seeming traces of time and melody in these lovely spirituals which are reminiscent of the music of the old metrical Psalm-singing. Who can say? At any rate, these banished men and women carried the message of redeeming love to their fellow-slaves of another race.

* * *

The other three prisoners were executed, David Hackston being shockingly murdered upon the scaffold, and John Malcolm, and Archibald Alison were hanged. Said John Malcolm, ‘Let His Cause be your cause in weal and woe.
O noble Cause! O noble Work! O noble Heaven! O noble Christ that makes it to be Heaven! And He is the owner of the Work! . . . I lay down my life, not as an evildoer, but as a sufferer for Jesus Christ.’ Said Archibald Alison, ‘What think ye of Heaven and Glory that is at the back of the Cross? The hope of this makes me look upon pale death as a lovely messenger to me. I bless the Lord for my lot this day . . . Friends, give our Lord credit; He is aye good, but O! He is good in a day of trial, and He will be sweet company through the ages of Eternity.’ Of those who escaped from Ayrsmoss, ‘some wept that they died not that day, but,’ says Patrick Walker, ‘those eight who died on the spot with him went ripe and longing for that day and death.’ The dragoons dug a pit and tumbled the dead into it, after they had cut off the head and hands of Richard Cameron, and the head of John Fowler in mistake for that of Michael Cameron. These were put into a sack to take to the blood-thirsty Council in Edinburgh. In passing through Lanark, the dragoons asked Elizabeth Hope if she would like to buy some calves’ heads, and shaking the martyrs’ heads out of the bag, they ‘kicked them up and down the house like footballs’, so that the woman fainted.

On reaching Edinburgh, the dragoons put the heads upon halberts with the cry, ‘there are the heads of traitors, rebels!’ One who was there said that he ‘saw them take Mr Cameron’s head out of the sack; he knew it, being formerly his hearer—a man of fair complexion with his own hair, and his face very little altered, and they put a halbert in his blessed mouth out of which had proceeded many gracious words.’ Robert Murray, as he delivered them to the Council, said, ‘These are the head and hands that lived praying and preaching, and died praying and fighting.’ And those ghouls of gore paid over the price of the blood of one who died at about the age of his Master.
Before the hangman set head and hands on the blood­stained Netherbow Port, the fingers pointing grimly upwards on either side of the head, a hero saint lying in prison was shown them. He was Alan Cameron, Covenanter. The cruel question was asked him. ‘Do you know them?’ ‘His son’s head and hands which were very fair, being a man of fair com­plexion like himself.’ He kissed them saying, ‘I know them, I know them. They are my son’s, my own dear son’s. It is the Lord. Good is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me nor mine, but has made goodness and mercy to follow us all our days.’ A prisoner, head of a broken home, the father of martyred sons and daughter! It is the answer of the more-than-conqueror, the sufferer in Christ, full of faith and of the Holy Ghost; and having the heart full of the power and music of the Good Shepherd Psalm:

Goodness and mercy all my life
 Shall surely follow me;
And in God’s house for evermore
 My dwelling place shall be.

Featured Image: Alexander Peden at the grave of Richard Cameron, from Anderson’s Bass Rock. (Public Domain).

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