Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? So say the Latins. Shepherds may keep the sheep; but who shall pastorize the shepherds? A question of the weightiest import, both for the flocks and the pastors … Of vital importance is this enquiry religiously. What is to become of any body of Christians whose ministers are not loyal to their Lord and to his gospel? When a church has over it a man of whom it can be justly said that he shows no sign of ever having been converted, what spirituality can be expected to survive? When another preacher has one creed for the pulpit, and another for the private fraternal meeting, how can truth and honesty flourish in the community? When a third changes with the moon, and is not quite sure of anything, how can his hearers be established in the faith? We are not imagining cases; there are too many who answer the description. Evil in the pulpit is poison in the fountain. In this case we find death in the great pot out of which all the guests are to be fed.

But who shall keep the keepers? There is the great difficulty. This is a task beyond the power of the church and its most valiant champions. We might do well to watch the schools of the prophets, that more of deep devotion and fervent piety should be nurtured there. We might do no more than our duty if we were more jealously watchful over every election of ministers in which we take part, so that none were ordained but those sound in the faith, and filled with the Spirit. Even for these things, who is sufficient? But if these were done to perfection, the plague might still break out among the teachers: their heads might be dazed with error, or their hearts grow chill with worldliness. We are thrown back upon him that keepeth Israel. It is well that it should be so. That which develops dependence upon God works for good.

All plans, however wise in themselves, and however effective they would be if we had to deal with honesty and truth, are baffled by the moral obliquity which is part of the evil. The men are not to be bound by creeds: they confess that such things are useless to them. Their moral sense is deadened by the error they have imbibed. They have become shepherds that they might poison the flock, and keepers of the vineyard that they might spoil the vines: if this was not their first motive, their course of action distinctly suggests it. There is no reaching them: they are bewitched and benumbed. Neither from within nor from without are healthy influences likely to operate upon them; we must carry the case to the great head of the church, and leave it in his hands. When he ascended on high he received gifts for men; and these gifts were men of differing offices, for the perfecting of his people. We have need that he should anew send us such men. Maybe we have forgotten to look to the ascended Lord. Maybe we have been gazing about us to find the men without looking first to Him from whom they must come. Our Lord can speedily raise us up a new race of apostolic preachers from amid our youth, or he can convert those who are now the devourers of the churches. In the Reformation, many of the ablest leaders were called from among the priests and the monks; and today the Lord may breathe the life of faith into those who lie buried in sceptical philosophies. With him all things are possible. When we are at the end of our power and knowledge, we are on the confines of his omnipotence and omniscience. Let us bow our heads as we pass the frontier, and leave behind our own barren impotence to rejoice in his fruitful strength. Our confidence in the church of God lies not in her natural power, but in the fact that ‘God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved.’

Those who lament the declension of many among the present professed ministry should cry day and night unto the Lord to bless his people with pastors after his own heart. Let them also see to it that they walk wisely towards those they have. It behoves established believers to bear their testimony faithfully, but kindly, to young divines who are beginning to step aside; for it may be that a gentle word may save them. In grosser cases, firmness may be needful as to the matter of quitting an unfaithful, Christless ministry; or as to the removal of the false teacher.

In the happy instances in which the gospel is held and fully preached, the faithful should encourage, sustain, and help with all their hearts. Those who are faithful to the truth of God, should find us faithful to them. God will have his gifts valued, and his servants well treated. He has among his chosen ministers those who feel tears of gratitude welling up in their eyes when they think of the kindness of their churches; but there are other worthy men who are buffeted and battered, left without a decent maintenance, and never appreciated as they ought to be. For these the Lord himself will plead with his people, if there be not speedy improvement. Let not true shepherds be forgotten by the flocks to which they minister, nor by any of the faithful, lest their Master should be provoked to recall the gift which is not valued. Now, if never before, our eyes should be upon all the faithful of the land, to hold up their hands. No one must hold himself aloof lest that bitter curse should fall upon him which was of old pronounced on Meroz and the inhabitants thereof, because they came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty.

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He was a wise man who said, ‘The roundest peg seldom fits into the roundest hole without some paring.’ There is no position in life which, at the first, has not something irksome and trying about it. Newcomers cannot expect to feel at home at once. We remember our first wretched night at a school where we afterwards became supremely happy. Well do we recollect the misery of the first few months of a calling which we afterwards valued and enjoyed. Our mind was sorely depressed on first coming into that sphere in London, which has since been the delight of our life. Let no man, therefore, when he at first commences work in any place, feel at all discouraged by the uneasiness which may come over him. It is natural that he should feel strange in a new position. The burden is not yet adapted to the shoulder, and the shoulder is not yet hardened to the load. While feeling the irksomeness of a fresh position, do not be so foolish as to throw it up. Wait a little while, and time will work wonders. You will yet take pleasure in the very things which are now the source of discomfort. The very worst thing will be to hasten away and make a change, for the change will only bring trial in a fresh form, and you will endure afresh the evils which you have already almost mastered. The time which you have already spent at your new place will be lost, and the same weary first steps will have to be taken upon another ladder. Besides, you may readily leap out of the frying pan into the fire. Change has charms to some men, but among its roses they find abundant thorns.

Has the minister just entered upon a fresh sphere, and does he miss the affectionate warmth of his old acquaintances? Does he find his new people strange and singular? Do they appear cold and distant? Let him persevere, and all this will wear off, and he will come to love the very people to whom he now feels an aversion, and find his best helpers among those who now seem to be utterly indifferent to him. The call of Providence has brought him where he is, and he must not venture to leave because of inconveniences: often it will be his wisdom to regard these as a part of the tokens that he is in the right way, for the appointed path is seldom easy to the feet.

Has our young friend commenced teaching a class in the Sunday-school, and does she find it far less pleasant work than she imagined? Are the children wild and careless and inattentive, and does her own power of teaching appear to be smaller than she hoped? Let her give double application to her holy toil, and she will come to love it. Should she leave it, she may incur the blame of those who put their hands to the plough and look back. The ice has been already broken; the edge has been taken off from the difficulty; let her persevere, and all will be well.

There is no position in this world without its disadvantages. We may be perpetually on the move to our continual disquiet, and each move may bring us under the same, or even greater, disadvantages. We remember a Scotch story of an unlucky family who attributed all their misfortunes to their house being haunted by mischievous spirits, known to our northern countrymen as ‘brownies.’ These superstitious individuals became at length desperate; nothing prospered in house or field, they would therefore pack up all and begone from a spot so mysteriously infested. All the household goods were loaded up, and the husband and the ‘gude wife’ and the bairns were all flitting, when one of them cried out, ‘Brownie is in the churn. Brownie is flitting, too.’ Just so, the matters which hinder a man’s success are generally in himself, and will move with him; and wherein it is not so, he may yet be sure that if by change of place he avoids one set of brownies, he will find another awaiting him. There is bran in all meal, and there are dregs in all wine. All roads must at times be rough, and all seas must be tossed with tempest. To fly from trouble will need long wings, and to escape discomfort will require more than a magician’s skill.

It is wiser to ‘bear the ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of.’ It is probable that our present condition is the best possible for us; no other form of trial would be preferable. What right have we to suspect the wisdom and the goodness of God in placing us where we are? It will be far more prudent to mistrust our own judgment when it leads us to murmuring and discontent. Occasionally, it may be prudent to remove, or to change one’s form of Christian service; but this must be done thoughtfully, prayerfully, and with a supreme regard to the glory of God, rather than out of respect to our own feelings. A tree that is often transplanted will make but little growth, and bear but slender fruit. A man who is ‘everything by turns, and nothing long,’ will be a sort of ‘Jack of all trades, and master of none.’ An increase of spiritual strength by greater communion with God, and a more resolute determination to glorify him in every possible way, will usually conquer difficulties and win success. An extremely hard substance in the world may be cut by something harder: even the adamant can be forced to yield. Double force will make that easy, which now seems impossible. Do not, therefore, change the work, but change yourself. Attempt no other alteration till a distinct improvement in your own self has resolutely been carried out.

We speak thus because we believe that many are discouraged at the outset of a career which, if they could see its end, would fill them with thankfulness; and Satan raises these discouragements to tempt them to leave a position in which they may damage his kingdom and glorify Christ. Courage, dear friend, you have a great Helper; look to the strong for strength. Say with Nehemiah, ‘Should such a man as I flee?’ Who are you that everything should be made smooth for your feet? Are you such a little babe in grace that only the slightest tasks should be allotted to you? Be a man, and play the man. Resolve that even at this present, and where you now are, you will set up the standard, and hold the fort. Many are the instances in which men have commenced their life-work under every possible disadvantage, and for months, and even years, they have seemed to make no headway whatsoever, and yet they have ultimately triumphed, and have come to bless the providence which called them into a place so well adapted for their gifts. It would have been their worst calamity if, under a fit of despondency, they had changed their station or relinquished their vocation. The church would have been the poorer, the world would have been the darker, and themselves the feebler, if they had shifted at the first even to the most promising spheres which tempted them. That rock on which they stood, and mourned the hardness of the soil, was more full of the elements of fruitfulness than the softer soil at a little distance, which invited them to leave. Tarrying where they were, exercising indomitable perseverance, they have softened the granite, cultured it into fertility, and reaped a golden harvest. He is the greatest man who achieves success where stronger men might have failed. If we desire to glorify God, we must not select the comfortable positions and the hopeful fields; it is best to make no selection, but to yield our own will to the will of God altogether. The hole is round enough, it will be difficult to make it any rounder; the proper plan is to round ourselves. If we will but adapt ourselves to our position, the position will adapt itself to us.

It may be that these lines will furnish counsel to a brother whose choice now lies between being a rolling stone and a pillar in the house of our God. To turn tail under present pressure may be the beginning of a cowardly career, neither honourable to God nor to man: to stand fast at this distressing juncture may be the commencement of an established position of supreme usefulness and honour.

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And in his law doth he meditate day and night.—Psa. 1:2.

Having led you through the Chamber of Delight, I will now bring you into the Withdrawing Room of Meditation. ‘In his law doth he meditate day and night.’

CHAPTER 1

The Opening of the Words, and the Proposition Asserted.

Grace breeds delight in God, and delight breeds meditation. A duty wherein consists the essentials of religion, and which nourisheth the very life-blood of it; and that the psalmist may show how much the godly man is habituated and inured to this blessed work of meditation, he subjoins, ‘In his law doth he meditate day and night’; not but that there may be sometimes intermission: God allows time for our calling, he grants some relaxation; but when it is said, the godly man meditates day and night, the meaning is, frequently: he is much conversant in the duty. It is a command of God to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). The meaning is, not that we should be always praying, as the Eutyches held, but that we should every day set some time apart for prayer: so Drusius and others interpret it. We read in the old law it was called the continual sacrifice (Num. 28:24), not that the people of Israel did nothing else but sacrifice, but because they had their stated hours, every morning and evening they offered, therefore it was called the continual sacrifice: thus the godly man is said to meditate day and night, that is, he is often at this work, he is no stranger to meditation.

DOCTRINE: The proposition that results out of the text is this, That a good Christian is a meditating Christian, ‘I will meditate in thy precepts’ (Psa. 119:15). ‘Meditate upon these things’ (1 Tim. 4:15). Meditation is the chewing upon the truths we have heard: the beasts in the old law that did not chew the cud were unclean: the Christian that doth not by meditation chew the cud, is to be accounted unclean. Meditation is like the watering of the seed, it makes the fruits of grace to flourish.

For the illustration of the point, there are several things to be discussed. First, I shall show you what meditation is. Second, That meditation is a duty. Third, The difference between meditation and memory. Fourth, The difference between meditation and study. Fifth, The subject of meditation. Sixth, The necessity of meditation.

CHAPTER 2

Showing the Nature of Meditation.

If it be inquired what meditation is, I answer, meditation is the soul’s retiring of itself, that by a serious and solemn thinking upon God, the heart may be raised up to heavenly affections. This description hath three branches.

1. Meditation is the soul’s retiring of itself; a Christian, when he goes to meditate, must lock up himself from the world. The world spoils meditation; ‘Christ went apart into the mount to pray’ (Matt. 14:23), so, go apart when you are to meditate; ‘Isaac went out to meditate in the field’ (Gen. 24:63), he sequestered and retired himself that he might take a walk with God by meditation. Zacchaeus had a mind to see Christ, and he got out of the crowd, ‘He ran before, and climbed up into a sycamore-tree to see him’ (Luke 19:3, 4): so, when we would see God, we must get out of the crowd of worldly business; we must climb up into the tree by retiredness of meditation, and there we shall have the best prospect of heaven. The world’s music will either play us asleep, or distract us in our meditations. When a mote is gotten into the eye, it hinders the sight; when worldly thoughts, as motes, are gotten into the mind, which is the eye of the soul, it cannot look up so steadfastly to heaven by contemplation. Therefore, as when Abraham went to sacrifice, ‘he left his servant and the ass at the bottom of the hill’ (Gen. 22:5), so, when a Christian is going up the hill of meditation, he should leave all secular cares at the bottom of the hill, that he may be alone, and take a turn in heaven. If the wings of the bird are full of slime, she cannot fly: meditation is the wing of the soul; when a Christian is beslimed with earth, he cannot fly to God upon this wing. St Bernard, when he came to the church door, used to say, ‘Stay here, all my worldly thoughts, that I may converse with God in the temple’: so say to thyself, ‘I am going now to meditate, O all ye vain thoughts stay behind, come not near.’ When thou art going up the mount of meditation, take heed the world doth not follow thee, and throw thee down from the top of this pinnacle. This is the first thing, the soul’s retiring of itself; lock and bolt the door against the world.

2. The second thing in meditation is a serious and solemn thinking upon God. The Hebrew word ‘to meditate,’ signifies with intenseness to recollect and gather together the thoughts: meditation is not a cursory work, to have a few transient thoughts of religion; like the dogs of Nile that lap and away; but there must be in meditation a fixing the heart upon the object, a steeping the thoughts; carnal Christians are like quicksilver which cannot be made to fix; their thoughts are roving up and down, and will not fix; like the bird that hops from one bough to another, and stays nowhere. David was a man fit to meditate, ‘O God, my heart is fixed’ (Psa. 108:1). In meditation there must be a staying of the thoughts upon the object; a man that rides post through a town or village, he minds nothing; but an artist or limner that is looking on a curious piece, views the whole draught and portraiture of it, he observes the symmetry and proportion, he minds every shadow and colour. A carnal, flitting Christian is like the traveller, his thoughts ride post, he minds nothing of God; a wise Christian is like the artist, he views with seriousness, and ponders the things of religion, ‘But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart’ (Luke 2:19).

3. The third thing in meditation is the raising of the heart to holy affections. A Christian enters into meditation, as a man enters into the bath, that he may be healed. Meditation heals the soul of its deadness and earthliness; but more of this after.

CHAPTER 3

Proving Meditation to be a Duty.

Meditation is a duty lying upon every Christian, and there is no disputing our duty. Meditation is a duty, 1. Imposed. 2. Opposed.

1. Meditation is a duty imposed; it is not arbitrary: the same God who hath bid us believe, hath bid us meditate: ‘This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night’ (Josh. 1:8). These words, though spoken to the person of Joshua, yet they concern everyone; as the promise made to Joshua concerned all believers (Josh. 1:5), compared with Hebrews 13:5. So this precept made to the person of Joshua, ‘Thou shalt meditate in this book of the law,’ takes in all Christians; it is the part of an hypocrite to enlarge the promise, and to strengthen the precept; ‘thou shalt meditate in this book of the law’; the word ‘thou’ is indefinite, and reacheth every Christian; as God’s word doth direct, so his will must enforce obedience.

2. Meditation is a duty opposed. We may conclude it is a good duty, because it is against the stream of corrupt nature; as he said, you may know that religion is right which Nero persecutes; so you may know that is a good duty which the heart opposeth. We shall find naturally a strange averseness from meditation. We are swift to hear, but slow to meditate. To think of the world, if it were all day long, is delightful; but as for holy meditation, how doth the heart wrangle and quarrel with this duty; it is doing of penance; now truly, there needs no other reason to prove a duty to be good, than the reluctancy of a carnal heart. To instance in the duty of self-denial, ‘Let a man deny himself’ (Matt. 16:24), self-denial is as necessary as heaven, but what disputes are raised in the heart against it? What! to deny my reason, and become a fool that I may be wise; nay, not only to deny my reason, but my righteousness? What, to cast it overboard, and swim to heaven upon the plank of Christ’s merits? This is such a duty that the heart doth naturally oppose, and enter its dissent against. This is an argument to prove the duty of self-denial good; just so it is with this duty of meditation; the secret antipathy the heart hath against it, shows it to be good; and this is reason enough to enforce meditation.

CHAPTER 4

Showing How Meditation Differs from Memory.

The memory (a glorious faculty), which Aristotle calls the soul’s scribe, sits and pens all things that are done. Whatsoever we read or hear, the memory doth register; therefore, God doth all his works of wonder that they may be had in remembrance. There seems to be some analogy and resemblance between meditation and memory. But I conceive there is a double difference.

1. The meditation of a thing hath more sweetness in it than the bare remembrance. The memory is the chest or cupboard to lock up a truth, meditation is the palate to feed on it; the memory is like the ark in which the manna was laid up, meditation is like Israel’s eating of manna. When David began to meditate on God, it was ‘sweet to him as marrow’ (Psa. 63:5, 6). There is as much difference between a truth remembered and a truth meditated on, as between a cordial in a glass, and a cordial drunk down.

2. The remembrance of a truth without the serious meditation of it will but create matter of sorrow another day. What comfort can it be to a man when he comes to die, to think he remembered many excellent notions about Christ, but never had the grace so to meditate on them, as to be transformed into them? A sermon remembered, but not ruminated, will only serve to increase our condemnation.

CHAPTER 5

Showing, How Meditation Differs from Study.

The student’s life looks like meditation, but doth vary from it. Meditation and study differ three ways.

1. They differ in their nature. Study is a work of the brain, meditation of the heart; study sets the invention on work, meditation sets the affection on work.

2. They differ in their design. The design of study is notion, the design of meditation is piety: the design of study is the finding out of a truth, the design of meditation is the spiritual improvement of a truth; the one searcheth for the vein of gold, the other digs out the gold.

3. They differ in the issue and result. Study leaves a man never a whit the better; it is like a winter sun that hath little warmth and influence: meditation leaves one in a holy frame: it melts the heart when it is frozen, and makes it drop into tears of love.

CHAPTER 6

Showing the Subjects of Meditation.

The fourth particular to be discussed is the subject matter of meditation; what a Christian should meditate upon. I am now gotten into a large field, but I shall only glance at things; I shall but do as the disciples, pluck some ears of corn as I pass along.

Some may say, ‘Alas, I am so barren I know not what to meditate upon.’ To help Christians therefore in this blessed work, I shall show you some choice select matter for meditation. There are fifteen things in the law of God which we should principally meditate upon…

The Works of Thomas Watson

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I take pleasure in saying that in no class of society anywhere have I found examples of more pure and elevated piety than among the ladies of Virginia. And I have reason to believe that these examples have rather been increased than diminished since I left my native State. It may, in an important sense, be said that the Commonwealth has been preserved from utter destruction by the prudence, purity and piety of Virginian mothers. They have been the salt which has arrested the progress of moral corruption in the mass of society. Accordingly there is no country in the world, perhaps, where mothers are so much respected by their children, and have so great an influence over them. Ask almost any young Virginian where he will look for the brightest examples of moral excellence, and his thoughts will turn at once to the character of pious females, and perhaps to his own mother, if she happens to be pious. I recollect a young gentleman, who, although he had an uncommonly pious mother, broke over all the restraints of his education, and became a professed infidel and the advocate of licentiousness in its vilest forms; but a gracious God heard the unceasing prayers of his mother, and by means somewhat unusual he was converted from the error of his ways. In speaking of his former career – which he evidently did with shame and humility – he said,

‘I could get over all arguments in defence of religion but one, and that I never could obviate, which was the pious example and conversation of my mother. When I had fortified myself against the truth by the aid of Bolingbroke, Hume, and Voltaire, yet, whenever I thought of my mother, I had the secret conviction which nothing could remove, that there was a reality in religion.’

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In a letter from Henry Bullinger, the eminent divine of Zurich, addressed to Calvin on the 26th of March 1554, he says, “I have enclosed in this letter the Answer I made to the Scotsman whom you commended to me. You will return it to me when you have an opportunity:” (Quid Scoto isti a te nobis commendato responderimus, hisce inclusi. Remittes, cum per opportunitatem licuerit.)¹

The following translation of these Questions and Answers is that given in the publication by the Parker Society, of the very interesting and valuable series of Original Letters relative to the English Reformation, chiefly from the Archives of Zurich, translated and edited by the Rev. Hastings Robinson, D.D., in 1847. The learned Editor, in a footnote, says that “Simler conjectures either Knox or Goodman to be the Scotsman here referred to.” He adds, “It was probably the latter,” judging from the mention made by Goodman, in a subsequent letter, of his having submitted certain Propositions to Calvin and Peter Martyr.

There can, however, be no doubt that Knox was the individual alluded to; for it is ascertained that he visited Geneva in that month of March, and obtained from Calvin a letter of introduction to Bullinger. Christopher Goodman, who afterwards became Knox’s colleague at Geneva, was an Englishman, and his letter, to which Dr Robinson alludes, was not written till August 1558, or four years subsequent to Bullinger’s communication. This paper is the more interesting, as it exhibits the Questions respecting which Knox was desirous of obtaining the sentiments of the more eminent Swiss Divines. “I have travellit (he writes. on the 10th of May)² through all the congregations of Helvetia [Ed., Switzerland], and hes reasonit with all the Pastouris, and many other excellentlie learnit men, upon sic matteris as now I canot commit to wrytting: gladlie I wold be toung or be pen utter the same to Godis glorie.”

AN ANSWER GIVEN TO A CERTAIN SCOTSMAN, IN REPLY TO SOME QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND.

1. Whether the Son of a King, upon his father’s death, though unable by reason of his tender age to conduct the government of the kingdom, is nevertheless by right of inheritance to be regarded as a lawful magistrate, and as such to be obeyed as of divine right?

That person is, in my opinion, to be esteemed as a lawful King, who is ordained according to the just laws of the country. And thus it is clear that Edward VI. of happy memory was ordained. For his Father on his death-bed appointed him King, and so claimed for him the right of sovereignty, which they say is hereditary. The States of the kingdom acknowledged him, as they testified by his coronation. They provided him with councillors, endued as he was with great gifts of God; nor was any thing wanting to that kingdom, which is wont to be looked for in the most prosperous kingdom elsewhere. He was therefore a lawful Sovereign, and his laws and ordinances demanded obedience; and he ruled the kingdom after a more godly manner than the three most wise and prosperous kings of that country who immediately preceded him.

2. Whether a Female can preside over, and rule a kingdom by divine right, and so transfer the right of sovereignty to her Husband?

The law of God ordains the woman to be in subjection, and not to rule; which is clear from the writings of both the Old and the New Testament. But if a woman in compliance with, or in obedience to the laws and customs of the realm, is acknowledged as Queen, and, in maintenance of the hereditary right of government, is married to a Husband, or in the meantime holds the reins of government by means of her councillors, it is a hazardous thing for godly persons to set themselves in opposition to political regulations; especially as the gospel does not seem to unsettle or abrogate hereditary rights, and the political laws of kingdoms; nor do we read that Philip the eunuch, by right of the gospel, drove out Candace from the kingdom of Ethiopia. And if the reigning Sovereign be not a Deborah, but an ungodly and tyrannous ruler of the kingdom, godly persons have an example and consolation in the case of Athaliah. The Lord will in his own time destroy unjust governments by his own people, to whom he will supply proper qualifications for this purpose, as he formerly did to Jerubbaal [Gideon], and the Maccabees, and Jehoiada. With respect, however, to her right of transferring the power of government to her Husband, those persons who are acquainted with the laws and customs of the realm can furnish the proper answer.

3. Whether obedience is to be rendered to a Magistrate who enforces idolatry and condemns true religion; and whether those authorities, who are still in military occupation of towns and fortresses, are permitted to repel this ungodly violence from themselves and their friends.

The history of Daniel, and the express command of God, Matt. x., and the examples of the apostles in Acts iv. and v., as also that of many of the martyrs in ecclesiastical history, teach us that we must not obey the king or magistrate when their commands are opposed to God and his lawful worship; but rather that we should expose our persons, and lives, and fortunes to danger. This power is the power of darkness, as the Lord saith in the gospel. And Eusebius records, in the ninth book and eighth chapter of his Ecclesiastical History, that the Armenians took arms against their lawful sovereigns, the Roman emperors, who desired to force them to idolatry. And this conduct of theirs is not reproved. Those very Armenians, many years after, by reason of the ungodliness of the kings of Persia, slew their ungodly commanders, and revolted to the Emperor Justin, as is recorded by Evagrius. (Eccl. Hist. v. 8.) For the Holy Scripture not only permits, but even enjoins upon the magistrate a just and necessary defence.

But as other objects are often aimed at under the pretext of a just and necessary assertion or maintenance of right, and the worst characters mix themselves with the good, and the times too are full of danger; it is very difficult to pronounce upon every particular case. For an accurate knowledge of the circumstances is here of great importance; and as I do not possess such knowledge, it would be very foolish in me to recommend or determine any thing specific upon the subject. For even Paul, we read, made use of the Roman soldiery against those who plotted against him, and was right in doing so: yet at another time, though under almost the same or similar circumstances, he is recorded to have used only the arms of patience, and none else. There is need, therefore, in cases of this kind, of much prayer, and much wisdom, lest by precipitancy and corrupt affections we should so act as to occasion mischief to many worthy persons. Meanwhile, however, death itself is far preferable to the admission of idolatry.

4. To which party must Godly persons attach themselves, in the case of a religious Nobility resisting an idolatrous Sovereign?

I leave this to be decided by the judgment of godly persons, who are well acquainted with all the circumstances, who look up in all things to the Word of God, who attempt nothing contrary to the laws of God, who obey the impulses of the Holy Ghost, and who are guided by circumstances of place, time, opportunity, persons, and things, without making any rash attempt, and who can therefore be directed more safely by their own sense of duty than by the consciences of others. But I would advise them, above all things, that those causes may be removed, on account of which hypocrites are predominant; iniquities, I mean, that we may become reconciled to God by a true repentance, and implore his counsel and assistance. He is the only and the true deliverer; and, as we read in the books of Judges and Kings, and the Ecclesiastical histories, has never been wanting to his Church. Let us lift up our eyes to Him, waiting for his deliverance, abstaining in the meantime from all superstition and idolatry, and doing what he reveals to us in his Word.

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In the small cemetery of Union Theological Seminary, beside a narrow road in the heart of rural Virginia, the earthly remains of Thomas Ephraim Peck were buried in the first week of October 1893. Two years later the first of these three volumes of his collected writings was published, and the set was complete by 1897. Since then the world has moved on, just as Union Seminary itself has moved to Richmond, the state capitol of Virginia, and, except for a few, Peck’s writings are as little known as that quiet country grave at Hampden-Sydney. In part the explanation lies in their rarity, for the original print run was probably not large and until the present there has been no reprint. A more fundamental reason, however, lies in the fact that even by the time of his death the convictions which he represented were losing ground both among the Southern Presbyterians to which he belonged and among evangelicals more generally. To read Peck today is to realise how much has changed and to conclude that either he or many contemporary spokesmen for Christianity are far astray from Scripture.

Born in 1822, Peck was brought up by his widowed mother in Columbia, South Carolina, where he graduated at the College of that state at the age of eighteen. It was here, also, that he came under the saving power of the gospel through James Henley Thornwell and by the latter he was prepared for the work of the Christian ministry. Such was Thornwell’s esteem for his pupil that, when he was delayed in taking up the pastorate of the important Second Church of Baltimore, he sent Peck, who was not yet twenty-four years old, to fill its pulpit in the meantime. Unexpectedly Thornwell was not released from Columbia and the Baltimore congregation were happy to appoint his deputy to the charge in 1846. One of the finest of Thornwell’s surviving letters was one of encouragement written to ‘My Dear Thomas’ at Baltimore in 1848: ‘I have never entertained a doubt that you were the Lord’s instrument, to accomplish the Lord’s work, in the sphere of your labours … Effective sermons are the offspring of study, of discipline, of prayer, and especially of the unction of the Holy Ghost.’ But Peck was evidently finding that his attainments in preaching fell far short of his desires and Thornwell, often regarded as the preacher par excellence, consoled him with these words, ‘My own performances in this way fill me with disgust. I have never made, much less preached, a SERMON in my life; and I am beginning to despair of ever being able to do it.’¹

In a fuller biographical account which the reader will find in the third volume of this set, C. R. Vaughan speaks of Peck’s years in the Second Church of Baltimore as years of slow progress and of difficulty. No doubt this was preparatory to his future greater usefulness. Few men have safely attained to spiritual leadership without a preparatory period of humbling. During this period he edited with his friend, Dr Stuart Robinson, the Presbyterian Critic and Monthly Review (1855-56).² For a longer period in later years he was to be an associate editor of the Southern Presbyterian Review.

In 1857, when Peck was expecting to move to Lynchburg, Virginia, the Baltimore Presbytery directed him to remain but to remove to the charge of the large Central Church left vacant by the departure of Stuart Robinson. Thus, as Vaughan says, ‘Peck, suppressing his personal preferences, assumed the care of a large and important field in the same city in which he had spent twelve years of discouraging work.’

Leaving Baltimore in 1860, Peck took up the great work of his life at Union Theological Seminary. This Seminary, the first in the South, had arisen as a department of the College of Hampden-Sydney in 1823-24. Soon the two became separate institutions and the Seminary gained its own buildings in the same location with John Holt Rice as its first president.³ The death of Rice in 1831 slowed the growth of the work but it increased again notably after the appointment in 1853 of Robert Lewis Dabney as professor of Church History and Government. The next year Benjamin M. Smith was elected professor of Oriental Literature. By 1860, when student numbers stood at thirty-nine, it was thought desirable to transfer Dabney to the chair of Theology, leaving Peck to take the chair of Church History. After the devastation of the Civil War, from which several of the students never returned,⁴ this same division of duties between Peck and Dabney continued until the latter’s removal to Texas in 1883. Thereafter, Peck succeeded Dabney as professor of Theology, and continued in that post through the last ten years of his life until his death at the age of seventy-three. Dabney outlived him and it is indicative of the abiding affection which existed between the men who taught at Union that he directed that on his death his body was to be taken back to Hampden-Sydney. ‘He loved the homely little cemetery,’ his biographer writes, which contained the dust of friends and of three children.⁵

In speaking of ‘the great men of the past,’ Ernest Trice Thompson, in his monumental history of the Presbyterians of the South, lists them at one point in this order: ‘Thornwell, Dabney, Palmer, Peck . . .’⁶ In the last thirty years the memory of the first three has begun to be revived with the republication of their works and biographies.⁷ It is fitting that these volumes of Peck should also appear. C. R. Vaughan, his successor at Union, said of him: ‘As an expositor of truth, as an exegete of Scripture, as a philosophic student of history, he was probably without a rival in his day.’⁸ Peck’s mother survived him, and to her Palmer wrote of her son:

He was so strong in his convictions, so unswerving in fidelity to truth, so powerful in his humility before God to prevail in prayer, so wise and considerate in counsel, that he always seemed a strong staff on which to lean in time of trouble and of peril to the Church. On these public grounds I always admired and loved him; while a closer personal affection for him grew out of the intercourse of the years long since gone by.⁹

In a chapter entitled ‘Some Presbyterian Leaders of Our Own Time’, Henry Alexander White wrote: ‘First among these let us name a beloved instructor, that godly teaching elder, Thomas E . Peck.’¹⁰ Despite such tributes it was only with difficulty that T. C. Johnson brought together anything that began to approach the worth of the man in these volumes. This is reflected in the original title given to this set, Miscellanies of Thomas E. Peck. It was a fitting description, for the volumes do not contain ‘works’ prepared by the author for publication. Many items included were indeed written for the press and gathered by Johnson from various journals, but they were not composed with any sequence in view. Other material is from surviving manuscripts of his speeches or (in volume 3) from ‘notes’ used in the seminary class or in the pulpit.¹¹ C. R. Vaughan observed the difficulty in the sketch of Peck’s life which originally appeared before this set was published: ‘It was a fault with him, as it is with other gifted men, that he published so little.’

Bearing this in mind the present publishers considered a reprint of only parts of these three volumes. We decided against that course for the very good reason that, while there is undoubtedly an unevenness in some of the material, striking and suggestive insights turn up repeatedly in sections where they might least be expected. All in all, readers will prefer to make their own decision on what remains of abiding value.

In view of Peck’s identification with theology which is already more readily available in the writings of Thornwell and Dabney, it may also be queried whether Peck’s writings contain anything of distinctive importance which merit their republication. We believe that they do and that it would be a mistake to suppose that to have read one of these men is to have read them all. While representing a common ethos they thought too much of the need for independence in judgment not to be in occasional disagreement. Dr Thompson illustrates this by a subject keenly debated after the Civil War, namely, whether or not black congregations should be encouraged to meet separately and  independently of the white, contrary to previous practice. Dabney was for that proposal. Peck was against and asked:

Why . .. should the freedmen who cultivate our soil, serve us in our houses, cook our food and nurse our children be put into a church by themselves? … If the freedmen should, all of them, become Presbyterian in faith and order we ought to welcome them all into our pale. This distinction of race, be it remembered, has been expressly abolished by Christ.¹²

One of Peck’s arguments against the separation proposed brings out a prominent aspect in his thinking. He pointed out that the black population constituted ‘above all others’ the poor of the land and asked, ‘Are we prepared to say that these poor shall be excluded from our pale?’ This was driven home with the assertion, ‘I have no doubt that one great cause of the little progress made by the Presbyterian Church in Virginia is its neglect of the poor, both white and black.’ In harmony with this view are two sermons in this volume and his address on ‘Systematic Beneficence’ which led to the Presbytery of Baltimore reminding its congregations that giving is ‘an act of religious worship . .. an ordinance of God as much as prayer, or preaching or singing.’¹³ In part out of the same concern Peck was a leader in the endeavour to have the office of the deacon restored to its full and proper function in the Presbyterian churches where too often ‘it remained comparatively unimportant.’¹⁴

It was on debate on the same subject on another occasion that we get a glimpse of what Vaughan calls Peck’s ‘keen sense of humor’. In a General Assembly debate in 1868 a committee chaired by Peck put forward the recommendation that the use of a hat in taking up the collection in Sunday services should be discontinued. A minister from North Carolina expressed strong opposition to such a departure from custom and, holding up his own hat (a fine glossy beaver) demanded, ‘The people are accustomed to the use of the hat. It is endeared to them by familiarity and habit. What would you substitute in place of it?’ ‘I would remind our brother,’ Peck responded, ‘that it is not always such a hat as he held up to view that is carried around in raising a collection. Sometimes it is an old, greasy slouch.’¹⁵

Given such a stand-point it might be thought that Peck would have supported the popular practice of teaching that Christians should all tithe. But Scripture, he believed, did not support that conclusion, and his treatment in this volume of ‘The Moral Obligation of the Tithe’ is a good example of an important argument which is not readily to be found elsewhere. Another example of his ability to take up subjects not to be found in the works of his better-known colleagues has to do with revival. The whole Old-School of men to which he belonged believed in outpourings of the Spirit at special epochs in history. One such revival, affecting wide areas, had occurred in Hampden-Sydney itself in 1787. But too often the belief was assumed rather than clearly set out as Peck does on ‘Revivals of Religion’ in this volume.

Some parts of these volumes will be seen only as expressing the opinions of a past age and the denominational loyalties of the author. No doubt there are instances where that is true, yet part of the value of these volumes is the pervasive scriptural seriousness which forces the reader to question whether it is we who may be adrift from the truth. As an instructor Peck certainly wanted nothing more than to have his pupils bring all to the test of Scripture. No one left Union Seminary in his day without being impressed with the conviction that all success and popularity gained without the sanction of the word of Christ can ultimately only bring disaster.

Many of the subjects in these pages remain critically relevant to the church at the present time. They include such issues as those of worship, of church and state, of the moral law and of Roman Catholicism. Unlike too many of the professors of the present day, Peck does not write as an academic. He would have agreed entirely with the words of John Milne, a Scottish contemporary, who wrote, ‘The Church’s danger ever has been to substitute a ministry of the intellect for a ministry of the Spirit: to confide in the human instead of the superhuman.’¹⁶

Peck’s writings pass on to us the same message which Thornwell wrote to him as a young minister in 1848, ‘Have faith in God; aim singly at His glory.’ A little anecdote which Vaughan gives us suggests that Peck kept that aim before him. When the Civil War had convulsed the nation in calamities, a Virginian in another part of the state met someone from the neighbourhood of the seminary and asked for news. The reply he got was long remembered: ‘Well,’ answered the person from Hampden-Sydney, ‘Dr Dabney is fighting the Yankees, Dr Smith is hunting for provisions, and Dr Peck is trusting in God.’ Whether we agree with Peck in all things or not, a Christian can hardly rise from his writings without wishing for more of that same spirit, to be kept in the same steadfastness to the end.

IAIN H. MURRAY
3 Murrayfield Road
Edinburgh
October 1998

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This violence concerns men as Christians. Though heaven be given us freely, yet we must contend for it. ‘What thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might’ (Eccles. 9:10). Our work is great, our time short, our master urgent; we have need therefore to summon together all the powers of our souls, and strive as in a matter of life and death, that we may arrive at the kingdom above: we must not only put forth diligence, but violence. For the illustrating and clearing the proposition, I shall show,

1. What violence is not meant here:

This violence in the text excludes:

(1) An ignorant violence; to be violent for that which we do not understand. ‘As I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, to the unknown God’ (Acts 17:23). These Athenians were violent in their devotion; but it might be said to them, as Christ said to the woman of Samaria, ‘Ye worship ye know not what’ (John 4:22). Thus the Catholics are violent in their religion: witness their penance, fasting, dilacerating themselves till the blood comes, but it is a zeal without knowledge: their mettle is better than their eyesight. When Aaron was to burn the incense upon the altar, he was first to light the lamps (Exod. 25:7). When zeal like incense burns, first the lamp of knowledge must be lighted.

(2) It excludes a bloody violence, which is twofold:

First, when one goes to lay violent hands upon himself. The body is an earthly prison where God hath put the soul; we must not break prison, but stay till God by death lets us out. The sentinel is not to stir without leave from his captain, nor must we dare to stir hence without God’s leave. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 6:19); when we offer violence to them, we destroy God’s temple. The lamp of life must burn so long as any natural moisture is left like oil to feed it.

Secondly, when one takes away the life of another. There’s too much of this violence nowadays. No sin hath a louder voice than blood: ‘The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground’ (Gen. 4:10). If there is a curse for him that ‘smites his neighbour secretly’ (Deut. 27:24), then he is double cursed that kills him. If a man had slain another unawares, he might take sanctuary and fly to the altar. But if he had done it willingly, the holiness of the place was not to protect him. ‘If a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour to slay him with guile, thou shalt take him from mine altar that he may die’ (Exod. 21:14). Joab being a man of blood, King Solomon sought to slay him, though he caught hold of the horns of the altar (1 Kings 2:28, 29). In Bohemia formerly, the murderer was to be beheaded and put in the same coffin with him whom he killed. Thus we see what violence the text excludes.

2. What violence is meant here;

It is a holy violence. This is twofold.

(1) We must be violent for the truth. Here Pilate’s question will be moved, ‘What is truth?’ Truth is either the blessed word of God, which is called the ‘word of truth,’ or those doctrinals which are deduced from the word and agree with it, as the dial with the sun or the transcript with the original – such as the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of the creation, the doctrine of free grace, justification by the blood of Christ, regeneration, resurrection of the dead, and the life of glory. These truths we must be violent for, which is either by being advocates for them or martyrs.

Truth is the most glorious thing; the least filing of this gold is precious. What shall we be violent for, if not for truth? Truth is ancient, its grey hairs may make it venerable. It comes from him who is the Ancient of Days. Truth is unerring, it is the star which leads to Christ. Truth is pure (Psa. 119:140), it is compared to ‘silver refined seven times’ (Psa. 12:6). There is not the least spot on truth’s face; it breathes nothing but sanctity. Truth is triumphant: it is like a great conqueror; when all its enemies lie dead, it keeps the field, and sets up its trophies of victory. Truth may be opposed, but never quite deposed. In the time of Diocletian, things seemed desperate, truth ran low; soon after was the golden time of Constantine, and then truth did again lift up its head. When the water in the Thames is lowest, a high tide is ready to come in. God is on truth’s side, and so long there is no fear but it will prevail. ‘The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved,’ but not that truth which came from heaven (2 Pet. 3:12; 1 Pet. 1:25).

Truth hath noble effects. Truth is the seed of the new birth. God doth not regenerate us by miracles, or revelations, but by ‘the word of truth’ (James 1:18). As truth is the breeder of grace, so the feeder of it (1 Tim. 4:6). Truth sanctifies: ‘Sanctify them by thy truth’ (John 17:17). Truth is the seal that leaves the print of its own holiness upon us. It is both speculum and lavacrum, a glass [mirror] to show us our blemishes, and a laver to wash them away. Truth ‘makes us free’ (John 8:32): it bears off the fetters of sin, and puts us into a state of sonship and ‘kingship’ (Rom. 8:14; Rev. 1:6). Truth is comforting: this wine cheers. When David’s harp and viol could yield him no comfort, truth did: ‘This is my comfort in my affliction, for thy word hath quickened me’ (Psa. 119:50).

Truth is an antidote against error. Error is the adultery of the mind: it stains the soul, as treason doth the blood. Error damns as well as vice. A man may as well die by poison as pistol. And what can stave off error but truth? The reason so many have been trappaned¹ into error is because they either did not know or did not love the truth. I can never say enough in the honour of truth. Truth is basis fidei, the ground of our faith; it gives us an exact model of religion; it shows us what we are to believe. Take away truth and our faith is fancy. Truth is the best flower in the church’s crown. We have not a richer jewel to trust God with than our souls, nor he a richer jewel to trust us with than his truths. Truth is insigne honoris, an ensign of honour. It distinguishes us from the false church, as chastity distinguisheth a virtuous woman from a harlot. In short, truth is ecclesiae praesidium, the bulwark of a nation: it is said the Levites (who were the antesignani, the ensign-bearers of truth) strengthened the kingdom (2 Chron. 11:17). Truth may be compared to the capitol of Rome, which was a place of the greatest strength; or the Tower of David, on which there hung a thousand shields (Song of Sol. 4:4). Our forts and navies do not so much strengthen us as truth. Truth is the best militia of a kingdom. If once we part with truth, and espouse popery, the lock is cut where our strength lies. What then should we be violent for, if not for truth? We are bid to contend as in an agony ‘for the faith delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3). If truth once be gone, we may write this epitaph on England’s tombstone: ‘Thy glory is departed.’

(2) This holy violence is when we are violent for our own salvation. ‘Give all diligence to make your calling and election sure’ (2 Pet. 1:10). The Greek word signifies anxious carefulness, or a serious bearing one’s thoughts about the business of eternity; such a care as sets head and heart at work. In this channel of religion all a Christian’s zeal should run.

3. The third thing is, what is implied in this holy violence?

It implies three things: (1) Resolution of will; (2) Vigour of affection; (3) Strength of endeavour.

(1) Resolution of the will. ‘I have sworn and will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments’ (Psa. 119:106). Whatever is in the way to heaven (though there be a lion in the way), I will encounter it. Like a resolute commander that chargeth through the whole body of the army. The Christian is resolved, come what may, he will have heaven. Where there is this resolution, danger must be despised, difficulties trampled upon, terrors contemned. This is the first thing in holy violence, resolution of will – I will have heaven whatever it costs me – and this resolution must be in the strength of Christ.

Resolution is like the bias to the bowl, which carries it strongly. Where there is but half a resolution, a will to be saved and a will to follow sin, it is impossible to be violent for heaven. If a traveller be unresolved, sometimes he will ride this way, sometimes that; he is violent for neither.

(2) Vigour of the affections. The will proceeds upon reason: the judgment being informed of the excellency of a state of glory, and the will being resolved upon a voyage to that holy land, now the affections follow, and they are on fire in passionate longings after heaven. The affections are violent things: ‘My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God’ (Psa. 42:2). The Rabbis note here that David saith not, My soul ‘hungereth,’ but ‘thirsteth,’ because naturally we are more impatient of thirst than hunger. See in what a rapid violent motion David’s affections were carried after God. The affections are like the wings of the bird, which make the soul swift in its flight after glory. Where the affections are stirred up, there is offering violence to heaven.

(3) This violence implies strength of endeavour, when we strive for salvation as about a matter of life and death. It is easy to talk of heaven, but not to get to heaven; we must operam navare, put forth all our strength; nay, call in the help of heaven to this work.

4. The fourth thing is, how many ways a Christian must offer violence?

Four ways: he must offer violence:

I. To Himself;
II. To Satan;
III. To the World;
IV. To Heaven.

This is a taster of Thomas Watson’s exposition in our new Puritan Paperback, Heaven Taken by Storm, or, The Christian Soldier. 

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But there is another matter that I must just touch on at this point, and that is, of course, the question of capital punishment. Here it is: ‘If thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.’ The ‘sword’! Here again is a very vexed question. What is the teaching? Well, from the reference to the use of the sword, and bearing in mind the fact that the sword is the ultimate emblem of the authority of the state — the governing power — it is clear that the state has power to take life, and that this power is granted to it by God.

Now there are objections to this view. Indeed, objections have recently been raised in Britain and as a result capital punishment has been abolished. So what should be the attitude of Christians towards this teaching?

Now I must first say that I am speaking only of capital punishment as the penalty for murder. There was a time in Britain when people were put to death for all sorts of reasons, for stealing sheep, and so on. But those laws were reformed, and the death penalty was only given for murder. So I confine my remarks to that.

But what about the objections that are generally put forward, even in cases of murder? There are those who say that killing in any shape or form is always wrong. There is only one answer to give to that: the Old Testament makes it perfectly plain and clear that that is not the case. God commanded the children of Israel to kill certain people, and, indeed, even to exterminate certain nations. And, of course, throughout the centuries the saints have acted on this principle. There have been some very saintly men in the armies and navies of countries, outstanding Christians some of them, and there have been great Christians such as Oliver Cromwell and others in Britain, who clearly give an answer to that statement that killing is always wrong. ‘But then, says somebody, ‘doesn’t the commandment say, “Thou shalt not kill”? And what about “turning the other cheek”?’

These are the stock arguments. And the answer is that all those commandments are given to the individual. The individual is not to kill; the individual is to turn the other cheek. We dealt with that towards the end of our study of the twelfth chapter of Romans. We are now, however, dealing with the power of the state to take life in the form of capital punishment. So it is no use quoting one of the Ten Commandments, or the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.

And, thirdly, there is a fierce argument about the deterrent effect of capital punishment. But I do not deal with that because it is not relevant to our scriptural and spiritual discussion. It is a debatable point for lawyers, and does not concern us at all.

What, then, is the scriptural answer? Romans chapter 13 teaches that it is the positive duty of the state to use the sword: ‘He beareth not the sword in vain.’ How does the state come to bear it at all? It is because the state is the representative of God. The state is ‘the minister of God’: ‘For he is the minister of God . . . a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.’ So the power of the sword that the state has is a power that has been delegated by God Himself. It is not that the state has taken it but it has been given by God.

Why has God done this? Surely the answer of the whole of the Old Testament is that God is the author of life. Life is the greatest gift that He gives to men and women. And as God is the author, and the sole author, of life, He alone has a right to take life. It is at that point that you see the enormity of murder. That is why murder is a very special and unique crime. It is one thing to take a man’s goods or his money. It is different again to take his life. A man’s life is the most precious of his possessions. It is God who has given it; only God has a right to take it away.

In other words, it seems to me that, based on the teaching here, the argument for the death penalty can be put like this: capital punishment is designed to maintain and to emphasize and to establish the sanctity of life. It has no vindictive quality in it at all. If the vindictive element comes in, it is wrong. The purpose of capital punishment is not to say, ‘You have taken someone’s life, I am going to take yours.’ It is not that at all. The purpose of capital punishment is to vindicate God’s lordship over life, and to tell man that if he passes beyond that border, he must forfeit his own life. There is nothing that should so teach us the sacredness and the sanctity of life as the carrying out of capital punishment.

It is very interesting to observe the people who are opposed to capital punishment; generally you will find that they are the humanists, the atheists. And generally it is the same people who have been agitating for what they call this ‘new morality’ and who have succeeded in passing a law to allow homosexual practices between adult males. They are acting on the same consistent principle; they do not recognize God and their view of men and women is that they are only animals. They know nothing about the sacredness, the sanctity of life. They do not know that God alone is the author of life. They are ignorant of all this, being blinded by the ‘god of this world’. As humanists, they start and end with man and have no other considerations whatsoever.

But here, in Romans 13, there is the specific statement that the state ‘beareth not the sword in vain’. Furthermore, this is in accord with the Old Testament teaching, including God’s commands to the children of Israel to enforce this principle, in a judicial manner, with other nations. So we must assert the principle that underlies capital punishment. In the next study we will go on to consider pacifism and the relationship between the state and the church.

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I suggest that this passage teaches something along the following lines: It is clear that we are to be subject to the state, to the governing powers that be. This is something we will all agree about. The Christian is always to be a good and peaceable citizen. We can go so far as to say that Christians should always be the best citizens in the country. Their faith does not give them greater brain power, but, for example, they do not harm their minds by drinking too much or by eating too much, and so on. They should be better men and women than anybody else and therefore should be better citizens.

Now this, let me repeat, is simply because they are Christians. As the Apostle puts it in verse 5: ‘Ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath…’ This is one of the great differences between a Christian and a non-Christian. As far as non-Christians are concerned, the main motive for observing the law is the threat of punishment, so they will go as near the line as they can, just short of being caught. Wrath! In the main, they are governed by the fear of wrath. There are, I know, exceptions, but speaking generally, this is true. Nothing but fear makes people conform to the law.

But that is not to be the case with the Christian. ‘Ye must needs be subject,’ says Paul, ‘not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake’, which means, as we have seen, that as a Christian you have an understanding of this matter. It is only Christians who see the real need for the state. It is Christians alone who really believe in sin, who know what sin is, and the power it has in each person’s life. They realize as nobody else can, the extent to which sin can lead us, both individually and collectively. They also see more clearly than anyone else the necessity for controlling sin and its manifestations and results. That is why Christians should always be on the side of law and order. Humanists do not believe in sin at all, so they do not see the same need for legislation, and you will therefore find that, as a general rule, they are opposed to various laws. I shall return to this a little later.

But not only do Christians see the need for law, control and order, they know that God Himself has made this provision for the maintenance of life. Try to think what life in the world would be like if you suddenly banished all the laws; if you banished the police force and everything that is designed to preserve law and order.

Christians have an understanding of these things. This is what is meant by conscience. And, therefore, they know the need for discipline and punishment. For those reasons they must be subject to the state and to its enactments. But I must hasten to add that there is a qualification to that statement; there is a limit beyond which it is not true. It is quite clear in the Scriptures that if the state should ever come between me and my relationship to God, then I must not obey it.

Let me give you my evidence for this. You find it, for instance, in the Acts of the Apostles, in the fourth chapter. Peter and John had been arrested for preaching and for healing the man at the Beautiful Gate of the temple and had been dragged before the ruling powers. Then we read in verses 18 to 20: ‘And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.’ This is repeated in the fifth chapter, after the Apostles had again been told to stop preaching. In verse 28, the authorities say to them, ‘Did we not straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.’ And Peter and the other Apostles reply, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men.’

Now at first you might think that this contradicts verse 1 of Romans chapter 13 where the Apostle Paul says, ‘Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.’ But there is a qualification: the powers that be are designed to carry out God’s will, and if they thwart or try to thwart it, and seek to prevent people from observing it and carrying it out, then those people are entitled to say to them, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men.’ That is quite clear in the Acts of the Apostles, and that was the principle on which the early Christians acted.

Later on, of course, many Christians were in this position. The state, the Roman state, not only looked to the emperor as a governor and a leader, but deified and worshipped him; they said, ‘Caesar is Lord.’ When the Christians were told that they, too, must say that, they replied: ‘We know that Jesus is Lord, and we cannot worship any man.’ So they were confronted with the choice — either they said, ‘Caesar is Lord’, or else they were put to death. And they were very ready indeed to die rather than make that statement. At that point they rightly refused to be subject to the powers that be. They disobeyed them and were ready to suffer the consequences of their disobedience.

So we are to be subject to the higher powers until they in any way come between us and our loyalty to God Himself and His commandments to us.

Featured Photo (visible when article shared on social media) by Hansjörg Keller on Unsplash. 

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Isaiah 24–27 has sometimes been described as his ‘Tale of Two Cities.’ Like Charles Dickens’ well-known novel, they speak of a terrifying urban convulsion which has widespread reverberations. But the difference between them is of course far greater than any similarity, and that has not been minimised by those who borrow that title.

Dickens recorded the ‘Terror’ of the French Revolution that sent shock waves from Paris to London (and across Europe to the New World) to which he could only append the desirable possibility of a ‘resurrection-like’ renewal. Isaiah’s ‘two cities’ are an anticipation of ‘Babylon’ and the ‘New Jerusalem’ in John’s Apocalypse, and what he says about each is certain and everlasting.

In chapter 24, he refers 16 times to ‘the earth or land’ (one word in Hebrew). ‘Earth’ is the better rendering because the ‘world’ with all its highest people or ‘nations’ (24: 4, 13) is later joined with it, and so it is more than the land of Israel that is in view. He was well aware of other nations – although his ‘world’ was smaller than ours – but he condenses it all into one global ‘city’ (24:10, 12) and announces that ‘it falls and will not rise again’ (24:20). A little later he identifies it as ‘a heap, a ruin, a city no more … never [to be] rebuilt’ (25:2) and he therefore gives it no name.

To the other city, Isaiah gives two names, or two in one, namely ‘Mount Zion’ and ‘Jerusalem’ (24:23). It is a temple-capital which is set up by the Lord God with ‘salvation’ for its ‘walls and bulwarks’ (26:1). In it there is lasting light (24:23) and deathless life (25:7) for all peoples (25:6, 7). A little later it is described as ‘an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent, whose stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken’ (33:20). This city must be for evermore.

What is said about these cities takes place ‘in [or] on that day.’ This is a recurring expression in these chapters (see 24:21–25:8; 25:9-12; 26:1-21; 27:1; 27:2-11; 27:12 and 27:13). Some reservations have been expressed about treating them all as a reference to ‘the Day of the Lord’ as the expression ‘on that day’ can be used loosely. But if what they introduce are acts of judgment and salvation that should settle the matter and that is what Isaiah refers to. We take them as such and so ‘the Day of the Lord’ will be the theme of this expository study. It will be treated in seven sections with 24:1-20 providing a kind of ‘overture’ to the whole as it deals with both those realities.

This is a better procedure than attempting to isolate the ‘songs’ in the poem because there is no firm agreement as to which portions of the text they are. There is, for example, some uncertainty about whether the song that opens chapter 26 extends beyond verse 2 to include verses 5 and 6 and even verses 7-19. Making a decision as to whether a piece of poetry is a song or ‘just’ a poem is no easy task. For example, do we decide that 25:1-6 is a song but that verses 7–12 are not, in spite of their having a rhythm? But our proposed arrangement is not without its own difficulties because three of these sections contain only one verse. Hopefully, that is outweighed by its closeness to the text itself as well as the overall theme of the poem.

Taking this route means working our way through the text as it is laid out in our Bibles although the chapter divisions are not strictly adhered to because of the continuity between 24:21 and 25:1, and perhaps between 26:12 and 27:1.

More significant is the change of perspective between 24 and 25 and 26 and 27 that has been noticed by commentators which Oswalt explains as follows,

Broadly speaking, one may divide the segment into two subsegments, chs 24–25 and chs 26–27. In the first subsegment, the major focus is upon the city of this world, its using overthrow (ch. 24) and the response to its overthrow (ch. 25). The second subsegment centres upon God’s efforts on behalf of his people. One of the major elements here is the admission of helplessness on the part of the people (26:7-18). Coupled with this is the conviction that God is able and willing to manifest his power among the nations and to deliver his people from them.¹

In commenting on chapter 26, Mackay also speaks of a ‘change in temporal perspective to focus on the present significance for Judah of the glorious future that is promised to her.’² This distinction of a change of aspect but not of subject, enables our study of these seven sections to be grouped into two which can be subsumed ‘There and Then’ and ‘Here and Now.’

Isaiah 24–27 is a magnificent son et lumière³ of ‘the Day of the Lord’ in judgment and salvation, and also of godly rejoicing and waiting for it in dark days. It comports with ‘the already and not yet’ of Christian living, and so Christians should find strength and comfort in these chapters as they look forward and upward to the Lord’s return and ‘the new world.’

Behold the mountain of the Lord
In latter days shall rise
On mountain tops above the hills,
and draw the wondering eyes.

To this the joyful nations round,
all tribes and tongues, shall flow;
Up to the hill of God, they’ll say,
and to his house we’ll go.

The beam that shines from Zion hill
shall lighten every land;
The King who reigns in Salem’s towers
shall all the world command.

Among the nations he shall judge;
his judgments truth shall guide;
His sceptre shall protect the just,
and quell the sinner’s pride.

No strife shall rage, nor hostile feuds
disturb those peaceful years;
To ploughshares men shall beat their swords,
to pruning-hooks their spears.

No longer hosts, encountering hosts,
shall crowds of slain deplore:
They hang the trumpet in the hall,
and study war no more.

Come then, O house of Jacob! come
to worship at his shrine;
And, walking in the light of God,
with holy beauties shine.

Paraphrase of Isaiah 2:2-6
Michael Bruce (1746–67)

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The story of religious covenanting in Scotland covers a long period, beginning in 1557 when certain men did ‘band thame selfis’ to maintain ‘the trew preaching of the Evangell of Jesus Christ’. Two years later, after the return of John Knox from Geneva, the reforming party entered into three distinct covenants [at Perth, Edinburgh and Stirling respectively] for the purpose of promoting the work of the Reformation. Again, in 1560, a covenant of a more political nature contributed to the extermination of French influence from Scottish affairs and resulted within a few weeks in the Treaty of Edinburgh with Protestant England. Seven years later Mary of Scots was overthrown, and certain ‘articles’, to which the leaders of the people subscribed, virtually formed a still further ‘band’ to enable Protestantism to become ‘rooted, grounded and settled’ in the land.

These various covenants were eclipsed in interest and importance by another of 1581, sometimes called ‘The King’s Confession’ and sometimes ‘The Second Confession of Faith’,  which vigorously denounced Romish corruptions and clarified Protestant doctrine. The dread inspired by the approach of the Spanish Armada in 1588 moved King James VI and ‘divers of his Estates’ to enter into another covenant known as ‘The General Band’, and during the next four or five years, still further covenants concerning king, country and religion saw the light. More important, however, from the spiritual standpoint was a covenant promoted by the General Assembly of the Scottish Kirk in 1596, for this made the Little Kirk of Edinburgh a very Bochim (see Judges 2:4–5), the like of which had not been seen in Scotland since the Reformation.

A new and ominous factor in political and religious life appeared in the early seventeenth century. It had not been entirely absent during the late sixteenth century, but after James VI’s accession to the English throne in 1603 as James I, it increased in strength and importance, and before long resulted in a long-drawn-out campaign between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism. The first two Stuart kings of England accepted wholeheartedly the pattern of episcopal church government as found in Scotland’s southern neighbour, and Charles I in particular, urged on by Canterbury’s infamous Archbishop William Laud, determined to make Scotland bow willy-nilly to the episcopal yoke. Then came the tremendous storm of July 1637, the ominous stool-throwing by Jenny Geddes, with the cry, ‘Will ye read that book [the Prayer Book] in my lug?’, the signing of the highly significant National Covenant in Greyfriars Church and Churchyard [1638], the two Bishops’ Wars extending to 1641, and, in general, the revolt of an entire nation against its rulers. The underlying cause was spiritual rather than political. A nation had queried the claim by a monarch to determine the form of government of a national church, and had fired a cannon whose sound reverberated to the farthest Hebrides.

The National Covenant of 1638, the outstanding covenant of Scottish History, declared the firm determination of its Presbyterian authors and subscribers to resist to the death the claims of the king and his minions to override the Crown Rights of the Redeemer in His Kirk. It is a formidable document indeed, bristling with references to former Acts of Parliament in typical legal fashion. It gives high honour to the eternal God and His most holy Word; demands the faithful preaching of that Word, the due and right ministration of the sacraments, the abolishing of all false religion, and the rooting out of the king’s empire of all heretics and enemies to the true worship of God, on conviction ‘by the true Kirk of God’. The subscribers further say that they fear neither ‘the foul aspersions of rebellion, combination, or what else our adversaries from their craft and malice would put upon us, seeing what we do is so well warranted, and ariseth from an unfeigned desire to maintain the true worship of God, the majesty of our King, and the peace of the kingdom, for the common happiness of ourselves and our posterity. They pledge themselves as in the sight of God to ‘be good examples to others of all godliness, soberness, and righteousness, and of every duty we owe to God and man.’

The Covenant draws to a close with the following statement: ‘That this our union and conjunction may be observed without violation, we call the Living God, the Searcher of our hearts, to witness, who knoweth this to be our sincere desire and unfeigned resolution, as we shall answer to Jesus Christ in the great day, and under the pain of God’s everlasting wrath, and of infamy and loss of all honour and respect in this world: most humbly beseeching the lord to strengthen us by His Holy Spirit for this end, and to bless our desires and proceedings with a happy success; that religion and righteousness may flourish in the land, to the glory of God, the honour of our King, and peace and comfort of us all.’

The Kirk of Scotland had spoken; let the king and the archbishop tremble. The King, however, chose to follow his own pre-determined policy and such devices as Laud could invent. Meanwhile his troubles in his realm of England reached their desperate climax. Civil War commenced in the summer of 1642 and Scotland and the English Long Parliament came into close co-operation. In the opinion of both alike, absolute monarchy was threatening the true interests of the children of God and the unique Lordship of the King of kings, and must be resisted at all costs. Within a year came the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant by the two peoples, in which the Convention of Scottish Estates, with the approval of the General Assembly of the Kirk, undertook to give the English Parliament military aid against the King, while the English Parliament on its part undertook to establish and enforce Presbyterianism in England and to meet the expenses of a Scottish army operating in England.

The events of the Civil War and Commonwealth periods we need not here discuss. Oliver Cromwell, ‘the great Independent’, emerged from the period of conflict as a semi-dictator; Scotland and England fell apart, not without war, only to be brought together again politically by the union of Parliaments which England enforced after its military triumph. But England as a nation soon tired of Puritan domination and in 1660 the son of Charles returned to rule England and Scotland as Charles II. He claimed to be in the eleventh year of his reign.

The new king’s conscience was exceedingly pliable. In 1650, a year and a half after his father’s execution, when he was using all endeavours to recover the two thrones, he had offered to subscribe and swear the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant, and actually did so on the 23rd June. A month later he had accepted the Dunfermline Declaration, in which he deplored his father’s opposition to the work of religious Reformation, confessed his mother Henrietta Maria’s Popish idolatry, professed his own sincerity and detestation of all ‘Popery, superstition and idolatry, together with Prelacy’ and all other errors and heresies, and announced his determination not to tolerate them in any part of his dominions. If royal promises are good, the outlook for Scotland, not to say England, was bright with hope. At a Coronation ceremony at Scone on New Year’s Day, 1651, Charles renewed his oath and subscription to the 1638 and 1643 covenants. But the word of the son was no more reliable than that of the father, and when Charles found that he could not stand against the power of the English New Model army on the battle field and that it was necessary for him to ‘go on his travels again’, he soon abandoned his solemn vows and drowned the voice of his conscience in the wine of forgetfulness.

The Restoration of Charles II in 1660 soon led to a full display of the king’s perfidy and marked the commencement of the Covenanter Period proper. The fair promises contained in the Declaration of Breda in 1659 were virtually annulled by the astute Edward Hyde (Lord Clarendon), now acting as the Lord Chancellor of England. He contrived the inclusion of a qualification in each royal concession, to the effect that the king would agree to whatsoever Parliament proposed on each point of the Declaration. In this fashion Charles could make pretence of yielding to Parliament’s desires while making sure, in the devious ways open to his ministers, that those desires were to all intents and purposes his own.

Acts of Parliament shortly restored the royal prerogative and supremacy in matters of religion. The National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643 were condemned as high treason, and henceforward it became perilous to adhere to them or to speak with approval of them. Simultaneously came the news to Scotland that the king was set upon restoring prelacy in full strength and vigour. An obsequious Parliament in Edinburgh passed an Act to give effect to this resolve. In the Preamble of the Act it was asserted that the king possessed an ‘inherent right’, ‘by virtue of his royal prerogative and supremacy in causes ecclesiastical’, to legislate for the Kirk. The current oath of allegiance to the crown tied all who took it to the same principle, namely, that whatever power the king claimed in Church and State was his of divine right.

Nor was this the limit of the matter. The evil system of patronage which had been abolished in 1649 was restored. This meant that patron and bishop, and no others, had authority in the presentation of ministers to livings. All ministers who had entered upon a living since 1649 but had not obtained such presentation were required to quit their parishes. Between three and four hundred men were thus sequestered.

In 1664, by Royal Prerogative, the Court of High Commission, which, together with the Star Chamber, had been Archbishop Laud’s notorious instrument of repression, was again set up, with power to determine all aspects of Church policy. These measures gave the bishops legal authority to hunt down all who refused to conform to their demands. Non-conformists—and all true Covenanters were such—were savagely persecuted during the next twenty-five years. Simultaneously, English Puritans who failed to conform to the requirements of the Clarendon Code [1661–5] were harassed and scourged, though certainly with much less actual brutality than the Scots.

The Huguenots of France were also soon to experience all the ferocity of a fanatical king and church. But the war that was now waged against Scottish Covenanters with a similar intensity pre-dated Huguenot troubles by almost a quarter of a century. If French Protestants suffered the rigour of the ‘dragonades’ in the ’eighties, the Covenanters met with similar woes, and even more tragic, in the ’sixties. Hunted mercilessly by the dragoons, some of them believed it right to meet force with force. Hence such encounters as those of Rullion Green [November 1666], Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge [both in June 1679], and Airds Moss, or Ayrsmoss [July 1680]. The killing of Archbishop Sharp of St Andrews in 1679 further illustrates the state of desperation reached by a small section of the covenanting party. A larger number were willing to abide, not only in the kingdom, but also in the patience of Jesus Christ, and to wait prayerfully and courageously for the dawn of better days.

Many who could not be charged with the breach of any law were asked if they owned the king’s authority. If they disowned it, they stood self-condemned; if they qualified their submission by distinguishing between Church and State, or if they declined to give their opinion, they were deemed equally guilty of treason. But, as Alexander Shields, the author of A Hind Let Loose, says: ‘The more they (that is, the authorities) insisted in this inquisition, the more did the number of witnesses multiply, with a growing increase of undauntedness, so that the then shed blood of the martyrs became the seed of the Church; and as, by hearing and seeing them so signally countenanced of the Lord, many were reclaimed from their courses of compliance, so others were daily more and more confirmed in the ways of the Lord, and so strengthened by His grace that they chose rather to endure all torture and embrace death in its most terrible aspect, than to give the tyrant and his accomplices any acknowledgement, yea not so much as to say, God save the King, which was offered as the price of their life.’

Readers of the tragic story may thus be assured that the refusal of firm Covenanters to say ‘God save the King’ was not the result of any lack of true civil loyalty to ‘the powers that be, that are ordained of God’, but solely the result of an enlightened conscience which refused to give to man, no matter how highly exalted in office he might be, the honour due to the Lord’s Anointed. When such persons as the Solway martyrs [‘the two Margarets’] refused to say ‘God save the King’, it was because of the meaning given to the expression by men in authority. Its use was tantamount to confessing that the king was supreme earthly ruler in the Church of God. The Covenanters chose death rather than life when impaled on the horns of the dreadful dilemma.

Shields’ book, A Hind Let Loose, first printed in Holland in 1687, is a defence of the Covenanters. It expounds the belief that the king, though high in rank and office, is ‘inferior to the people’ whom he governs, and that their interests must take precedence over his. Ideally their interests are the same, but when the king shows himself a tyrant and a usurper of the rights of the Kirk, not to say of Christ the Head of the Kirk, ergo [one of Shields’ favourite words], he is to be resisted. Furthermore, if he is or becomes a Papist, how can he rule agreeably to the mind of God? The matter is argued with a vast abundance of biblical illustration, and with much reference to Reformation and Puritan divines. It should be consulted, if practicable, by all who wish fully to understand the inner spirit of the Covenanting Movement.

In the ultimate issue the question at stake, in all its stark nakedness, was whether a temporal monarch or the Lord Jesus Christ was to be ‘Head over all things to the Church’. To faithful Covenanters only one answer was possible, and whether their problems concerned individuals, families, conventicles, or general assemblies, they urged with fierce and unshakeable tenacity that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’.

No suffering could be too great to endure in such a cause. The scaffold could not daunt them; instruments of torture could not make them quail; the sufferings and discomforts of cave or moor or prison-cell could not move them to act and speak against conscience. Behind and above covenants subscribed with their hands and witnessed to by their hearts, and in an even truer sense subscribed in their blood, was ‘the everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure’, itself sealed with the blood of the Mediator, and itself the pattern of all lesser covenants. Faith gave buoyancy to the Covenanters’ resolution; hope was the anchor of their souls; the love of Christ shed abroad in their hearts ever spurred them on to do and to suffer; ‘outside the camp’ they bore His reproach; and before them ever loomed large ‘the recompense of the reward’ and the gates of the city of God.

The ‘Killing Time’ eventually gave place to toleration and freedom. The overthrow of King James II and the establishment of William and Mary on the throne brought liberty and enlargement. But whether faith and hope and love shone as brightly in Scottish hearts in the velvety days ahead as in the grim days which produced the Covenanting Movement, let those judge who can.

S. M. Houghton

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PATRICK HAMILTON was born about the year of our Lord 1503, and was nephew to the Earl of Arran by his father, and to the Duke of Albany by his mother; he was also related to King James V. of Scotland. He was early educated with a design for future high preferment, and had the abbacy of Ferne, in Ross-shire, given him, for the purpose of prosecuting his studies, which he did with great assiduity.

In order to complete this laudable design, he resolved to travel into Germany. The fame of the university of Wittenberg was then very great, and drew many to it from distant places, among whom our Hamilton was one. He was the first who introduced public disputations upon faith and works, and such theological questions, into the university of Marpurg [Marburg], in which he was assisted by Francis Lambert, by whose conversation he profited not a little. Here he became acquainted with these eminent reformers, Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon, besides other learned men of their society. By these distinguished masters he was instructed in the knowledge of the true religion, which he had little opportunity to become acquainted with in his own country, because the small remains of it in Scotland at this time were under the yoke of oppression, as we have already shown at the close of the Introduction. He made an amazing proficiency in this most important study, and became soon as zealous in the profession of the true faith, as he had been diligent to attain the knowledge of it.

[He] became soon as zealous in the profession of the true faith, as he had been diligent to attain the knowledge of it.

This drew the eyes of many upon him; and while they were waiting with impatience to see what part he would act, he came to the resolution of returning to his own country, and there, in the face of all dangers, of communicating the light which he had received. Accordingly, being as yet a youth, not being much past twenty-three years of age, he began sowing the seed of God’s word wherever he came, exposing the corruptions of the Romish church, and pointing out the errors which had crept into the Christian religion as professed in Scotland. He was favourably received and followed by many, unto whom he readily “shewed the way of God more perfectly.” His reputation as a scholar, and his courteous demeanour, contributed not a little to his usefulness in the good work.

The city of St Andrews was at this time the grand rendezvous of the Romish clergy, and might with no impropriety be called the metropolis of the kingdom of darkness. James Beaton was archbishop, Hugh Spence dean of divinity, John Waddel rector, James Simson official, Thomas Ramsay canon and dean of the abbey, with the several superiors of the different orders of monks and friars. It could not be expected that Patrick Hamilton’s conduct would be long concealed from such a body as this. Their resentment against him soon rose to the utmost height of persecuting rage; the Archbishop particularly, who was Chancellor of the kingdom, and otherwise very powerful, became his inveterate enemy; but being not less politic than cruel, he concealed his wicked design against Patrick Hamilton, until he had drawn him into the ambush prepared for him, which he effected by prevailing on him to attend a conference at St Andrews.

Their resentment against him soon rose to the utmost height of persecuting rage

Being come thither, Alexander Campbell, prior of the Black Friars, who had been appointed to exert his faculties in reclaiming him, had several private interviews with Patrick Hamilton, in which he seemed to acknowledge the force of his objections against the prevailing conduct of the clergy, and the errors of the Romish church. Such persuasions as Campbell used to bring him back to Popery, had rather the tendency to confirm him in the truth.

The Archbishop and inferior clergy appeared to make concessions, allowing that many things stood in need of reformation, which they could wish had been brought about. Whether they were sincere in these acknowledgments, or only intended to conceal their bloody designs, and render the innocent and unsuspecting victim of their rage more secure, is a question to which this answer may be returned, that had they been sincere, the consciousness that Patrick Hamilton spoke truth would, perhaps, have warded off the blow, for at least some longer time, or would have divided their councils and measures against him. That neither of these was the case will now appear.

Patrick Hamilton was apprehended under night, and committed prisoner to the castle; and at the same time the young King James V., at the earnest solicitation of the clergy, was prevailed upon to undertake a pilgrimage to St Duthach in Ross-shire, that he might be out of the way of any applications that might be made to him for Hamilton’s life, which there was reason to believe would be granted. This measure affords full proof, that notwithstanding the friendly conferences which they kept up with him for some time, they had from the beginning resolved on his ruin; but such instances of Popish dissembling were not new even in Patrick Hamilton’s time.

The next day after his imprisonment, he was brought before the Archbishop and his convention, and there charged with maintaining and propagating sundry heretical opinions: and though articles of the utmost importance had been debated betwixt him and them, they restricted their charges to such trifles as pilgrimage, purgatory, praying to saints and for the dead; perhaps because these were the grand pillars upon which Antichrist built his empire, being the most lucrative doctrines ever invented by men. We must, however, take notice that Spottiswoode, afterwards archbishop of that See, assigns the following as grounds for his suffering: 1. That the corruption of sin remains in children after their baptism. 2. That no man by the mere power of his free will can do any good. 3. That no man is without sin so long as he liveth. 4. That every true Christian may know himself to be in a state of grace. 5. That a man is not justified by works, but by faith only. 6. That good works make not a man good, but that a good man doth good works, and that an ill man doth ill works; yet the same ill works, truly repented of, make not an ill man. 7. That faith, hope, and charity, are so linked together, that he who hath one of them hath all, and he that lacketh one lacketh all. 8. That God is the cause of sin in this sense, that he withdraweth his grace from man; and, grace withdrawn, he cannot but sin. These articles make up the whole charge along with the following: (1.) That auricular confession is not necessary to salvation. (2.) That actual penance cannot purchase the remission of sin. (3.) That there is no purgatory, and that the holy patriarchs were in heaven before Christ’s passion. (4.) That the Pope is Antichrist, and that every priest hath as much power as he.

For holding these articles, and because he refused to abjure them, he was condemned as an obstinate heretic, and delivered to the secular power by the archbishops of St Andrews and Glasgow, the bishops of Dunkeld, Brechin, and Dunblane, and fourteen underlings, who all set their hands to the sentence; which, that it might have the greater authority, was likewise subscribed by every person of note in the university, among whom the Earl of Casillis was one, then not exceeding thirteen years of age. The sentence follows as given by Mr Foxe in his Acts and Monuments, vol. ii. folio edition, 1661, p. 227.

“CHRISTI nomine invocato: We, James, by the mercy of God, Archbishop of St Andrews, Primate of Scotland, with the counsel, decree, and authority, of the most reverend fathers in God, and lords, abbots, doctors of theology, professors of the holy Scripture, and masters of the university, assisting us for the time, sitting in judgment, within our metropolitan church of St Andrews, in the cause of heretical pravity, against Patrick Hamilton, abbot or pensionary of Ferne, being summoned to appear before us, to answer to certain articles affirmed, taught, and preached by him; and so appearing before us, and accused, the merits of the cause being ripely weighed, discussed, and understood by faithful inquisition made in Lent last passed, we have found the same Patrick Hamilton, many ways infamed with heresy, disputing, holding, and maintaining divers heresies of Martin Luther and his followers, repugnant to our faith, and which are already condemned by general councils and most famous universities. And he being under the same infamy, we decerning before him, to be summoned and accused upon the premises, he of evil mind (as may be presumed) passed to other parts, forth of the realm, suspected and noted for heresy. And being lately returned, not being admitted, but of his own head, without licence or privilege, hath presumed to preach wicked heresy.

“We have found, also, that he hath affirmed, published, and taught divers opinions of Luther, and wicked heretics, after that he was summoned to appear before us and our council: that man hath no free will—that man is in sin so long as he liveth—that children, incontinent after their baptism, are sinners—all Christians that be worthy to be called Christians, do know that they are in grace—no man is justified by works, but by faith only—good works make not a man good, but a good man doth make good works—that faith, hope, and charity, are so knit, that he that hath one hath the rest, and that he that wants one of them wants the rest, etc., with divers other heresies and detestable opinions; and hath persisted so obstinate in the same, that by no counsel or persuasion he may be drawn therefrom, to the way of our right faith.

“All these premises being considered, we, having the fear of God and the integrity of our faith before our eyes, and following the counsel and advice of the professors of the holy Scripture, men of law, and others assisting us for the time being, do pronounce, determine, and declare the said Patrick Hamilton, for his affirming, confessing, and maintaining of the foresaid heresies, and his pertinacity (they being condemned already by the church, general councils, and most famous universities) to be an heretic, and to have an evil opinion of the faith, and therefore to be condemned and punished, like as we condemn and punish, and define him to be punished, by this our sentence definitive, depriving and sentencing him to be deprived of all dignities, honours, orders, offices, and benefices of the church: and therefore do judge and pronounce him to be delivered over to the secular power, to be punished, and his goods to be confiscated.

“This our sentence definitive, was given and read at our metropolitan church of St Andrews, this last day of the month of February, anno 1527, being present, the most reverend fathers in Christ, and lords, Gawand Archbishop of Glasgow, George bishop of Dnnkeld, John bishop of Brechin, James bishop of Dunblane, Patrick prior of St Andrews, David abbot of Aberbrothwick (afterwards Cardinal Beaton), George abbot of Dunfermline, Alexander abbot of Cambuskenneth, Henry abbot of Lindores, John prior of Pittenweeme, the dean and subdean of Glasgow, Mr Hugh Spence, Thomas Ramsay, Allan Meldrum, etc. In presence of the clergy and people.”

The same day that this doom was pronounced, he was also condemned by the secular power, and on the afternoon of that same day (for they were afraid of an application to the king on his behalf), he was hurried to the stake immediately after dinner, the fire being prepared before the old College.

Being come to the place of martyrdom, he put off his clothes and gave them to a servant who had been with him of a long time, saying: “This stuff will not help me in the fire, yet will do thee some good. I have no more to leave thee but the ensample of my death—which, I pray thee, keep in mind; for albeit the same be bitter and painful in man’s judgment, yet it is the entrance to everlasting life, which none can inherit who deny Christ before this wicked generation.” Having so said, he commended his soul into the hands of God, with his eyes fixed towards heaven, and being bound to the stake in the midst of some coals, timber, and other combustibles, a train of powder was made, with a design to kindle the fire, but did not succeed, the explosion scorching only one of his hands and his face. In this situation he remained until more powder was brought from the castle; during which time his comfortable and godly speeches were often interrupted, particularly by Friar Campbell calling upon him “to recant, pray to our Lady, and say, Salve regina [‘Hail, Queen’].” Upon being repeatedly disturbed in this manner by Campbell, Patrick Hamilton said: “Thou wicked man, thou knowest that I am not an heretic, and that it is the truth of God for which I now suffer; so much didst thou confess unto me in private, and thereupon I appeal thee to answer before the judgment seat of Christ.” By this time the fire was kindled, and the noble martyr yielded his soul to God, crying out, “How long, O Lord, shall darkness overwhelm this realm? How long wilt thou suffer this tyranny of men?” And then ended his speech with Stephen, saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”

Thus died this noble martyr of Jesus, on the last day of February 1527, in the twenty-fourth year of his age. His death excited very considerable interest, and was overruled by the Sovereign Disposer of all events, in greatly promoting the interests of the Reformation. Says Pinkerton: “The flames in which he expired were in the course of one generation to enlighten all Scotland, and to consume with avenging fury the Catholic superstition, the papal power, and the prelacy itself.”

Friar Campbell soon after became distracted, and died within a year after Hamilton’s martyrdom, under the most awful apprehensions of the Lord’s indignation against him. The Popish clergy abroad congratulated their friends in Scotland upon their zeal for the Romish faith, discovered in the above tragedy; but it rather served the cause of reformation than retarded it; especially when the people began deliberately to compare the behaviour of Patrick Hamilton and Friar Campbell; they were induced to inquire more narrowly into the truth than before. The reader will find a very particular account of the doctrines maintained by Hamilton, in Knox’s History of the Reformation in Scotland, nigh the beginning.

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Study material: The Epistle to the Colossians and the Epistle to Philemon

Connection between Colossians and Philemon

The Epistle to the Colossians and the Epistle to Philemon were written at the same time. The same persons—Aristarchus, Mark, Epaphras, Luke and Demas—appear in both epistles in the company of Paul. Col. 4:10–14; Philem. 23, 24. Only Jesus Justus, Col. 4:11, who was probably not known personally to Philemon, Tychicus, the bearer of the Epistle to the Colossians, and Timothy, the associate with Paul in the address of Colossians, are not mentioned in the Epistle to Philemon. It is true, Aristarchus, in Col. 4:10, is designated as Paul’s ‘fellow-prisoner’, while in Philem. 23 this term is applied to Epaphras. Perhaps, however, it is only chance that both terms are not applied to both men in both of the letters. Or else the variation may mean only that the two Epistles were not written on the same day. Aristarchus and Epaphras and others may have taken turns in sharing the apostle’s imprisonment. The two letters, at any rate, even if written on different days, were evidently dispatched at the same time. Onesimus, the bearer of the Epistle to Philemon, was to accompany Tychicus, who was apparently the bearer of the Epistle to the Colossians. Col. 4:7, 8.

The Church at Colossae

The town of Colossae was not a particularly important place, being overshadowed by its two neighbours, Laodicea and Hierapolis. These three cities were situated close together in the Lycus valley, about a hundred miles east of Ephesus. The churches at Colossae and at Laodicea, and no doubt also the one at Hierapolis, had not been founded by Paul himself, Col. 2:1; 4:13. The church at Colossae, however, had been founded by Epaphras, who was one of Paul’s fellow labourers, and probably one of his converts, Col. 1:7. Probably, in preaching at Colossae, Epaphras had acted directly as an emissary of Paul. Evidently Paul reckoned the churches of Colossae, Laodicea and Hierapolis distinctly to his own field. The tone which he adopts toward his readers in Colossians is, for example, entirely different from that which appears in Romans. He treats the Colossians practically as his own spiritual children. See especially Col. 1:24 to 2:5.

In all probability the church had been founded during the three years which Paul spent at Ephesus on the third missionary journey. During that period ‘all they that dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks’. Acts 19:10. Colossae was in the province of Asia, in the Phrygian part of it. Even if ‘Asia’ in the passage in The Acts should be taken in a narrower sense, still the words show at least that the effects of Paul’s preaching in Ephesus spread far beyond the limits of the city. It may well have spread to Colossae, which lay directly on the great road from Ephesus to the east. Probably Epaphras, who was a resident of Colossae, Col. 4:12, was converted during a visit to Ephesus, and then on his return became the evangelist of his native city. The church at Colossae was certainly composed predominantly, if not exclusively, of Gentiles, Col. 1:21, 27; 2:13. Indeed, even Epaphras himself, the founder of the church, was a Gentile; for in Col. 4:10–14 he is distinguished, along with Luke and Demas, from the Jews.

The Date of Colossians and Philemon

The Epistle to the Colossians and that to Philemon were written while Paul was in prison, Col. 4:2, 10, 18; Philem. 1, 9, 23. Yet the conditions of his imprisonment were such as to permit him the companionship of his friends and leisure for correspondence. These conditions were clearly present during the two years of the Roman imprisonment, Acts 28:16, 30, 31. At Caesarea also, Paul seems to have been treated rather leniently, and some scholars have preferred to date our Epistles during the two years which Paul spent there, Acts 24:27. That dating, however, is far less probable. The Epistles may be confidently assigned to the Roman imprisonment.

Condition of the Colossian Church

At the time when Colossians was written, Epaphras, the founder of the Colossian church, was with Paul. He had given a generally favourable account of the progress of the church. Perhaps other and later news had come from other quarters. Onesimus was another Colossian who was with Paul, Col. 4:9; but it is perhaps unlikely that he possessed any very intimate knowledge of the church, because, as we shall see, he did not become a Christian until after he had left Colossae. Not all the news which had been received by Paul from Colossae was satisfactory. False teaching had become prevalent. The nature of this false teaching is very difficult to determine—many different hypotheses have been proposed with regard to it. One thing is clear—the false teachers insisted upon an ascetic manner of life, Col. 2:20-23. ‘Handle not, nor taste, nor touch’, was their ordinance. Apparently they forbade the use of animal food and wine, Col. 2:16. There was also an excessive emphasis upon feast and fast days. The speculative side of their teaching, on the other hand, is obscure. It looks, however, as though they had inordinate reverence for angels, and boasted of higher mysteries to which they had attained. Whether the false teachers were Jews or Gentiles is uncertain. Colossians 2:11-15, which points out the freedom of the Christian from the law and the superiority of baptism over the rites of the Old Covenant, might seem to indicate that the Colossians had been imbued with a false notion of the continued validity of Judaism.

The errorists in Colossae, however, were not Judaizers, as were those of Galatia, for the tone of Paul’s refutation is far milder than in that former case. The Colossian Christians were not being led away from the fundamental principles of the gospel; they were merely being troubled with useless speculations, which would distract their attention from what is essential, and with an alleged higher morality, which would destroy the simplicity of the Christian life. The error was indeed serious enough. That is demonstrated by the history of the Church. Excessive reverence for beings lower than God is always dangerous. Probably the Colossian errorists did not directly attack the supremacy of Christ. Neither did those who afterwards introduced saint-worship into the Catholic Church. But in both cases the effect was to rob Christ of his rightful place in Christian devotion.

Excessive reverence for beings lower than God is always dangerous.

Paul’s Refutation of the Errorists

In refutation, Paul proceeds positively rather than negatively. Instead of filling his letter with invective, he points out the all-sufficiency of what the Colossians have already received, in order to prevent them from seeking anything new. They have already been delivered from the power of darkness, Col. 1:13. They are already in full possession of the mystery, vs. 25-27; ch. 2:2, 3. They are already free from the world, and have a new life in Christ, ch. 2:11–15, 20; 3:1–4. There is therefore no need for a supposed higher, ascetic manner of life, and no need for abstruse speculations. No manner of life can be higher than that which is described in Col. 3:1 to 4:2; no mystery can be profounder than the mystery of Christ. The speculations about angels, in particular, are refuted not so much by direct attack, as by an emphasis upon the supremacy of Christ. If Christ is what he is declared to be in Col. 1:13-23; 2.8-15, then there is no need for a worship of angels. Here lies what is really distinctive of the Epistle to the Colossians. In the previous letters, a lofty view of the person of Christ was always presupposed, but there was no occasion to set it forth in detail. At last the occasion had arrived.

The Christology of Colossians

The Epistle to the Colossians is peculiarly ‘Christological’. More fully and more expressly than in any other of his letters Paul here develops his view about the person of Christ. Even here, however, this teaching is incidental; it was simply Paul’s way of refuting certain errors that had crept into the Colossian church. Except for those errors Paul would perhaps never have written at length, as he does in Col. 1:14–23, about the relation of Christ to God and to the world. Yet in that case his own views would have been the same, and they would have been just as fundamental to his whole religious life. In the epistles, which are written to Christians, Paul takes many things for granted. Some of the things which are most fundamental appear only incidentally. Just because they were fundamental, just because they were accepted by everyone, they did not need to be discussed at length.

So it is especially with the person of Christ. From the first epistle to the last, Paul presupposes essentially the same view of that great subject. Practically everything that he says in Colossians could have been inferred from scattered hints in the earlier epistles. From the beginning Paul regarded Jesus Christ as a man, who had a real human life and died a real death on the cross. From the beginning, on the other hand, he separated Christ sharply from men and placed him clearly on the side of God.

From the beginning, in other words, he attributed to him a double nature—Jesus Christ was always in Paul’s thinking both God and man. Finally, the pre-existence of Christ, which is so strongly emphasized in Colossians, is clearly implied in such passages as Gal. 4:4; and his activity in creation appears, according to the best-attested text, in I Cor. 8:6.

Nevertheless, the more systematic exposition in Colossians is of the utmost value. It serves to summarize and explain the scattered implications of the earlier epistles. Christ according to Paul is, in the first place, ‘the image of the invisible God’. Col. 1:15. He is the supreme Revealer of God, a Revealer, however, not merely by words but by his own nature. If you want to know what God is, look upon Christ! In the second place, he is ‘the firstborn of all creation’. Of itself that phrase might be misconstrued. It might be thought to mean that Christ was the first being that God created. Any such interpretation, however, is clearly excluded by the three following verses. There Paul has himself provided an explanation of his puzzling phrase. ‘The firstborn of all creation’ means that Christ, himself uncreated, existed before all created things; he was prior to all things, and, as befits an only son, he possesses all things. Indeed he himself was active in the creation of all things, not only the world, and men, but also those angelic powers—’thrones or dominions or principalities or powers’—upon whom the errorists in Colossae were inclined to lay too much emphasis. He was the instrument of God the Father in creation. And he was also the end of creation. The world exists not for its own sake, but for the sake of Christ. Especially is he the Head of the Church. His headship is declared by his being the first to rise from the dead into that glorious life into which he will finally bring all his disciples. In a word, the entire ‘fulness’ of the divine nature dwells in Christ. That word ‘fulness’ was much misused in the ‘Gnostic’ speculations of the second century. It is barely possible that the word had already been employed in the incipient Gnosticism of the Colossian errorists. If so, Paul by his repeated use of the word in Colossians and Ephesians, is bringing his readers back to a healthier and simpler and grander conception.

The Person of Christ and the Work of Christ

In Col. 1:20–23, Paul bases upon the preceding exposition of the nature of Christ, a noble description of Christ’s work. The work which has been entrusted to Christ is nothing less than that of reconciling the creation unto God. Through sin, an enmity had been set up between God and the work of his hands. That enmity applies primarily of course to the sinful persons themselves. They are under God’s wrath and curse. Sin is not a trifle. It cannot simply be treated as though it had never been. If God be righteous, then there is such a thing as a moral order. The wrath of God rests upon the sinner. But by the sacrifice of Christ, that enmity has been wiped out. Christ has paid the awful penalty of sin. Christ has brought the sinner again near to God. The enmity and the following reconciliation concern primarily the men who have sinned. But they also apply to the whole world. The ground has been cursed for man’s sake. The end of the reconciliation will be a new heaven and a new earth. The groaning and travailing of the creation will one day have an end. Compare Rom. 8:18–25. This brief description of the work of Christ in Col. 1:20–22; 2:10–15, can be richly paralleled in the earlier epistles. What now needs to be emphasized is that the Pauline view of Christ’s work depends absolutely upon the Pauline view of Christ’s person. All through the epistles of Paul the life and death and resurrection are represented as events of a cosmic significance. But they can have such significance only if Christ is the kind of being that is described in the Epistle to the Colossians. The glorious account of salvation, which runs all through the epistles and forms the especial subject of the second group, is unintelligible if Christ were merely an inspired prophet or merely the greatest of created beings. It becomes intelligible only if Christ is ‘the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation’. The mysterious Christology of Colossians lies at the very heart of the Christian faith.

All through the epistles of Paul the life and death and resurrection are represented as events of a cosmic significance. But they can have such significance only if Christ is the kind of being that is described in the Epistle to the Colossians.

The Epistle to Philemon

The Epistle to the Colossians, though addressed to a church that Paul had never visited, is full of warm-hearted affection. Paul could hardly have been cold and formal if he had tried. He was a man of great breadth of sympathy. Hence he was able to enter with the deepest interest into the problems of the Colossian Christians to rejoice at their faith and love, to lament their faults, and to labour with whole-souled devotion for their spiritual profit. The simple, unconstrained affection of Paul’s nature, however, had freer scope in the delightful little letter to Philemon. Philemon apparently was a convert of Paul himself, Philem. 19. He was not a man with whom Paul had to be on his guard. Paul is perfectly confident that Philemon will fully understand the motives of his action and of his letter.

The letter is addressed to Philemon primarily, but also to Apphia and to Archippus and to the church in Philemon’s house. We are here introduced into a Christian household of the apostolic age. Apphia was probably Philemon’s wife and Archippus perhaps his son. Evidently Archippus held some sort of office in the Colossian church. ‘Say to Archippus,’ says Paul in a strangely emphatic way, at the very end of the Epistle to the Colossians, ‘Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it.’ We should like to know what the ministry was which Archippus had received. At any rate, we hope that he fulfilled it. It was a solemn warning which he received–a warning which might well have made him tremble. We also may well take the warning to heart. Our task of imparting Bible truth is no light responsibility. To us also the warning comes, ‘Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it.’ The letter is addressed not only to Philemon and his family, but also to the ‘church’ which met in his house. This ‘church’ was a part of the Colossian congregation. In the early days, when it was difficult to secure meeting places, well-to-do Christians frequently offered the hospitality of their own homes. A certain Nympha or Nymphas—the name varies in the manuscripts—performed this service in Laodicea, Col. 4:15, Aquila and Priscilla in Corinth, I Cor. 16:19, and also Gaius in the same city, Rom. 16:23. The occasion of the Epistle to Philemon is very simple. Onesimus, a slave of Philemon, had run away from his master, possibly appropriating some of his master’s money, Philem. 18. In some way he had come to Rome and had been converted by Paul. Paul would have liked to keep him as a helper. But that was not Paul’s way. Instead, he sent the slave back at once to his master. Christianity was to be no excuse for shirking the duties of the various relationships of society as it was then constituted. The freedom of the Christian was an inward freedom. It was fully consistent with the faithful performance of common duty. The letter which Paul gave to Onesimus, asking forgiveness and bespeaking an affectionate welcome for one who was now a brother as well as a servant, is a delightful little letter, simple and affectionate as the occasion required, but by no means belying the great apostle. In the simplest affairs of life, Paul was always both the true gentleman and the unswerving minister of a transcendent gospel.

Topics for Study

I. Summarize Colossians and Philemon in your own words.

2. What does Colossians teach about the nature of Christ? Show how this teaching is presupposed in the earlier epistles (two topics).

3. Summarize the false teaching combatted in Colossians.

4. Give some account of Colossae, Hierapolis, Laodicea, Aristarchus, Mark, Luke, Demas, Archippus, Philemon (about three topics).

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‘Of the making of many books, there is no end’ (Eccles. 12:12). What you are holding in your hand is not so much an illustration of the inspired statement—though it is that—but, rather, a topical guide to the many volumes of timeless wisdom and practical insights of one of the great champions of biblical truth.

I first became aware of the writings of J. C. Ryle (1816–1900) in my father’s study. Among the books lining his shelves was Ryle’s Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties and Roots. I did not begin reading it at that time, sadly, but I do recall looking at the chapter headings and thinking that I should. This thought would bear fruit years later in the midst of a busy preaching and teaching ministry.

Pastors and teachers should consult the written wisdom of the past for deeper understanding of the biblical truths they are preparing to explain in the present. In the writings of J. C. Ryle readers have found faithful biblical wisdom and searching applications that aim at the heart. Such were the gifts the Spirit gave him. ‘The characteristics of Bishop Ryle’s method and style are obvious,’ wrote Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. ‘He is pre-eminently and always scriptural and expository. He never starts with a theory into which he tries to fit various scriptures. He always starts with the word and expounds it. It is exposition at its very best and highest. It is always clear and logical and invariably leads to a clear enunciation of doctrine.’¹ Ryle’s expositions of Scripture and articulation of biblical doctrines were equally well-informed by the writings of the great theologians of the past. One need only glance through the notes of his Expository Thoughts on the Gospels to see that he took time to study the reasoned positions of others, before putting his own to paper.

Not only were biblical fidelity and practical applications hallmarks of his work, but the doctrines he unfolded often came in lively, vivid, and memorable language. His writing has been described as having a ‘brisk, blunt style, pungent and persuasive, made up of short, abrupt, in-your-face sentences.’² Ryle wasted no words and used no filler materials to pad his arguments and exhortations. What he pressed upon aspiring preachers, he himself practised in the pulpit and also in the study. ‘He is the best speaker who can turn the ear into an eye.’³ His books, many of which are compilations of tracts reworked from sermons, are illustrative of this conviction. He honed his God-given skills in such a way so as to make deep truths accessible to broad audiences and with a sense of urgency.⁴ As J. I. Packer observed, ‘his down-to-earth illustrations and rhetorical emphases gave a sense of the drama, the dangers, the challenges, glories and joys of life under the eye and hand of the God of the gospel; and thus, in a word, he communicated brilliantly at [the] popular level.’⁵ The net result is that more than one hundred years after the first Bishop of Liverpool’s entrance into glory on 10 June 1900, those who read him will be anything but disappointed. It is the aim of this anthology to encourage readers, old and new alike, to pick up Ryle’s many volumes and spiritually profit from them.

Reflecting back on the many hours reading thousands of his pages, if there were two things that stand out like jewels in his crown, they were Ryle’s unflagging determination to tell us the terrible truth about ourselves, and to point us to Jesus. And this, after all, is what faithful ministers of the gospel aim to do (Acts 5:42; Rom. 15:20; 1 Cor. 1:23; Phil. 1:18), yes, must do. In this, the great expounder of biblical truth is a faithful example for us to follow. To pastors and teachers of God’s word, it is my hope that this selection of quotations will prove useful in your studies and helpful in your teaching and preaching. If new generations of pastors, Bible students, teachers, and, indeed, believers in general are introduced to Ryle’s writings through this book, I will be grateful to have played a small part in pointing the way.

There have been a number of people who have encouraged me in the creation of this anthology. Were it not for the help of David Davis giving me many of the Banner of Truth’s volumes of Ryle, and the encouragement of Jeremy Baker, Weston Stoler, Clayton Willis, Bulut Yasar and others with whom I shared so many Ryle quotations, this work may have remained on my laptop’s hard drive for my own personal benefit and that of the congregations I served. I am particularly grateful to my family for giving me the extra time to read and compile this book of quotes, and to Rev. Jonathan Watson, the Banner of Truth’s senior editor, for his kind encouragement.

Daniel McManigal

Florida

May 2025

The Truth Spoken in Love: An Anthology of Quotations from J. C. Ryle releases on September 22. You can sign up for the Waitlist to be notified as soon as it is available for order.

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‘One of the first developments in thought on prophecy came as further attention was given to the scriptures bearing on the future of the Jews. Neither Luther nor Calvin saw a future general conversion of the Jews promised in Scripture; some of their contemporaries, however, notably Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr, who taught at Cambridge and Oxford respectively in the reign of Edward VI, did understand the Bible to teach a future calling of the Jews. In this view they were followed by Theodore Beza, Calvin’s successor at Geneva. As early as 1560, four years before Calvin’s death, the English and Scots refugee Protestant leaders who produced the Geneva Bible, express this belief in their marginal notes on Romans chapter 11, verses 15 and 26. On the latter verse they comment, ‘He sheweth that the time shall come that the whole nation of the Jews, though not every one particularly, shall be joined to the church of Christ.’ The first volume in English to expound this conviction at some length was the translation of Peter Martyr’s Commentary upon Romans, published in London in 1568. The probability is strong that Martyr’s careful exposition of the eleventh chapter prepared the way for a general adoption amongst the English Puritans of a belief in the future conversion of the Jews. Closely linked as English Puritanism was to John Calvin, it was the view contained in Martyr’s commentary which was received by the rising generation of students at Cambridge.

Among those students was Hugh Broughton (1549–1612) who had the distinction of being the first Englishman to propose going as a missionary to the Jews in the Near East, and also the first to propose the idea of translating the New Testament into Hebrew for the sake of the Jews. Broughton’s ardour for the conversion of the Jews found no sympathy, however, with the English bishops whom he had early offended by his Puritan leanings. Though given no preferment in the English Church he was so well known in the East on account of his learning that the Chief Rabbi of Constantinople wrote to him in 1599 and subsequently invited him to become a public teacher there! This early possibility of a mission to the Jews was thwarted by the Church authorities, but Broughton’s writings—of which the best known was probably his Commentary on Daniel, 1596—stimulated further study of the whole question.¹

Broughton was too much an individualist ever to become a leader of the Puritan movement. Two years before he was ejected from his fellowship at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1579, William Perkins had entered the same college, a man whom we noted earlier as doing so much to influence the thinking of many who were to preach all over England. Perkins speaks plainly of a future conversion of the Jews:

The Lord saith, All the nations shall be blessed in Abraham: Hence I gather that the nation of the Jews shall be called, and converted to the participation of this blessing: when, and how, God knows: but that it shall be done before the end of the world we know.²

The same truth was opened by the succession of Puritan leaders at Cambridge who followed Perkins, including Richard Sibbes and Thomas Goodwin. In his famous book, The Bruised Reed, mentioned earlier in connection with Baxter’s conversion, Sibbes writes:

The Jews are not yet come in under Christ’s banner; but God, that hath persuaded Japhet to come into the tents of Shem, will persuade Shem to come into the tents of Japhet, Gen. 9:27. The ‘fulness of the Gentiles is not yet come in,’ Rom. 11:25, but Christ, that hath the ‘utmost parts of the earth given him for his possession,’ Psa. 2:8, will gather all the sheep his Father hath given him into one fold, that there may be one sheepfold and one shepherd, John 10:16. The faithful Jews rejoiced to think of the calling of the Gentiles; and why should not we joy to think of the calling of the Jews?³

This note of joy is significant. It had already been struck by Peter Martyr. If a widespread conversion of the Jews was yet to occur in the earth then the horizons of history were not, as Luther feared, wholly dark. Maintaining the truth that the great day for the church would be the day of Christ’s appearing at the end of time, Sibbes nevertheless saw warrant for expecting what he calls ‘lesser days before that great day.’ He continues: As at the first coming of Christ, so at the overthrow of Anti- Christ, the conversion of the Jews, there will be much joy . . . These days make way for that day. Whensoever prophecies shall end in performances, then shall be a day of joying and glorying in the God of our salvation for ever. And therefore in the Revelation where this Scripture is cited, Rev. 21:4, is meant the conversion of the Jews, and the glorious estate they shall enjoy before the end of the world. ‘We have waited for our God,’ and now we enjoy him. Aye, but what saith the church there? ‘Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.’ There is yet another, ‘Come, Lord,’ till we be in heaven.⁴

From the first quarter of the seventeenth century, belief in a future conversion of the Jews became commonplace among the English Puritans. In the late 1630s, and in the national upheavals of the 1640s—the period of the Civil Wars—the subject not infrequently was mentioned by Puritan leaders. As a ground for hopefulness in regard to the prospects of Christ’s kingdom it was introduced in sermons before Parliament or on other public occasions by William Strong,⁵William Bridge,⁶ George Gillespie,⁷ and Robert Baillie,⁸ to name but a few. The fact that the two last-named were commissioners from the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland at the Westminster Assembly, which was convened by the English Parliament in 1643, is indicative of the agreement on this point between English and Scottish divines. Some of the rich doctrinal formularies which that Assembly produced, bear the same witness. The Larger Catechism, after the question, ‘What do we pray for in the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer?’ (‘Thy kingdom come’), answers:

We pray that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fulness of the Gentiles brought in . . . that Christ would rule in our hearts here, and hasten the time of his second coming.

The Directory for the Public Worship of God (section on Public Prayer before Sermon) stipulates in similar language that prayer be made ‘for the conversion of the Jews.’

This same belief concerning the future of the Jews is to be found very widely in seventeenth-century Puritan literature. It appears in the works of such well-known Puritans as John Owen, Thomas Manton and John Flavel, though the indices of nineteenth-century reprints of their works do not always indicate this. It is also handled in a rich array of commentaries, both folios and quartos—David Dickson on the Psalms, George Hutcheson on the Minor Prophets, Jeremiah Burroughs on Hosea, William Greenhill on Ezekiel, Elnathan Parr on Romans, and James Durham on Revelation: a list which could be greatly extended.

Occasionally the subject became the main theme of a volume. Perhaps the first in order among these was The Calling of the Jews, published in 1621 by William Gouge, the eminent Puritan minister of Blackfriars, London; the author was a barrister, Sir Henry Finch. A slender work, Some Discourses upon the Point of the Conversion of the Jews, by Moses Wall, appeared in 1650,⁹ and nineteen years later Increase Mather, the New England divine of Boston, issued his work, The Mystery of Israel’s Salvation Explained and Applied.

That there shall be a general conversion of the Tribes of Israel is a truth which in some measure hath been known and believed in all ages of the Church of God, since the Apostles’ days . . . Only in these late days, these things have obtained credit much more universally than heretofore.

So Mather wrote in 1669.’

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‘And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.’

— Luke 18:13

After the Israelites had been conquered by the Romans, it became necessary for them to pay taxes and customs to their oppressors. Publicans were wealthy, corrupt Israelites who promised to pay a given sum into the Roman treasury for each province in Israel. In order to obtain sufficient amounts to pay the taxes, to generously compensate for their own labour and risk, and often to pay Roman governors for allowing oppressive practices, the publicans excessively over-charged their fellow citizens. They kept large portions of the money they received to enrich themselves and live extravagantly. It was the publican Zacchaeus who admitted that he had obtained many goods by fraud (Luke 19).

Needless to say, the publican’s riches led to a sinful life. Where there is plenty of money, the doors of sinful pleasures open up. The same loose principles that allowed their consciences to deceive their fellow citizens also allowed them to live in sin. The Bible often mentions ‘publicans and sinners’ in the same breath.

No wonder that the Jews refused to associate with the publicans. They were traitors and oppressors of their own people and they were shameless and lawless men. They had made themselves worthy of the contempt of the people. A poor honest man would never accept charity from a publican. Seen in this light we can somewhat appreciate the Pharisee’s prayer. Aren’t we also, when we hear of the publicans, thankful we aren’t like them? If Christ’s mission had not been to save sinners, he would never have entered the custom house except to destroy the publicans in righteous indignation.

But here we see a publican, not at the receipt of customs, but in the temple, bowing down before God. God has become too strong for him and sin has become too much for him. The man looks for a place where he can pour out his heart before the Lord. Although he must acknowledge that it would be just if he were cast away from God’s presence forever, he cannot stop seeking after God. One might suppose that such a person would flee as far away from God as possible, but no, he clings to the Lord; if he perishes, he perishes.

How the people who entered the outer court must have despised him! They must have shunned him as if he were a leper. The Pharisee is so indignant that he cannot refrain from mentioning the publican’s appearance in his prayer. It took a lot of nerve for such a vile specimen of humanity to appear inside the temple!

But the one who had the least nerve was the publican. He knew better than anyone that he was the lowest creature, and with every step he took he knew too that he was unclean. He dared go no further; he stood afar off with downcast eyes. It would be a miracle for him if he would not perish there before God’s holy countenance! His humility was not put on. Some people say very humbly that they are satisfied with the lowest place, but underneath this humility is pride. What a good thing it is to have an attitude of humility in prayer! Humility is the first thing a sinner learns and also the last thing.

With downcast eyes the publican smites his hand on his breast. When things go wrong people often hit themselves on the head to show that they don’t know what to do. But when they see that the root of their problem is their own sin, they don’t strike their head, but rather their breast, just as this publican did. The publican places his hand where his spiritual pain is: ‘Here it is, inside of me,’ he seems to say as he strikes his hand on his breast. And that is where the seat of sin is. This publican has been mortally wounded with the sword of his own sin.

Not until now does he begin to speak; the attitude of his heart preceded his words. What an immense difference there is in the way we draw near to God. We can come with the same words the publican used and yet lack his attitude of heart. Much more important than what we say is the attitude in which we approach the Lord. The all-knowing God looks at the heart first. ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner,’ the publican cried. The Greek actually says, ‘O God, be merciful to me the sinner.’ The publican feels himself to be not just a sinner, but the sinner. For him only one sinner exists and that is he.

As long as we are just a sinner, one among many, and as long as the concept of sinner is still a general idea for us, then we have not yet become the sinner before God. We can acknowledge that we are a sinner among many with faults and shortcomings, but never feel personal guilt. When we finally do feel guilt, we don’t try to excuse ourselves by pointing to others, but we ourselves become the only and greatest sinner.

What does it actually mean to be a sinner before God? To understand that we will see what the original Greek says. There a word is used that means ‘missing the mark.’ We need to realize that we have missed the excellent mark for which we were created in paradise—to live to God. We missed the mark because we broke away from God to live to self. The prophet Daniel named many of King Belshazzar’s sins when the hand on the wall wrote ‘Weighed in the balances, and found wanting.’ But the chief sin of Belshazzar was that, ‘God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified.’ Let us meditate on these words, ‘missing the mark.’ We not only have sin, but we are sin. Man comes to God, not only with sin, but as one who is sin.

Doesn’t that humble you? What else can you do but ask for grace? The publican offered no tithes and didn’t boast of fasting twice a week. He could only ask for grace—grace or death.

When a sinner prays like that for grace he leaves God free to grant grace or withhold it. God’s sovereignty is acknowledged and not a word is spoken against God, even if no answer comes from heaven. Grace leaves God free, otherwise it is not grace. It is hardly necessary to add that such a humble prayer has no value in the eyes of the one who prays. Sometimes the complaint is heard, ‘If my prayer were only a true prayer.’ Here the idea is that there is some merit in prayer itself. But if you are waiting for a good prayer you will wait in vain until you die.

The publican didn’t and couldn’t wait until he knew his prayer was true. Moreover, no prayer has ever been heard because of any intrinsic value of the prayer. Humility cannot move heaven. The publican knew that. Therefore he doesn’t place any value on his humility. Had he done that, he would have something to offer to God and then, in principle, there would have been very little difference between him and the Pharisee.

Be sure you understand that the attitude of your heart cannot move God. If you think that, you will end up in the dark. Humility consists in being dependent on grace alone. Many prayers have not been answered because in his wisdom God has determined otherwise. Yet a prayer for grace has never been rejected. The publican experienced this, for he went to his house justified.

Does the answer always come so quickly? Grace is all-sufficient, whether a crumb falls from heaven for the first time, or whether something more is given later on. The lesson here is that ultimately there is only one thing we should pray for—grace. Has that become your prayer?

What a short prayer! But for the Lord it is not too brief, for a prayer for grace is always accompanied by a broken heart. To ask for grace includes the acknowledgment of God’s righteous judgment and of our own lost condition. It means that we agree with God’s justice and confirm our sentence, even if our request would be rejected.

This is very humiliating for man. Because the crown has fallen from his head he must sink and perish, except he end up in the arms of God’s good pleasure—that is Christ. Christ is the only fountain of grace. He must do what we cannot do. To pray for grace is yielding oneself to the sovereignty of God and simultaneously resting in the mercy of God.

Such a prayer glorifies God. It is well-pleasing to the Lord when a fallen man acknowledges his fall before the holy throne. It is well-pleasing to the Lord when a prodigal son or daughter comes back in this way. Yes, the Lord waits for such a son or daughter. When they stood afar off and dared not raise their eyes, they could not see that there was a Saviour who was waiting to pay their debt.

Doesn’t this encourage you? The Lord is actually waiting to pay your debt. There is a Redeemer for the debts you owe and it is the Saviour’s joy to freely bestow his meritorious grace on publicans and sinners. We are never too wicked to come to Jesus. We can only be too good in our own eyes.

Do not despair then! Do not give up! It is Satan who keeps you away from the throne of grace, suggesting that you are too wicked, for Satan also knows that it is a throne of grace. He does not want you to end up in the arms of God’s mercy, and therefore he seeks any means to keep you from the closet. To one he says, ‘You are good enough’ and to another he says, ‘You are too wicked.’

Because sin remains in us until our last breath, we will never get beyond the publican’s prayer. The closer we are drawn to God, the greater our sin seems to us. Before his throne, in his holy light, we always stand in need of more grace. Not only is grace experienced as a free gift, but it becomes a daily way of living in Christ. Otherwise we would perish. Therefore the last prayer to be prayed will be, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner,’ for only publicans and sinners are received at the gate of heaven.

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Who will believe what we preach? And to whom will the arm of the
Lord be revealed? 2 He will grow up before him like a young shoot,
and like a root in dry ground. He has neither form nor comeliness,
and we saw that there was no excellence in him that we might desire
him. 3 He was despised and rejected among men, a man of sorrows,
familiar with infirmity, so that men in their scorn will hide their
faces from him, and none will esteem him. 4 Truly he bore our weaknesses
and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken by God,
and afflicted (Isa. 53:1-4).

WE began by pointing out that although the gospel was to be preached throughout the world, it would not be well received by most people. The prophet made this point clear, so that God’s children should not be alarmed when they saw the unbelief of those into whose ears the message of salvation had been drummed, and who nevertheless were unwilling to accept it. It is strange indeed that God should call men to him and should try to win them in the kindest and most gracious way possible, but that they should turn away from him and deliberately refuse to come to the salvation which is set before them. It seems impossible, yet this is what experience shows us. As a result, the prophet proclaims that when God with trumpet sound seeks to make his gospel known, it is only a small number who believe.

Isaiah now explains the reason: God is revealing his power, with the aim of giving faith to those who, left to their natural understanding, would remain in unbelief. Why is it that we see so many who reject the gospel? Why are so many weary of it, or so offended that they would rather be like those who despise God than draw near to him? Why is this, I ask, if not because we imagine that faith lies in the power of each of us? Isaiah, on the contrary, declares that although God commands that his word be proclaimed to all—that is, to both good and bad—nevertheless he is secretly active in his elect, causing them as it were to feel his arm and power.¹

Observe, then, that when the gospel is preached it will be like a meaningless sound until our Lord reveals that he is the one speaking. He does not grant this gift to everyone. So God’s power is hidden from the reprobate; it is a privilege given to few people, to those he has elected and adopted in order to bring them to eternal life—to those who have his assurance that the gospel is the message of salvation, and that it is the sure truth to which they must hold. That, in brief, is what the prophet Isaiah seeks to convey in this verse.

For our part we must be armed and equipped to meet the obstacle which the devil sets before us. For when we see so many people resisting the gospel—yes, the very greatest, and those highly regarded by men—we are almost led to think that this cannot be God’s word. Why do we think that? Our faith is shaken because we depend too much on men. Let us overcome, then, everything which is of the world, and let us recognize that when God speaks, we must submit to him. Even if no one keeps us company, even if everyone is our enemy, let us nevertheless receive with purity of faith whatever God declares. And to avoid being overly surprised that people should be so wilful as to war against their God, against the one who created them and who shows himself to them as their Redeemer, understand that this is not given to all, and that faith is a particular gift which God keeps as a treasure for those he has chosen.

Although we know that our duty is to cleave to God, we should realize that faith is not something which of our own accord we give to ourselves: God enlightens us and by his Holy Spirit gives us eyes to see. In doing so he reveals to us his power; that is, he produces so lively an impression in our hearts that we know that the gospel comes not from men, but from him. That, in sum, is what we have to remember about this text. So we should boldly defy the unbelief and obstinacy of those who rebel against God, and we should walk where he calls us, accepting all the benefits he offers us, lest we be guilty of the ingratitude which the prophet here denounces and condemns in all who will not obey the gospel message.

That said, Isaiah shows that people do not deign to believe in Jesus Christ, since they see him as one who is marred. Our Lord Jesus, we know, is called ‘a stumbling stone’ and ‘a rock of offence’ (Rom. 9:32; 1 Pet. 2:8), because men strike hard against him. Yet he was given to us by God his Father for a quite different purpose: that we should be grounded in his grace, and that he should be the rock sustaining all of us. There is no one else who can give us solidity and support, only he. We ourselves are in a state of flux; hell yawns wide to swallow us up; we must rely for support on our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why he is said in the twenty-eighth chapter of Isaiah to have been set as a precious cornerstone on which God’s temple would be built, a firm rock upholding the whole edifice (Isa. 28:16). The prophet also adds that in the kingdom of Judah and in the house of Israel he would be a rock of offence (Isa. 8:14).

In this passage our Lord Jesus is described as a small shoot, a root springing from dry ground, that is, from barren soil. He will be despised; no one will deign to look upon him; all will turn their faces from him; he will be an object of hate. That is why so few people will believe the gospel, for we always want to look good in our own eyes; we always want to shine. God, however, in seeking to redeem us, worked along very different lines. As Paul says, the world had no use for God’s wisdom which revealed him as Creator, so that simply by looking at the heavens and the earth we might come to him (Rom. 1:19-20). God therefore changed his way of doing things: he employed a certain kind of folly in order to instruct us (1 Cor. 1:21). As I said earlier, we must all be taught by God’s marvellous wisdom, which is manifest, high and low, to everyone in the world. Our minds, however, grew heavy and dull, which is why God employed folly of a sort by sending his only Son and by subjecting him to every kind of infirmity. The result was that, being born in a stable but rejected by the world, he remained a poor artisan throughout his life. Finally, we learn that everyone rose up against him, and with such fury that they loathed him, considering him to be the enemy of all; in the end they crucified him. This form of death was cursed by God (Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:3). He was not only marred by men’s blows, by their spitting and by the crown of thorns; he suffered the curse of being hung between two thieves, as if he were the most hated man that ever lived or was ever known to men. This was a frightful form of death, because it fell under the law’s curse.

In these ways, then, he was marred, and it was offensive in men’s eyes. Isaiah therefore insists that people will not believe the gospel because they cannot conceive that it is reasonable. They can on no account accept that God’s Son, the Lord of glory, should have been the object of such abuse and shame. They cannot assent to God’s eternal counsel which he purposed from eternity. Such is the prophet’s meaning here.

Nevertheless, it is said that he will grow up before him. If, at the outset, he is insignificant, God will cause him to grow; he will appear as a small shoot springing from dry ground. Even so he will increase and will flower in all his glory, for God will see to it. At this point the prophet reverts to the theme of our sin, in order to dispel the offence which we feel, thanks to our perverse disposition. When we see our Lord Jesus Christ thus marred, we might refuse to come to him. To avoid this, the prophet discloses the reason for it all. In truth, once we have acknowledged our sins and, at the same time, comprehended the fact of God’s wrath, we will come to Jesus Christ, and our wish to be helped by him will make us all the keener to accept his death and passion. We will recognize that this is the necessary remedy for the evil within us. This, then, is the method which Isaiah employs here.

In comparing our Lord Jesus Christ to a young shoot and to a root in dry and barren ground, Isaiah’s aim is to show that there will be small beginnings which no one will notice, which everyone in fact will laugh at and deride. Already in his eleventh chapter the prophet had compared our Lord to a small shoot, saying that it would come from the stem of Jesse, David’s father (Isa. 11:1). Since at that time the royal house had been thrown down and had lost all greatness, the prophet declares that it will be as in former times. Jesse was a country man; the sons he had were oxherds and shepherds in the fields. His house was therefore obscure and of no repute. It was like the trunk of a tree which had been felled: people would trample upon it; it would be of no consequence.

Jesus Christ was thus, so to speak, a small shoot, but one which would grow so as to give shade to the whole world. Here again the prophet makes it clear that our Lord Jesus Christ was bound to be despised in the beginning. If this had not been said, we might have rightly taken offence on seeing that our Lord’s coming was held in such contempt by men. Scripture, after all, had said that there would always be some who would sit on David’s throne, and that their rule would prosper as long as there was sun and moon (2 Sam. 7:12-13; 1 Chron. 17:11-14; Psa. 89:35- 37). Yet here the royal house has been practically annihilated and swept away. Who could imagine that the promise would be fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ? There was no sign that things would be restored. So when it is said that David’s house would fall and that sovereignty, sceptre and crown would be no more, and that men would feel almost ashamed to see such ruin and desolation—when all this is proclaimed by the prophets, here we have a promising way forward: our Lord Jesus Christ!

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The unwearied and effective manner in which Machen brought into sharp focus the centrality of the Christian view of history and its decisive significance for the understanding of the gospel must be noted. In Christianity and Liberalism he expresses this thought as follows:

All the ideas of Christianity might be discovered in some other religion, yet there would be in that other religion no Christianity. For Christianity depends, not upon a complex of ideas, but upon the narration of an event. Without that event, the world, in the Christian view, is altogether dark, and humanity is lost under the guilt of sin. There can be no salvation by the discovery of eternal truth, for eternal truth brings naught but despair, because of sin. But a new face has been put upon life by the blessed thing that God did when he offered up his only begotten Son.

Machen was also beyond fundamentalism in recognizing that perhaps the most basic issue of all concerned the significance one attached to belief of the Christian message, in short, one’s attitude toward the truth itself. He held that a man might accept all the articles in the creed, including the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ, but that, if in the end he asserted that it didn’t really matter whether one believed or not, and that unbelief was as tolerable as belief, he had far more emphatically denied Christianity than the person who merely denied certain isolated doctrines. In accordance with this evaluation, Machen introduced his work, following the introductory chapter, with an entire chapter on ‘Doctrine.’ Here he shows that the message of Christianity, and of Christ himself, was doctrinal through and through from the very beginning. If one is to have a nondoctrinal religion, or one founded merely on general truth, one must be prepared to give up not only Paul, not only the primitive Christian church, but also Jesus himself. Scepticism or indifference with regard to the history of Christ, therefore, constituted in his judgment the most profound heresy of all.

Machen’s approach was also somewhat distinctive in the particularity of its application to the ecclesiastical situation of his day, and especially the one with which he was most immediately concerned. It will be recalled that the address which was to develop into the book was delivered before an elders’ association. On that occasion he had taken pains to admonish the elders to discharge their own responsibilities in all faithfulness. They were, first of all, to encourage those who were in the forefront of the battle for the Christian faith. In the presbyteries, also, they were to be faithful, and in the crisis of the day there was need of insistence that only men who were wholly loyal to the faith should be admitted to the ministry. In their local congregations they also were to take their stand for the faith; they were, for example, to demand that in the calling of a pastor primary consideration should be given to the candidate’s beliefs.

This practical emphasis finds expression especially in the final chapter of Christianity and Liberalism which is devoted to ‘The Church.’ It contains a powerful indictment of the inclusivism which allowed great companies of persons who had never made any adequate confession of faith, not only into the membership, but even into the ministry and other places of influence. There could be no peace within the church so long as this condition persisted. ‘A separation between the two parties in the church is the crying need of the hour.’ There could moreover be no programme for unity in the church which disregarded the doctrinal issue on the assumption that the doctrinal differences were trivial. Moreover, he pointed out, it would be dishonest to ‘sink doctrinal differences and unite the church on a programme of Christian service’ in view of the solemn commitment of ministers and other officers of the church to maintain the doctrines of the church. The path of honesty is the path trod by the Unitarians who frankly and honestly desired a church without an authoritative Bible, without doctrinal requirements, and without a creed.

In speaking of the deadly weakness with which the present situation was fraught, Machen, though not referring explicitly to the boards and agencies of his own denomination, in effect included them under his general indictment.

The proclamation of the gospel is clearly the joy as well as the duty of every Christian man. But how shall the gospel be propagated? The natural answer is that it shall be propagated through the agencies of the church—boards of missions and the like. An obvious duty, therefore, rests upon the Christian man of contributing to the agencies of the church. But at this point perplexity arises. The Christian man discovers to his consternation that the agencies of the church are propagating not only the gospel as found in the Bible and in the historic creeds, but also a type of religious teaching which is at every conceivable point the diametrical opposite of the gospel.

Machen went on to speak of the difficulty of contributing financial support under such circumstances and the unsatisfactory character of the alternative of designating gifts for particular missionaries. Nevertheless he was so sure that the true missionaries should not be allowed to be in want that he was asking whether it would not be better that ‘the gospel should be both preached and combated by the same agencies than that it should not be preached at all.’ Thus the essential elements of the problem with which Machen was to be faced in the thirties following the publication of Rethinking Missions were already present in the early twenties; indeed there are some evidences that this issue had previously been present in his mind for at least another earlier decade.

Public Reception

Soon after its appearance his colleagues gave expression to their appreciation of his book, and this was duly reported to his mother. Of special interest in connection with Machen’s references to the ecclesiastical situation is the fact that Stevenson and Erdman, with whom he had differed profoundly on the church union issue, were critical of these utterances. Writing on March 3rd, he says:

Next to Army Charlie Erdman seems to have been the first man in Princeton to read my book through. He wrote me a very nice note—but expressing regret that I had not made an exception of Presbyterian missionaries on p. 171. Dr Erdman really seems to think that Presbyterian missionaries are all O.K.

And the following week he said:

Dr Stevenson wrote me a long letter with praise of the book, but expressing the view that we should not stir up trouble by cutting the liberals out of the Church, but should let them remain in the Church and try to win them!

Though cordially received by the conservative religious press both within his denomination and without, the book was roundly criticized by the liberals. One facet of criticism, represented by The Presbyterian Advance and The Continent, was that liberalism as depicted by Machen was unknown in the Presbyterian Church. Machen indeed had not declared that all the liberals held to liberalism as he expounded it. While maintaining that liberalism represented ‘no mere divergence at isolated points from Christian teaching,’ and that it constituted ‘in essentials a unitary system of its own,’ he said:

That does not mean that all liberals hold all parts of the system, or that Christians who have been affected by liberal teaching at one point have been affected at all points. There is sometimes a salutary logic which prevents the whole of a man’s faith being destroyed when he has given up a part. But the true way in which to examine a spiritual movement is in its logical relations; logic is the great dynamic, and the logical implications of any way of thinking are sooner or later certain to be worked out.

On the other hand, Dr John A. MacCallum, an outspoken modernist minister of the Presbyterian Church, reviewing the book in the Philadelphia Public Ledger for April 28, 1923, admitted that Dr Machen’s position was that of ‘traditional Presbyterianism.’ He insisted, however, that liberalism, viewed as an attitude and atmosphere that had moved away from the ancient constitutions, had every right to remain in the Church. The liberals he held are men who ‘have accepted the enlarged view of the universe which has been established by modern astronomy, geology and biology. Instead of blindly denying scientific facts as the obscurantists have always done, they have adjusted themselves to them, and in so doing have increased their faith and urbanity and consequently extended their influence, particularly with the educated classes … Liberalism is an atmosphere rather than a series of formulas.’ It is noteworthy that Dr MacCallum did not face the issue involved in the fact that all Presbyterian ministers were called upon to subscribe in the most solemn terms to the constitutional formulas of doctrine.

The Unitarians were more sensitive on this point, as a review in the Pacific Unitarian (June-July, 1923) discloses:

What interests us is that from the point of view of a certain type of theology, Dr Machen’s arguments are irrefutable. His logic, it seems to us is impeccable. The issue does exist and does confront us. For the first time he has done us the great service of putting it in a clear-cut and definite form. You must be either a believer or an unbeliever, an evangelical or a liberal, you cannot be both at the same time. Our judgment is that Dr Machen puts the liberal party within the evangelical church where it has not a sound leg to stand on.

The extent to which Christianity and Liberalism came to be read, as account was taken of the struggle in the churches, is indicated by the diverse comments of Walter Lippmann and Lewis Browne. The latter, in The Nation for June 27, 1923, takes delight in the ‘godly mischief ’ which he discovers in the current situation as men like Percy Stickney Grant were ‘throwing off the cumbersome baggage’ that has kept the church lagging far in the rear. And Browne characterizes Machen’s book as follows: ‘If any imagine that the work of godly mischief, of ridding Christianity of its doctrinal barnacles, is unopposed in theological circles, they should read this precious volume. It is a broad and inclusive condemnation of any and every attempt to let light into the attic of theology.’ In contrast to this vitriolic and superficial estimate stands that of Lippmann who, in 1929, stated in A Preface to Morals:

It is an admirable book. For its acumen, for its saliency, and for its wit, this cool and stringent defence of orthodox Protestantism is, I think, the best popular argument produced by either side in the controversy. We shall do well to listen to Dr Machen. The liberals have yet to answer him.¹

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“Let not the infirm and aged say that they can now do nothing for God. They can do much; and for ought they can tell, more than they ever did in the days of their vigour. It is a beautiful sight to see men laden with fruit, even in old age. Such fruits are generally more mature than those of earlier days; and the aged saint often enjoys a tranquillity and repose of spirit, which is almost peculiar to that age. David, or whoever is the author of the 71st Psalm, prays most earnestly a prayer which should be daily on the lips of the aged: ‘Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.’ And again: ‘Now also when I am old and grey-headed, forsake me not, until I have showed thy strength to this generation, and thy power to all that are to come.’ Let the aged then tell to those that come after them, the works of divine grace which they have witnessed or which their fathers have told them. Let them be active as long as they can, and when bodily strength fails, let them wield the pen; or if unable to write for the edification of the church, let them exhibit consistent and shining example of the Christian temper, in kindness and good will to all; in uncomplaining patience; in contented poverty; in cheerful submission to painful providences; and in mute resignation to the loss of their dearest friends. And when death comes, let them not be afraid or dismayed; then will be the time to honour God by implicitly and confidently trusting in His promises. Let them ‘against hope believe in hope’. It is by faith that the last enemy must be conquered. He that believeth shall not be confounded, in this trying hour. The great Shepherd will not forsake His redeemed flock, for whom He has shed His blood; and though the adversary may rage and violently assault dying saints, he shall not overcome them. Each one of them may say with humble confidence: ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’”

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Thankfully, however, the men who contributed to these addresses on The Revival of Religion present us with a theology and practice of revivals which, if prayerfully read, will surely overcome these many objections. The authors of this volume knew that genuine revivals were as far removed from “extravagant fanaticism” as night is from day.² They believed this, in part, because they had experienced, and were living through, genuine times of revival.

In the forty years prior to these lectures, Scotland had been favoured with true revivals, for example, at Moulin in 1800; in Skye in 1814; in Arran in 1818; in Lewis, 1834; and at Kilsyth in 1839.³ This adds a special lustre to this book. It is no theoretical reflection on revival. Those who delivered these lectures knew what they wrote about. Indeed, it was “in consequence of… the time of refreshing” at Kilsyth that “it was thought expedient that a course of lectures should be delivered in Glasgow on the subject of Revivals of Religion, for the purpose of communicating right views and removing prejudices on that all-important topic.”

But it was no mere experience that formed these men’s views on revival. Indeed, references to contemporary events are remarkably few, either relating to revivals of the time, such as Kilsyth, or the momentous events which would lead to the formation of the Free Church of Scotland.⁴ Rather, it was theological conviction, born from a close study of Scripture and informed by church history which led these men to the views on revival that they held. And it is these timeless truths which are outlined in this volume.

Indeed, this volume forms a virtual systematic theology of revivals, addressing the nature of revival from almost every perspective. That in itself makes the book valuable. But the names of the authors themselves stand out as worthy of hearing on any topic, far less one as important as this. Consider the names of Robert Candlish, Patrick Fairbairn, A. Moody Stuart, Charles Brown, William Burns.⁵ When these men speak, we do well to listen. But what specifically do they say regarding revival?

Defining revival?

The original preface defined revival as “an unusual manifestation of the power of the grace of God in convincing and converting carelesssinners, and in quickening and increasing the faith and piety of
believers.” John Bonar, who contributes the chapter on “The Nature of a Religious Revival” agrees, stating that “Viewed then with respect to the church, a time of revival is a time of newness of life. Viewed with respect to the world, whether professing or openly careless, it is a time of multiplied conversions.” Revival, then, has a twofold effect. The dead world experiences life from the dead, and the existing life in the church is fanned into new flame. This is just an increase in the ordinary effectiveness of the work of the church.

Building on this, William Arnot, in his chapter on “The Godly Life of Believers,” helpfully outlines that “revival” is not a different species of religion, but simply a heightened blessing on the ordinary means of grace.⁶ He says, “There is no generic—there is not even a specific difference. The things are the same; they are one thing, but in different degrees. Sinners converted in greater numbers than usual, and saints more lively in their faith and love. There is no other difference.” William Burns, writing on “The Mode of Conducting a Revival” echoes this theme.⁷ He states, “A revival of religion is an unusually successful dispensation of religious ordinances, the effect of a copious effusion of the influences of divine grace; but in other respects it comes under the same rules with the more ordinary dispensation, where the effects of the word of grace are less obvious and prominent.”

This emphasis on “ordinary means of grace revivals” is helpful, and stands in contrast to man-made or “manufactured” revivals which are, according to the original Preface, “so mingled with errors, and lead to such abuses, that it is very dangerous to give them any countenance.” These were particularly a feature of revivals connected with “our American brethren” where “they have fallen into such multifarious errors and abuses, in their zealous attempts to ‘get up’ and ‘conduct’ revivals.”

Given this danger of “false” revivals there was “most urgent necessity for the exercise of the most sound religious prudence on the part of those who are friendly to the cause of revivals.” Correct views were to be determined by “the study of the word of God, in the spirit of humility, and teachableness, and prayer” which would lead to being “able to discriminate between what is essential and what is secondary and adventitious—between what is real and what is counterfeit—between what belongs to conversion and what to sympathetic excitement between what is God’s and what is man’s.” The men in this book, having followed this model, lay out their advice and conclusions. Their settled views on revivals, true and false, stand explicitly in the tradition of Jonathan Edwards and W. B. Sprague.⁸

The need for revival

For the authors of this book revival was to be deeply desired. The need for revival is greatest when, according to John Bonar, the condition of church and nation are spiritually low. He states, regarding the nation, revival is most needed “Where darkness is most visible… Where men have most grieved the Spirit of God, most quenched his influences, most striven against them, there is it most needful that he should not depart lest all should utterly perish in their own corruption.” He commented that “these I fear are the great leading features of our own times to a very awful and alarming extent. Infidelity, cold, careless, and inhuman, as it is God-denying, is boldly avowed by many. The Gospel is openly classed by such with the bygone impostures of a departing age; all its power is looked on as the deceit of men and all its claims as only new attempts to enthral the human mind.” If these things described Scotland in 1840, how much more most of the Western world as the second quarter of the twenty-first century begins. If there was need for revival in 1840, there is a tenfold need now! Bonar similarly felt a particular need of revival in his day, as the church had “been deeply affected by the atmosphere with which she has been surrounded, and in which she has too much lived and breathed”. As a result she had “become dim and unsteady; her trumpet has given an uncertain sound; her unity has become broken, and her enemies have triumphed over her.” Again, the parallel to today hardly needs to be drawn out. All to say that if there was a pressing desire for revival in the church in 1840, the urgency and fervour behind our desire today should be even greater.

The means of revival

If revival is needed, what can we humanly do to make it more likely? This is not an unspiritual question, for as the original preface notes, “No sane and intelligent Christian will deny, that even in the economy of grace, the result is not to be expected without the employment of means.” William Burns, who saw revival at Kilsyth, made the same point: “it is obvious that human agency is employed and that wisdom and zeal and activity… prudence… wise consultation, and… untiring watchfulness and activity, are to be called forth in the period of an awakening.” But what are the means to encourage revival? John M‘Naughtan in his address on “The Necessity of the Revival of Religion” notes that “There are two great duties incumbent on the church in all ages, the simultaneous discharge of which is essential to her prosperity, namely, the maintenance of the truth, and the propagation of it in the earth. She must hold fast the form of sound words; and she must go out into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”⁹ As these are the duties of the church in every age, faithfulness in these is the great means to promote and encourage revival. Under these general duties, prayer is the foremost means for encouraging revival. So, Alexander Cumming in his chapter on “Prayer” states, “Blessings of great magnitude are associated with ardour and perseverance in prayer.”¹⁰ He viewed this as the cause of the recent revivals in Scotland, positing that “perhaps the recent effusion of the Holy Ghost dispensed to some favoured localities in Scotland may be partly owing to the spirit of prayer awakened by the danger in which our establishment has been involved.” Cumming’s chapter on prayer is perhaps the most convicting and encouraging in the volume —how we need a greater spirit of prayer! William Burns joins Cumming in striking the same note: “It has been remarked, as an important and encouraging fact in the history of the revivals with which we are best acquainted, that the moving spring of them all has been prayer—believing, earnest, united; by a small number, it may have been only a very few at first, but immediately preceding the remarkable awakenings, by a greater number of Christians brought together, as on sacramental occasions.”

If prayer is the great engine of revival, then obviously believers should pray together frequently, and in particular as a gathered church. Burns makes a practical application of this point by “earnestly pressing upon my fathers and brethren in the ministry the duty and the privilege of having a weekly prayer meeting, wherever circumstances will allow of it, on some evening of the week, over which the minister should preside.” Whilst the particulars of how this is worked out may vary, the general call for a weekly corporate gathering for prayer is one that churches today need to heed, and Christians need to devote their time to. Surely none of us wish to fall under the censure of Charles Brown as he discusses “Symptoms and Fruits of Revival”, that “in dead churches there is little prayer.”¹¹

As well as prayer, preaching is the great means of revival. Burns comments, “while prayer, as we have seen, is the spirit of a revival of religion, the substance of a revival, the pillar and ground of all is the sound, zealous, pointed preaching of Christ.” For Burns this preaching of Christ, to be biblically faithful, had to leave the impression “God was in earnest in calling them, and willing to save them.” The free offer of the gospel is a central feature of preaching in times of revival. Related to this, the preaching that would be used in revival was, for Burns, “not distinguished by what is called talent; few of them exhibit marks of powerful genius… No attempt at oratorical display; no poetical description; no metaphysical dissertation; no learned criticism: but simple, practical truth forcibly presented, illustrated, and applied.” He said, “May the numbers of such preachers be increased a hundred-fold in all the churches; may the Lord pour out his Spirit more copiously on preachers and hearers; then there will be a speaking as of dying men to dying men, feeling themselves so!” This is a prayer we would all do well to take up.

Another means to encourage revival is the godly lives of believers. Bonar noted that “The only book of Christian doctrine or of Christian evidences, which most men can think of reading is the lives of professed Christians. From these they judge what it is to be a Christian, and what claims Christianity has upon them.” Arnot viewed church discipline as a means to encourage and to restore godly living in Christians: “Strict enforcement of discipline is a difficult thing, but it is essential: without it we have no good ground to expect a general revival.” Fasting was also important with Nathaniel Paterson lamenting, in his chapter on “Practical Addresses and Counsel” that “Fasting in not in our day denied to be an ordinance of God; but how seldom, how feebly and formally is it observed.”¹² What was true in general for all believers, was specifically true of the need for godliness in ministers. Arnot noted, “A minister’s example is at least of equal importance with his preaching.”

But all these means were as nothing without the blessing of the Spirit. Paterson so rightly calls us to acknowledge “the agency of the Spirit in the work of revival” and to see “how unavailing, without a divine power, all human efforts are.”

Hindrances to revival

But if there are means to encourage revival, there are also hindrances or impediments to revival. To a degree these are the inverse of the means to encourage revival. But there are important differences and additional factors.

Bonar notes that present lack of success can lead to a defeated and defeatist spirit which hinders revival. He says, “One great cause of this heartlessness is the want of [current] success… Conversion has become so rare that people have almost ceased to look for it… [or] to mourn over the want of it as a deadly symptom of their state. We live on and on from Sabbath to Sabbath, and meet and part from time to time, and no awakening amongst dead souls—no conversion, and yet no deep sense of the awfulness of such a state is felt.” The danger Bonar is highlighting is that we become content to be as we are—dispirited, with no expectations things will change.

Bonar is realistic about how hard it is to lift ourselves above circumstances where “the precious blessings of the gospel are everywhere despised and rejected by those who are perishing for lack of them.” But he is nonetheless clear it ought not to be so, “Our faith failed, and we thought our hope had perished from the Lord. Hence the heartlessness which had come so darkly over the work of the ministry, the work of the eldership, and the work of doing good to souls in general.” Patrick Fairbairn makes the same point in his contribution on “Hindrances to Revival of Religion” that we “are too much satisfied with things as they are, or disposed to make too much of the difficulties standing in the way of reformation.”¹³ If we have no expectation, no prayer in faith, this is undoubtedly a hindrance to revival.

Fairbairn also notes the impact of material circumstances, “the depressed and hard-wrought condition of the great mass of the people… furnishes them with a ready excuse for neglecting the means of grace, and tends, by excessive and long-continued employment about worldly things, to induce upon their whole feelings and character an impress and character most unfavourable to a work of genuine revival.” It is not “unspiritual” to acknowledge the impact of poverty, and so seek to address that. Abject poverty is a hindrance to spiritual work. However, Fairbairn is alert to the opposite danger of being overly concerned with the material and political. He noted that in his day, “from the highest to the lowest ranks of society every man is more or less a politician, and with multitudes politics form such an engrossing theme as to consume nearly the whole of their leisure thought and reading and converse.” This left no time for spiritual thought, and for higher concerns, and this too is a barrier to revival. However, perhaps the most serious hindrance to revival is unnecessary divisions among God’s people. Fairbairn again notes, “[A] great hindrance to a revival of religion, [is] the spirit of division and discord, which prevails in the church, and the consequent absence of that fervent love in which Christ enjoined his disciples with the utmost care and devotedness to walk.” M‘Naughtan says much the same: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, by your love one to another—must not unnecessary division, unauthorised schism, provoke his displeasure, quench his Spirit, and result in the withholding of the grace without which the church must wither and weaken and decay?” The church is sadly all to familiar with this barrier to revival today.

Effects of revival

Despite these hindrances, the men who wrote this volume believed that revival was an ongoing feature of the church of Jesus Christ. Christ would not leave his church without days of blessing and favour. These times of revival, to return to the definition of revival, would not produce new experiences or fruits, but more of the ordinary fruits and graces of Christian experience. In particular, revival could be known, not just by a large number of conversions, but by an increased love for the ordinary means of grace.

So, Brown comments: “Wherever there is a genuine work of God in the soul, there will infallibly be a high regard for the sanctuary of God, for the Sabbath of God, for the mercy-seat of God, for the word of God; for the holy table of God, for the very instruments employed and blessed of God to the soul’s eternal welfare.” Or, again, “The delight of the living soul is in the God of the ordinances. It esteems them only as means of enjoying him. It loves the sanctuary, to behold his beauty, the communion table, as a place of meeting with him, the Sabbath, for the Lord of the Sabbath, the messengers, for their message—their work’s sake.”

True revival then does not produce a taste for the new or the novel. It creates a deep love and thirst for the greater experience of the known and the ordinary—public worship, the Lord’s Day, prayer, the hearing of the word, and the enjoyment of the sacraments. Conversely, the neglect of the Lord’s Day and decline in attendance at public worship, is a sure sign of a cool spiritual climate, and reveals a crying need for God’s people to be revived.

Another effect of revival is highlighted by Brown, namely that “Every revived church will be a missionary church. In living churches, the glory of Christ and the salvation of men will be deemed the business of every man.” An insular church, a church that does not live and breathe evangelistic passion, a church which is not a missionary church, is a church desperately in need of renewal. It is to be feared this renewal is needed in many otherwise sound and conservative churches. Revival would certainly lead every affected church to greater evangelistic zeal and a burden for conversions flowing out into practical outreach.

Revival and Christian union

But there is one further effect of revival that is too significant to subsume among others. And that is an increased unity among Christians. Bonar commented on the sad state of things in his day, “Never for instance were brethren more unworthily or unhappily divided than they have been of late.” Matters have become dramatically worse in the intervening 184 years. However, Bonar went on to say so helpfully and hopefully:

It is gloriously impossible for those who are reconciled to God in Christ Jesus to be permanently unreconciled to one another, and a time of revival, bringing out all the great realities in which they are at one, and sinking all the minor points on which they are divided, has a blessed tendency to unite their hearts, and so gradually to unite their hands in the work of the Lord… It is sweet to find that the divided and separated body of Christ is yet one. It is sweet to discover, beneath the rents at which the world has so long mocked, cords of love still, which bind them fast together by binding them all to one great centre, and that centre Christ.

No less pertinently and profoundly Brown commented:

I believe, brethren, that in one day the outpouring of the Spirit would extinguish the fire of a hundred controversies. The grand spring of discord is pride. Men once brought to their knees… might by duty be forced, but assuredly would not by inclination be drawn into the field of contention. What is the source of many of our keenest controversies? It is the low state of vital religion… Disputes and discords rush in to fill up the very vacuum. In such a soil, to change the figure, disputes of their own accord spring up in rank luxuriance. I am quite well aware that, in existing circumstances, many controversies must be continued; but let the church only be revived—let a spirit of faith and holiness be but extensively poured forth—and the circumstances will change; and we shall find far too much to do in setting ourselves against the common enemy, to have either leisure or heart for conflicts and contentions among ourselves.

There are few greater needs than increased unity among true Christians. The fairest flower of genuine revival among God’s people will be an increased eagerness to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:3).

Eschatology

Perhaps the feature of this volume least likely to receive a favourable hearing is the underlying postmillennial eschatology. This appears infrequently through the book but is the focus of John Lorimer’s chapter, “Encouragements from the Promises and Prophecies of Scripture.”¹⁴ The relation of an optimistic eschatology to evangelistic endeavour and hope for revival will be familiar to readers of Iain Murray’s The Puritan Hope.¹⁵ Those who have read Murray will know Lorimer does not set out a peculiar understanding of the future of the church, but a (perhaps the) common view of the leading divines of the seventeenth to mid-nineteenth centuries.

So, when Lorimer asks “Is there anything to encourage Christians to expect and pray and labour for a revival of religion among their fellow men?” and answers that the word of God holds out “assurances and prophecies of a day of coming universal religious revival” he is simply rehearsing the Reformed teaching he was brought up in. This vision is explicitly postmillennial: “The Millennium shall have its thousand years of joy.” However, this vision is not to be confused with the hopes of the later liberal Protestantism. No, Lorimer comments, “what a contrast is true Christianity to all the systems of man—intellectual or moral or religious, philosophical or superstitious! They can boast of no age of future glory; they have no hope with which to cheer the hearts of their adherents. They may talk of a return of the golden age; but they delude themselves with dreams, their age is an age of iron, and the longer they reign their darkness and tyranny are always the more despotic and hopeless.” Lorimer’s future “golden age” for the church was not to be achieved through human progress, but a by a mighty outpouring of the Spirit.

Nevertheless, Lorimer’s explicit postmillennialism is likely to leave many unpersuaded. However, what should be persuasive is the underlying message of Lorimer’s chapter: that the church has a great task (Matt. 28:19-20) and great promises (John 16:8), and that the church can therefore confidently and expectantly pray for revival.

Other themes

There are too many other themes in this book to dwell long on them. Jonathan Anderson provides a wonderful short explication of the person and work of Christ.¹⁶ Alexander Moody Stuart is equally helpful on the work of the Holy Spirit.¹⁷ Michael Willis provides a wonderful balance on God’s sovereignty.¹⁸ Robert Candlish has much to say on value of preaching generally, and on not neglecting the ordinary means of grace or using lack of revival as an excuse.¹⁹ James Munro provides a run-through of biblical “revivals” and historical revivals, focusing, naturally, on Scotland though also giving attention to the Methodist revivals around the time of Whitefield and Wesley.²⁰

Conclusion

This is a significant volume. The need for revival is great. A prayerful reading of this volume will reveal to us the many ways, tragically, we are hindering revival. It will likewise call us to positive action to use all the means likely, under God’s sovereign blessing, to bring about conditions favourable for revival. Above all it will, surely, take us to the throne of grace, to plead with our merciful Father, Psalm 85:4-6 (ESV): “Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us! Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”

DONALD JOHN MacLEAN
President, Westminster Seminary UK
Trustee, The Banner of Truth Trust
December 2024

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Liberalism on the one hand, and the religion of the historic church on the other, are not two varieties of the same religion, but two distinct religions proceeding from altogether separate roots.
(Christianity and Liberalism)

John Gresham Machen¹ was the man in whom the tensions between traditional credal Christianity and the forces of liberalising modernism broke into the open in titanic conflict. He looms larger in the American consciousness than elsewhere; but this is not to deny that his influence has been felt in other lands. One of my closest English friends was delivered from liberalism and converted to biblical faith by reading Machen’s classic Christianity and Liberalism.

Machen was a native of Baltimore, Maryland, born on 28 July 1881. Like his great mentor B. B. Warfield, he was a Southerner by heritage and conviction; part of this heritage included membership in the Southern Presbyterian Church. Machen’s father was a brilliant and wealthy lawyer, and Machen grew up at the very heart of cultured Maryland society.

Machen studied classics (Greek and Latin language and literature) at Johns Hopkins University, followed by theology at Princeton Seminary, where he sat at the feet of orthodox giants like Warfield and Francis Patton (1843–1932). After Princeton, he spent a year studying in Germany, in 1905. Here his life was shaken to the core by the leading liberal theologian Wilhelm Hermann (1846–1922) of Marburg University, whose joyous passion in communicating Christ—as Hermann understood him—overwhelmed Machen. Hermann belonged to the then dominant Ritschlian² school of German liberalism, which conceived of Jesus in terms of his practical religious ‘value,’ and the moral impact he makes on those who encounter him through the New Testament and its proclamation. Jesus, for Hermann, was not God incarnate as classically understood, but possessed all the value of God for the human soul; he was the one object in the world that awakened and inspired ‘absolute confidence and an absolute joyful subjection; [so] that through Jesus we come into communion with the living God and are made free from the world’ (Machen’s summary of Hermann’s teaching).

We may wonder why Machen was so overpowered by Hermann. Part, at least, of the answer seems to be that he discovered, in Hermann, a passionate and sincere devotion to Christ, bubbling over with life and joy, that he had not (as yet) found in biblical Christianity as represented by its contemporary teachers. When orthodoxy is dull and grey, if not quite dead, it inflicts upon itself a catastrophic wound, tempting honest souls to seek life and joy elsewhere. Machen was ‘almost persuaded’ by Hermann to become a Ritschlian liberal.

Ultimately, Machen stood firm in his Reformed faith, unwilling to trade in his belief in the Redeemer’s true deity, no matter how clothed such denials were in passion, devotion, sincerity, and cutting-edge scholarship. But he had trembled on the brink. This meant that his coming conflict with liberalism would be no detached matter; Machen had seen the face of the enemy at its most beautiful and seductive, and nearly surrendered. This enabled him to contend with liberalism as one who had felt its warm embraces, so that he grasped the nature of the conflict, as it were, from within.

In 1906, Machen began his teaching career at Princeton Seminary, with New Testament as his subject. His time at Princeton coincided with the great Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy in American Christianity. ‘Fundamentalist’ was derived from a twelve-volume essay series, The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth (1910–15). The term is now pejorative, denoting a narrow-minded obscurantism, perhaps allied to religious intolerance and even violence. That, however, would be an unfair and inaccurate characterisation of the original movement, which overflowed with scholarship and mental breadth, counting among its proponents such luminaries as Warfield himself and Scottish Reformed giant James Orr (1844–1913).

As the Fundamentalist movement developed, it is true that it began taking on some of the less attractive qualities for which it later became notorious. Machen himself was always ambivalent about the name and the movement, despite coming to be regarded as its prime champion; he disliked its growing preoccupation with what he felt were cultural taboos rather than clear biblical essentials, and absence of commitment to the church’s historic creeds and confessions.³ But as Machen said, ‘In the presence of a great common foe, I have little time to be attacking my brethren who stand with me in defence of the word of God.’ As for labels, he affirmed: ‘What I prefer to call myself is not a “Fundamentalist” but a “Calvinist”—that is, an adherent of the Reformed Faith. As such I regard myself as standing in the great central current of the church’s life—the current that flows down from the word of God through Augustine and Calvin.’

Machen’s contributions to the Fundamentalist side of the controversy included his scholarly defence of the supernatural character of the apostle Paul’s religion (The Origin of Paul’s Religion, 1921), of the virgin birth (The Virgin Birth of Christ, 1930), The Christian Faith in the Modern World, and The Christian View of Man (both 1935, originally radio lectures that year), and his masterpiece Christianity and Liberalism (1923). His central thesis in the last-named work was to critique the liberal version of Christianity as, in reality, not being the Christian religion at all, but a different manmade religion, since it denied all Christianity’s basic supernatural and historic tenets. Machen did not want to deprive liberals of their civil liberties; they were entirely free to practise their liberalism. But in the name of honesty, they must stop pretending it was Christianity. He especially detested what he looked upon as the rank insincerity of men subscribing to creeds and confessions which they manifestly did not believe, and torturing the language of those creeds to make them mean something no honest person could think they really meant.

The liberal controversy spilled over into Machen’s seminary and church. As liberalism made increasing inroads into Princeton, Machen led an exodus from the seminary in 1929 to form a new theological training school, Westminster Seminary, whose tutors included famous apologist Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987), systematic theologian John Murray (1898–1975), and Old Testament scholar O. T. Allis (1880–1973). Westminster became and remains the single most influential Reformed seminary in the world.

When in Machen’s perception liberalism made analogous inroads into American Presbyterianism, he found he could no longer conscientiously support his church’s official missionary program—it was sending out ‘missionaries’ who did not have the true gospel to proclaim. His first response was to use his wealth to fund a new independent missionary program, rooted in historic credal Christianity; but his liberal-controlled denomination tried him for ‘insubordination,’ deposing him from its ministry in 1934. With a body of sympathisers, Machen established the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1936.⁴ The OPC continues to this day, faithful to the vision of Christianity that had gripped Machen.

Machen died relatively young of pneumonia on New Year’s Day 1937, at the age of fifty-five. He never married, and in some ways led a solitary, perhaps lonely life.⁵ However, his outstanding championship of historic Christianity and the Reformed faith during the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy has left an abiding legacy, in his writings, in Westminster Seminary, and in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Perhaps the noblest tribute to Machen at the time of his death came from journalist H. L. Mencken (1880–1956), well-known for his acidic witticisms, and no friend of orthodox Christianity; yet Mencken was a great friend of honesty and learning, and affirmed in his obituary of Machen that both qualities had been on Machen’s side in the Fundamentalist-Modernist conflict:

He was actually a man of great learning, and, what is more, of sharp intelligence. What caused him to quit the Princeton Theological Seminary and found a seminary of his own was his complete inability, as a theologian, to square the disingenuous evasions of Modernism with the fundamentals of Christian doctrine. He saw clearly that the only effects that could follow diluting and polluting Christianity in the Modernist manner would be its complete abandonment and ruin. Either it was true or it was not true. If, as he believed, it was true, then there could be no compromise with persons who sought to whittle away its essential postulates, however respectable their motives. Thus he fell out with the reformers who have been trying, in late years, to convert the Presbyterian Church into a kind of literary and social club, devoted vaguely to good works. Most of the other Protestant churches have gone the same way, but Dr Machen’s attention, as a Presbyterian, was naturally concentrated upon his own connection. His one and only purpose was to hold it [the Church] resolutely to what he conceived to be the true faith. When that enterprise met with opposition he fought vigorously, and though he lost in the end and was forced out of Princeton it must be manifest that he marched off to Philadelphia [home of Westminster Seminary] with all the honours of war.

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Beginning by extolling God, the author of this psalm contends against the judgment of carnal sense and reason. He confesses that when he compared the prosperity and indulgence of the wicked with the cares and sorrows of the righteous, he was tempted to wonder if God sat in heaven idle and unconcerned; he even questioned whether godliness was worthwhile. But then he reproves his own rash judgment and shows how the saints must be patient so that their faith should not fail under such troubles. He concludes that as God fulfils his secret purposes and his providence takes its course, it will become clear that the wicked do not escape judgment nor do the righteous lose their reward.

A PSALM OF ASAPH: David was probably the author of this psalm, but it may have Asaph’s name attached to it because he was in charge of the temple singing. There is much benefit to be derived from meditating on this psalm, for experience tells us that we can have similar difficulties in keeping our footing on the same slippery ground as the author. We all profess to believe in divine providence, but when temptations challenge us, we discover our convictions are not as strong as we thought.

Besides, Satan dazzles our eyes and bewilders our minds with innumerable deceitful tricks which hide in a mist the divine governance of this world. Meanwhile, the ungodly live as if there will be no final reckoning, while the righteous groan and sigh as they are harassed and reproached by ruthless men. Who then can deny that the saints are not tempted to question whether mere chance determines what happens. As Solomon has observed, men are full of contempt for God because they cannot understand how he can rule the world when there is so much confusion and disorder (Eccles. 9:2 f.).

Even the pagans had the same problem. For example Brutus, who belonged to the Stoic sect, often highly commended divine providence, but when he was defeated by Anthony, he took back all he had said and declared that world events were in the hands of Lady Luck. It is evident, then, that the sentiments of the ungodly fluctuate with every wind of change. We learn therefore that even God’s people have special need of grace lest they be shaken by the same temptations—as David here admits his feet had almost slipped.

73:1. Truly God is good to Israel. The word truly should be understood adversatively as ‘Notwithstanding’, for as a valiant champion the author had been immersed in painful struggle until he at last broke through to the conclusion that, ‘Notwithstanding, God is gracious to his servants.’ Thus these words contain an implied contrast between the evil insinuations of Satan and the Psalmist’s hard-fought testimony to the providence of God, as he passionately proclaims he had obtained the victory. In the psalm, the author opens his heart to us to show how indeed God cares for his people as a father lovingly provides for his family. The God who governs the world is pleased to pay particular attention to the church, defending and maintaining her. The reason why the prophet says God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart is to distinguish those whose circumcision is truly of the heart from others who claim to be members of the church but whose circumcision is only an outward rite. This verse, therefore, corresponds to the words spoken to Nathaniel, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit’ (John 1:47), for Christ there discriminates the true children of Abraham from the hypocrites.

73:2–3. As for me. Assuming David to be the author, he now encourages the common people by citing himself as an example of one who had been trained more than others in the Lord’s school of discipleship, yet was exposed to a frontal assault upon the honour of God. Thus we learn that no one is safe from the danger of falling, unless upheld by his hand. Verse 3 warns us of the danger of quarrelling with God for not setting the world to rights, and the consequent temptation to assume a man can sin with impunity. Because prosperity, even of the wicked, can be wrongly taken as a sign of divine approval, David’s heart was wounded by the temptation to join their company. The word arrogant can also be translated ‘the foolish’; their folly is not that they are deluded, rather that they have no fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom.

73:4. For they have no pangs. Some understand the verse to be saying that evil men are free from illness until the day they die in peace. I prefer to read the verse as simply saying the wicked enjoy good health and are not dragged off to death like prisoners.

73:5. They are not in trouble. Considering how many hardships most people face, it is a sore temptation for the righteous to see the ungodly enjoying ease and pleasure as if they had special privileges providing them with a personal comfort zone where they are exempt from trouble.

73:6. Therefore pride is their necklace. Evil men abuse the kind forbearance of God, wearing their wickedness as if it were both jewellery and rich apparel. Because pride is the mother of all violence, the Psalmist properly puts it first; in their arrogance, the ungodly consider themselves above others whose possessions they shamelessly plunder.

73:7. Their eyes swell out. In the first clause, David is expressing metaphorically the pride with which the ungodly are inflated on account of their wealth. The second clause can be explained in two ways. First, in their wild and extravagant plans, the godless attempt to rise above the clouds, wishing God would create new worlds for them. Alternatively, the meaning could be that the prosperity of the wicked exceeds all they ever hoped for in their wildest dreams.

73:8. They scoff and speak with malice. Having for some time prospered with impunity, the wicked now shamelessly boast of their wickedness. They brag, ‘Is it not in my power to deprive you of your possessions, and even cut your throat?’ Robbers can do the same thing, but they then hide for fear! But these inhuman monsters, forgetting their own mortality, act as if there were no distinction between good and evil. However, some interpreters understand the verse as saying that the wicked intimidate the simple by boasting of the outrages they can inflict on them. In the second clause, David represents them as speaking loftily or ‘from on high’ as if they are little gods who are above other people.

73:9. They set their mouths. As well as deriding their fellow men, they shamelessly defy God, as if they were lords of earth and heaven. There is apparently no obstacle to repress their pride as their tongue struts through the earth. We all know from experience the truth of what David says in this striking hyperbole.

73:10. Therefore his people turn back. Putting these words into the wider context of what has already been said, the verse means that many who had been regarded as belonging to the people of God fall for this temptation (verse 2f.), and are shipwrecked and swallowed up by it. The godly are not referred to, rather counterfeit Israelites who at one time occupied a place in the church. However, even some of the chosen may for a time be overwhelmed and fail firmly to persevere in the right path.

73:11. And they say, ‘How can God know?’ Temptation now presses hard upon those believers who are temporarily dazzled by the prosperity of the ungodly. It is well known that pagan writers admit that adversity can cause men to forget all knowledge of God. Even Jeremiah remonstrates with God over this same problem, though at the outset he puts, as it were, a bridle on himself (Jer. 12:1f.). It is all too easy to fail to recognize the snares of Satan, and so to protest to God that he is not remedying the moral confusion in society. It is not that believers blaspheme, asserting that everything depends on luck; rather do the godly secretly fret before God, asking why he turns a blind eye to wickedness and permits such disorder among men. Yet as they thus unburden their hearts before him, they long to understand his secret judgments and why they are unfathomable. Thus, upheld by God’s hand, they are preserved from falling into the same abyss of blasphemy as the wicked.

73:12–14. Behold, these are the wicked. Can there be anything which seems to our judgment less reasonable than that persons, whose wickedness is universally acknowledged to be detestable, should be treated by God with indulgence? Indeed, their prosperity seems unstoppable—always at ease, they increase in riches. Therefore David wonders what advantage he had derived from upright living when he has been afflicted all the day long; as often as the sun rose, a new calamity was waiting for him. He reasons this shows innocence goes unrewarded by God, else he would be kinder towards his servants. Note the order in verse 13: first purity of heart, then righteous living.

73:15. If I had said. David now puts a bridle on himself and reproves his sinful inconstancy in entertaining such doubts. The Hebrew of the second clause is difficult. I expound it in this way: ‘To approve such wicked doubts would be transgression, for there are still righteous on earth since you always preserve a people for yourself.’ Assuredly, it is nothing less than a divine miracle that the church, which is so furiously assaulted by Satan and innumerable enemies, continues safe.

73:16–17. But when I thought how to understand this. The verb thought means ‘to consider’ or ‘to weigh’: he applied his mind to understand that part of divine providence referred to; yet by all his reasoning he remained baffled how God continued to govern such a confused world. There is no doubt that he goes on to set the sanctuary of God in opposition to carnal reasoning. The book of the law—the declaration of God’s will—was laid up in the sanctuary, therefore true wisdom can only be found in submission to the teaching of God’s Word. Notice that, speaking of himself and not the rebellious, the Psalmist confesses his efforts were wearisome, that is, unprofitable or lost labour, for it is absolutely necessary to seek illumination from above. In effect, he says, ‘Until God becomes my teacher, I will understand nothing.’ The end of the wicked does not mean their exit from this world, but the judgments of God, for he only delays their just punishment until the appropriate time. There are occasions when he executes justice in this life, but that by no means excludes the final verdict on the last day; let us therefore suspend our own judgments as long as we remain in this world. In short, with the Psalmist, we must first ask God to open our eyes and then assign to his Word the authority due to it.

73:18. Truly you set them in slippery places. Having become like a new man, David now calmly views from a high watchtower the secrets previously hidden from him (Hab. 2:1). Everything in this world is slippery—uncertain and changeable; yet this seems to be the lot of the righteous as well as the wicked. But we who are believers rest on the firm foundation of God’s power, in spite of the uncertainty of our present condition; even when we stumble, the Lord raises us up. In contrast, the uncertainty of the condition of the ungodly is that they admire their own greatness, even though they are walking on thin ice; thus by their arrogant presumption, they are preparing themselves for a headlong fall. Life is not a wheel of fortune; God’s secret providence does govern this world.

73:19. How they are destroyed. The Psalmist’s exclamation suggests the sudden judgment of the ungodly is to us incredible, yet he is saying that if only our eyes are opened, we will have real cause for astonishment. However such surprise arises from our own dullness, for if only we looked in faith to the future, we would recognize that divine justice is moving inexorably nearer. The meaning of swept away by terrors is that the unexpected thundering of God upon the ungodly strikes them with dismay. For in order to correct our slowness to understand, God at times may choose suddenly to pursue the wicked with tokens of his wrath.

73:20. Like a dream when one awakes (cf. Isa. 29:7). The pictures in our imaginations of the happiness and desirability of the condition of the wicked are like the illusions of a dream. But those who have been awakened by God’s Word, though they may be somewhat impressed by the splendour of evil men, are not dazzled by it; the light of Christ far outshines it in brilliance and attraction. The prophet therefore calls us to awake from our dreams! Why? Because God himself despises them as phantoms (Psa. 39:6). David uses the word phantom with the meaning of ‘an outward show’. Thus in showing us their true nature, God dispels our darkness and gladdens our minds with a friendly light, enabling us to see, as it were, some rays of the break of day. When he ‘rouses himself’, God will bring into contempt the transitory attraction of the ungodly, and his justice will be executed publicly and openly as something done in a public market place.

73:21. When my soul was embittered. When he had peevishly complained against God, his heart had been pierced with perverse envy. The Hebrew word translated heart refers to that part of the body which is the seat of our desires. Many of the worldly-wise who deny the providence of God, laugh off ethical problems as freaks of Lady Luck. On the other hand, true believers are pricked in heart when God does not quickly act as they believe he ultimately will.

73:22. I was brutish. David sternly rebukes himself in that he had been foolish, ignorant and had behaved no better than a beast; little wonder he had been so possessed by perverse envy! Whenever we are similarly dissatisfied with the way God is governing this world, let us learn to trace the cause to our fallen understanding. It is important to notice he adds the words towards you; he means, compared with your divine wisdom, in spite of my human reason being superior to that of animals, I became as one of them. When we bow before God, our foolish pride, which lulls us into a mental stupor, can have no place.

73:23. Nevertheless, I am continually with you. We are ‘with God’ in two ways. First, we may say we are with him, when we are aware of living in his presence and being constantly sustained by him. Second, we are also with him when he secretly restrains us, and prevents us from apostatizing. Therefore, though true believers may not be conscious of it, they still abide ‘with God’ as his secret grace continues with them; though they may turn their backs on him, his fatherly eye always watches over them. When he says you hold my right hand, he means God draws him back from that dark chasm into which the reprobate cast themselves. His preservation from uttering blasphemy and his pathway to repentance are due wholly to divine grace. Even slight temptations would overthrow us were we not upheld by his right hand. Indeed, his power is often perfected in our weakness. Thus we see how precious our salvation is in God’s sight. Nevertheless, this doctrine must not be perverted by making it an excuse for slothfulness.

73:24. You guide me with your counsel. The verbs (all future tense) have the sense that God will continue to guide him until he brings him into his glorious, eternal presence. Guidance by counsel is put first. We must ask God to govern us by the Spirit of counsel, for this is how he normally guides his people. Dependence on our own wisdom will invariably end in confusion and shame. Second, there is glory which should not be limited to eternity. Rather it includes a foretaste of what is to come, that is, our blessedness from the start of life with Christ to its consummation in heaven.

73:25. Whom have I in heaven but you? All other things which draw men’s hearts after them are without attraction for David; he desires God alone. Those who give their affection to creatures defraud the Creator of the honour due to him. By the words heaven and earth the Psalmist denotes every conceivable object. By implication he also rejects those deceitful illusions and devices of Satan with which foolish men attempt to fill the heavens. The only way of seeking God is to avoid the by-paths of superstition and pride, and go to him directly and exclusively: there is nothing on earth I desire beside you. However, to be satisfied with God alone, we must understand the multitude of blessings he freely offers us.

73:26. My flesh and my heart may fail. Here there is a contrast between the failing which David felt in himself and the strength with which he was divinely supplied. He is saying, ‘Separated from God I am nothing, but when I come to him there is an abundant supply of strength.’ Most people assume that they only need to come to God when they feel their own weakness. But in confessing his complete nothingness without God, David is saying far more than that, for the word portion in Scripture usually means all a person requires for complete contentment (Psa. 16:5); in God alone the perfection of our happiness consists. It follows therefore that if we fix our minds on some other source of satisfaction we are guilty of ingratitude.

73:27. For behold, those who are far from you. We must rest in God alone, for all who depart from him court destruction. The phrase far from you, which means scattering one’s hope among a variety of other helps, is similar in meaning to what the prophets call ‘spiritual adultery’. Thus the Psalmist is calling for the spiritual chastity of our minds which consists in faith in God, integrity of heart and obedience to the Word.

73:28. But for me it is good. Disdaining all the ever-changing errors and superstitions of the world, David will always seek to be near God. ‘Let others perish,’ he says, ‘if they cannot be prevented from pursuing the world’s deceits, but as for me I will ever seek to maintain communion with God.’ Nevertheless, we only rightly draw near to God when our confidence is exclusively in him as our refuge. Thus David will always have reason to praise God, since he never disappoints those who hope in him. Thus it follows that only those who wilfully shut their eyes to his providence murmur against the Lord.

The preceding excerpt is taken from Calvin’s Commentary on the Psalms: Abridged by David Searle (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2009), pp. 345–354.

The featured image, visible on social media, is by Amit Lahav on Unsplash.

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As we have seen, it was in the area of his opposition to Arminian belief that Pink found himself especially isolated in the years when he sought public ministry. His book The Sovereignty of God (1918) did much to shut doors on him. Yet after his death, when a major renewal  of belief in Calvinistic theology occurred—in no small part aided by his writings—it was the rediscovery of the sovereignty of divine grace, and the certainty that Christ’s redeeming work cannot fail, that gave his writings so much appeal to many. An extraordinary reversal occurred: the truth once so widely rejected had become a magnet and while Christian authors popular in Pink’s lifetime faded from view, he became widely read.

It is said that in 1982 Zondervan Publishing House was steadily selling between 1,500 and 2,000 copies of his Exposition of the Gospel of John every year. Baker Book House at that date had published twenty-two titles by Pink, with combined sales of almost 350,000 copies.¹ There was the same success with his Life of Elijah and Profiting from the Word, published by the Banner of Truth. Of all his titles, however, it is The Sovereignty of God that has done more than any other in redirecting the thinking of a younger generation. The Banner of Truth republished it in 1961, and to date it has sold more than 177,000 copies, plus others in foreign translations.

Pink did not adopt the title of Calvinist, nor did he require a person to be a Calvinist in order to be a Christian, but he did believe that the truths usually identified with that name are vital ones and, more than any other, it is his book The Sovereignty of God that explains why. But the edition of Sovereignty revised by the Banner of Truth in 1961 was not identical with the first edition of 1918, and this is a subject that needs explanation. We have already noted that the 1918 edition was revised by Pink in 1921.² Then another revision was done by him when he was at Morton’s Gap, Kentucky, in 1929. In the Foreword to that edition he wrote: ‘During the last ten years it has pleased God to grant us further light on certain parts of his Word, and this we have sought to use in improving our expositions of different passages. But it is with unfeigned thanksgiving that we find it unnecessary to either change or modify any doctrine.’³ The reader needs to keep these dates in mind in what follows.

How far Pink changed the book in 1929 we cannot tell, for while the text of this third edition has been reprinted many times since, no copies of the editions of 1918 or 1921 have been available to us to make a comparison. But what is certain is that, had he revised it again after 1929, more changes would have been made as his understanding of Calvinistic belief matured. From the 1930s onwards his references to hyper-Calvinism become very noticeable and strongly critical.⁴ The characteristic of that system of thought is the teaching that it is not the responsibility of gospel hearers to believe savingly on Christ. But Pink came to see that his own teaching on human responsibility was defective in the 1929 edition of The Sovereignty of God.

In part his deficiency at that date concerned a confusion in terminology, a confusion which endangered his whole argument. It has been near universally believed in Christian theology that human responsibility means that men are free moral agents – they are not machines, deprived of voluntary choice. But in 1929 Pink denied ‘free moral agency’ (pp. 171, 175, 177, 2 82 etc. ),⁵ apparently on the grounds that he believed it had been destroyed by the Fall of man. He wrote, ‘Strictly speaking, there are only two men who have ever walked this earth who were endowed with full and unimpaired responsibility, and they were the first and last Adams’ (p. 303). Such a statement inevitably suggests that sin has diminished if not removed the responsibility of everyone else for ‘the natural man is not a “free moral agent”‘ (p. 177). Pink said this because he wanted to safeguard the biblical truth that man’s fallen nature renders him spiritually dead and thus unable, without divine grace, to obey God. No Reformed Confession, however, has ever sought to present inability in terms of the cessation of free agency and voluntary choice. It is over what determines choice that Reformed doctrine differs from that of others.⁶

This is not to say that in 1929 Pink was unconscious of the need to show that men are accountable to God. On the contrary, his purpose in his chapter on ‘God’s Sovereignty and Human Responsibility’, retained in the 1929 edition of his book, was to meet the question ‘how the sinner can be held responsible for not doing what he could not do’. But in addressing this question he advanced a theory which he believed could cut what he called ‘the Gordian knot of theology’, namely, ‘The Scriptures distinguish sharply between natural inability and moral inability’ (p. 188). Using this distinction, then, it could be said that Blind Bartimaeus had ‘natural inability’ – he lacked the ability to see – thus differing from men in general whose ‘inability’ is a moral one; it lies, not in the lack of natural faculties, but in their depraved hearts. ‘The sinner’, Pink argued, ‘possesses natural ability, and this it is which renders him accountable to God’ (p. 191 ).

So the unconverted person will be held accountable for not doing what he has ‘the natural ability’ to do, that is to say, read the Bible, use the means of grace, cry to God about his inability and so on. ‘The fact of man’s responsibility rests upon his natural ability’ (p. 200). This argument is supposed to show that God does not, after all, call on men to do what they cannot do, namely, believe on Christ, and so the problem of responsibility is supposedly solved. Yet Pink himself, in a passing sentence, contradicts his case in the following words: ‘Each sinner who hears the gospel is “commanded” to believe ( 1 John 3 :23). Therefore every sinner is responsible to repent and believe’ (p.195).

It may be that Pink inserted the last quotation in his 1929 revision without considering how it ran counter to an earlier statement that responsibility depended on ‘natural ability’. Certainly the ‘Gordian knot’ was not cut after all. It is the more strange that he allowed his earlier explanation of ability to stand in the 1929 edition in that, only two years earlier, when he was in the midst of his first encounter with hyper-Calvinism, he had written an article in Studies in the Scriptures entitled ‘Gospel Responsibility’. In this article his theory that God requires of men only what it is within their ‘natural ability’ to perform is entirely, and rightly, abandoned.⁷ He wrote:

There are some who say, The unregenerate are dead, and that ends the matter – they cannot have any responsibility. But this is manifestly erroneous … The hyper-Calvinist is fond of asking, ‘Would any sensible man go to the cemetery and bid those in their graves come forth! Why, then, ask anyone who is dead in sins to come to Christ, when he is equally incapable of responding?’ Such a question only betrays the ignorance of the one who puts it. A corpse in the cemetery is no suitable analogy of the natural man. A corpse in the cemetery is incapable of performing evil! A corpse cannot ‘despise and reject’ Christ (Isa. 53:3), cannot ‘resist the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 7:51), cannot disobey the gospel (2 Thess. 1:8); but the natural man can and does do these things! God demands of men what they are unable to render Him. We may not understand it, but there it is . . . The gospel contains a call and command from God for all to whom it comes to obey it.⁸

In later articles on the same subject Pink confirms that his mature understanding of responsibility was not as in the text of the 1929 edition. In articles on ‘The Doctrine of Man’s Inability’, published in 1940, he has no hesitation in saying that it is necessary to insist upon both the freedom of the will and free agency, and the distinction between natural and moral inability has gone.⁹ He had come to recognize that man’s free agency and God’s control of all things are both biblical facts. ‘These two things we must believe if the truth is not to be repudiated: that God foreordained everything that comes to pass; that He is in no way blameworthy for any man’s wickedness, the criminality thereof being wholly his. The decree of God in no wise infringes upon man’s moral agency, for it neither forces nor hinders man’s will.’ ‘In all God’s dealings with mankind . . . He exercises His high sovereignty but in no way destroying their moral free agency. These may present deep and insoluble mysteries to the finite mind, nevertheless they are actual facts.’ ‘The Fall has not resulted in the loss of man’s freedom of will, or his power of volition as a moral faculty.’¹⁰

This understanding is vital for a right understanding of the biblical teaching on conversion. In the 1929 edition of Sovereignty, Pink still wrote as if allowing the need for the activity of the human will in conversion would be to deny the necessity of grace, and so he spoke of God ‘coercing’ and ‘compelling’ obedience. He baulked at the idea that it lies ‘within the province of man’s will to accept or reject Christ’ (p.169). He anticipated the objection that Joshua said to Israel, ‘Choose you this day whom ye will serve,’ and sought to answer it by quoting Romans 3:11, ‘There is none that seeketh after God’, as though the first text cannot mean what it says because ‘the Word of God never contradicts itself’ (p. 157).¹¹

Consistent with the above, the truth that the gospel is good news to be pressed on individuals for their acceptance was absent in the 1929 edition of Sovereignty. Along with hyper-Calvinists, he still wanted to reject the idea that gospel invitations are an ‘offer’ of Christ. ‘The gospel is not an ‘offer’ to be bandied about by evangelistic peddlers’ (p. 257). Rather, he thought, it was to be presented primarily as a witness and testimony – ‘no mere invitation, but a proclamation’. Gospel preaching was a statement of facts by which the elect are brought to faith while ‘God suffers’ it ‘to fall on the ears of the non-elect’.

But even as the 1929 edition went into print, Pink’s thought was developing. Perhaps such revision as he did for that edition was done the previous year. At any rate, in an article on ‘Accepting Christ’, published in Studies during 1929, he stated that there is a sense in which the call to ‘accept Christ’ can be justified, and that, certainly, all hearers of the gospel are to be directed to ‘receive’ the Saviour: ‘Of our Saviour it is recorded that He wept over Jerusalem because her children would not come to Him. No heartless fatalist was He. The great apostle to the Gentiles wrote, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Cor. 5:11). Do you do this, brother preacher?’¹²

By 1936 Pink speaks fully and pointedly of the error of hyper-Calvinism, and especially of its denial that ‘it is the bounden duty of all who hear the gospel to savingly trust Christ’.¹³ Now, instead of attempting explanations, as he had done earlier, he quotes a warning from John Newton:

Unless we keep the plan and manner of the Scriptures constantly in view, and attend to every part of it, a design of ‘consistency’ may fetter our sentiments, and greatly preclude our usefulness. We may easily perplex our hearers by nice reasonings on the nature of human liberty, and the Divine agency on the hearts of men; but such disquisitions are better avoided.¹⁴

This is very different from his earlier confidence that the problem of human responsibility is ‘capable of a simple and satisfactory conclusion’. Instead he now warned, ‘If we resort to human reasoning it will inevitably follow that it is quite useless to exhort the unregenerate to turn unto God and come to Christ . . . the things of God cannot be encompassed by human reason.’¹⁵

By the 1930s Pink had thus come to see more clearly how hyper-Calvinism inhibited earnest gospel preaching. ‘It is blankly denied that the gospel calls upon the unsaved to be reconciled to God, or that He requires anything from sinners in order to the forgiveness of their sins.’¹⁶ Whereas true preaching must urge all hearers to respond to the gospel: ‘The evangelist’s message is that there is salvation in Christ for all who receive Him as He is offered in the gospel and put their trust in Him … God is willing to be on terms of amity with the sinner, yet He will not be so until the sinner submits to those terms.’¹⁷ ‘Life is offered in the gospel to those who believe in Christ. Under the law it was unobtainable by fallen men; in the gospel it is proffered as a free gift.’¹⁸

To a friend he writes: ‘The gospel is as free as the air, and 1 Timothy 1:15 gives us full warrant to tell a murderer in the condemned cell that there is a Saviour for him IF he will receive Him . . .The ground on which any sinner is invited and commanded to believe is neither God’s election, nor Christ’s substitution, but his particular need of responding to the free offer of the gospel. The gospel is that Christ died for sinners as sinners (not “elect sinners”) and is addressed to their responsibility.’¹⁹

All these, and many other quotations that could be given, show how Pink’s understanding developed after 1929. After that date he plainly criticized what had been his own mistake: ‘Far too many Calvinists, in their zeal to repudiate the free-willism of Arminians, have at the same time repudiated man’s moral agency.²⁰ He no longer saw any inconsistency in a Christian’s believing in God’s sovereignty and singing

O happy day, that fixed my choice
On Thee, my Saviour and my God!

Similarly, in the correspondence with Harold J. Bradshaw, referred to earlier, Pink vigorously defends the word ‘offer’ over against the Gospel Standard Article that denied ‘the gospel is to be offered indiscriminately to all’.²¹

He wrote to Bradshaw:

I regard Article 29 as unsatisfactory, really meaningless. The Greek word (euaggelizo) used for the preaching of the gospel signifies ‘to announce glad tidings’. But what ‘glad tidings’ can there be in it for sinners unless it presents an all-sufficient Saviour for their acceptance (‘worthy of all acceptation’: 1 Tim. 1:15 ), and what is that but an ‘offer’? Again, can one reject unless there had been something offered to him? Yet Isaiah 53:3 charges the Jews with having ‘rejected’ Christ—see also Matthew 21:42, and John 12:48.’²²

In the articles of 1936 on ‘Duty Faith’, from which we quoted above, Pink gives us some information on what had contributed to his change of understanding. As well as searching the Scriptures, he had been reading more of the Reformers and the Puritans and in doing so he reached the conclusion that, on this subject, certain eighteenth-century writers had departed from the teaching of ‘so many eminent saints of God who preceded them’. To prove this he gives a lengthy series of quotations beginning with these words from John Calvin, ‘The mercy of God is offered equally to those who believe and to those who believe not.’

The eighteenth-century defection, Pink believed, had begun with John Gill and others who, in turn, influenced Augustus Toplady and William Huntington. He traces to Huntington, particularly, the thinking adopted by a number of nineteenth-century Strict Baptists and Independents:

Personally, we have often lamented the fact that Mr Gadsby, and later, Mr Philpot, followed (what we believe was) the error of Wm. Huntington, instead of adhering to that path which had been almost uniformly trodden by the Reformers and Puritans.²³

He had himself still relied on Augustus Toplady in the 1929 text of Sovereignty in order to answer the appeal of the non-Calvinist based on the words, ‘Why will ye die, O house of Israel?’ (Ezek. 18:31). Anxious to avoid any impression that God sorrowed over the destiny of the lost, Toplady (following Gill) wrote on that text: ‘It so happens that the “death” here alluded to is neither spiritual nor eternal death . . . the death intended by the prophet is a political death; a death of national prosperity, tranquillity and security.’²⁴ That was not Pink’s later understanding.

He specifically criticized Gill for his misinterpretation of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:20, ‘Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.’²⁵ The statement means exactly what Paul said!

Pink’s thought thus evidently matured, and it leads us to recognize a lesson: not all the opposition he encountered for his teaching was due to the offence of the truth. His zeal for the doctrines of grace would surely have been more effective in his early life if he had then enjoyed the more balanced understanding of later years. We have seen above how, at the age of thirty-two, he wanted to press on Herendeen the belief that the nonelect were ‘necessarily created unto damnation’.²⁶ Herendeen was quite right to be unreceptive. Similarly Pink later had good reason to understand very differently the ‘lengthy duel’ he described having with Alesor Marshall, in 1921, over whether the gospel is an ‘offer’.²⁷ At that date Pink had not learned the truth of Richard Baxter’s aphorism, ‘Overdoing is undoing.’ He was later to be very clear in affirming that it is as the truth is presented in its biblical proportions that it is most likely to be received among believers.

All this being so, the question arises why Pink did not revise his book on Sovereignty after 1929. There is probably more than one reason. First, there was no demand for the book. It was after his death that reprints multiplied. Second, Herendeen claimed the copyright, and Pink was no longer in touch with him. It was only in 1949, three years before Pink’s death, that Herendeen was to reissue the 1929 edition, this time with a Foreword of his own in which there is no reference to the author. It is perhaps significant that Pink made not the slightest reference to the availability of this reprint in the pages of Studies.

In view of the known changes in Pink’s thought, the only alternatives for the Banner of Truth Trust, which began publishing in 1957 (five years after his death), were to revise the 1929 text or to leave his Sovereignty of God unpublished in Britain. To reprint the edition of 1929, as we regret has continued to be done in America, would have been to misrepresent Pink’s own final convictions on the issues stated above. Worse, an unrevised edition would have been calculated in places to enforce the very hyper-Calvinism which Pink came to recognize as a real danger to the biblical teaching. The revival of sovereign grace teaching for which he worked and prayed was one that would be accompanied by evangelistic passion.

To critique Pink’s Sovereignty of God as we have done is not to question the fundamental principle of his treatment of his subject. God is sovereign, and it is to the grace that is sovereign that every believer owes his salvation. God loves the elect with a special and invincible love. To uphold that truth Pink argued in his book for the denial of any broader love in which God shows compassion to all and is not willing that any should perish. But many Calvinists, from Calvin to Spurgeon, have believed both that God is sovereign and that he has a love for all people.²⁸ Christians of Arminian persuasion believe God commands that a sincere offer of salvation be made in his name to all men, which offer may be resisted. A biblical Calvinist believes the same, only he believes more. Not all resist because God has chosen them to salvation, while with others he ‘permits their self-destruction despite the entreaties of his benevolence’.²⁹

In his 1929 text Pink had no place for this broader understanding. Dealing with the rich young ruler, concerning whom Scripture says that Christ ‘loved him’ (Mark 10:21), he there argued that it could only mean the man was ‘one of God’s elect’, even although the last we hear of him is that he ‘went away grieved: for he had great possessions’. The only support he gave for his interpretation was that the text says that the young ruler ‘came’ to Jesus and therefore the promise applied to him, ‘him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out’.³⁰

Thereafter we have seen Pink move a good way from handling texts in that manner. He repudiated his earlier hyper–Calvinist interpretation of such texts as Ezekiel 33:11, Matthew 23:37 and Luke 19:41. In his later thought his views of divine compassion were certainly enlarged. Thus when quoting, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,’ he adds the words of Lamentations 3:33 (‘For he doth not afflict willingly [from his heart] nor grieve the children of men’) , and comments, ‘We are told that judgment is “his strange work . . . his strange act” (Isa. 28:21), for it is not as agreeable to Him as His works of mercy. ‘³¹ He had ceased to believe that Christ’s compassion for the lost over whom he wept in Jerusalem was only human rather than divine compassion. He even went as far as saying, as we noted above, ‘God is willing to be on terms of amity [friendship] with the sinner.’ Yet Pink never withdrew from his belief, stated in the 1929 text, that the only love in God is love for the elect. At this one point the Banner of Truth revisers of 1961 went beyond what Pink himself would have allowed; their revision and abridgement removed his case that the love of God is always to be understood in exclusive terms.

Arthur Pink’s great concern, writing in an era when man-centred preaching was so prevailing, was to show that God is not helplessly waiting for the consent of the sinner before he can save him. He was indignant that such an impoverished view of God could ever be received. He had seen how the liberal presentation of the ‘love of God’ had near obliterated in the churches that ‘great love’ that redeems, keeps and saves to glory. For Pink sovereign grace was not an idea. It was the only explanation of all that he was, and of all that he hoped to be. The hymn he had begun to sing from his heart in 1908 he meant to sing for ever:

I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how He could love me,
A sinner condemned, unclean.

How marvellous, how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be,
How marvellous, how wonderful,
Is my Saviour’s love to me.

The post Pink on The Sovereignty of God–Iain H. Murray appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

BROWN had spoken to the main need of the church in a letter to all the members at the beginning of 1908, headed ‘Remember Jesus Christ’ (2 Tim. 2:8). In it he wrote, ‘Is there nothing that will preserve holy boldness, enthusiastic activity, and overflowing joyfulness? Yes, there is. The recipe is found in remembering the living Jesus.’ Even while he sought to preach that truth to himself, he was not wholly able to dismiss from his mind the crisis in which he had suggested his resignation to the deacons in December 1907. The stress that had been present in the closing years of his ministry at the East London Tabernacle was recurring. There was less of the buoyant spirit that marked earlier years and a lack of confidence—never previously one of his characteristics—began to appear. At the deacons’ meeting of October 13, 1908, it is recorded: ‘He reviewed the events since the time of the invitation to him to become Co-Pastor with Mr Thos Spurgeon and expressed his willingness for a revision of the present position if the brethren had any doubt as to the confirmation by the Holy Spirit of his appointment to the Pastorate.’

When the assurance he looked for on this occasion was immediately and emphatically given, ‘he expressed his gratitude to the Lord for the help given in the trying circumstances of the commencement of his work.’ To underline their united support, the deacons went on to record this resolution:

We do most heartily thank the Lord for his goodness in delivering the Church in the time of her great trouble and we record our affection and esteem for our beloved Pastor and our joy that we are permitted to co-operate with him.¹

But Brown’s sense that he was not to be long in this role did not leave him. At the deacons’ meeting on May 3, 1909, when it was proposed that the second anniversary of his pastorate ‘be observed by a Public Meeting’, he said that this was not his desire. A few weeks later the brethren (deacons and elders) received this letter from him, written on May 26:

My dear Brethren,

Next month I complete two years of service at the Tabernacle, and after much thought and prayer I have been led to the decision not to prolong the same. I can honestly say that ‘I have done my best.’ From the commencement however there have been difficulties that I never dreamed of and the conviction has been deepened during the past few months. My heart-felt wish and prayer is that God may send you some man unburdened with my ‘years’ and equipped with special grace for the great work. For all blessing bestowed during the two years I devoutly praise God and give him the glory. For the many kindnesses received from you, personally, and also by my dear wife I return deepest gratitude.

Believe me, yours most faithfully,

Archibald G. Brown.

At a deacons’ meeting on June 7, 1909, the letter was taken up and amplified by Brown, ‘laying particular stress upon what he deemed to be the lack of enthusiasm in the Church as indicated by the comparatively small attendances on Sabbath mornings and also the fewness of candidates for membership’. After much to the contrary was said by the deacons, who instanced the many blessings being experienced under his ministry, Brown agreed ‘to consider the matter carefully, and to give an answer after his holiday’. He was to have four Sundays off the next month, to which the deacons added a further two Sundays, ‘as Pastor A. G. Brown had recently passed through a severe family trial and was in a low and depressed condition of health’.² Such was the concern and sympathy of the deacons that they met, together with the elders on June 21, to discuss the situation further. Once again, support for Brown was unanimous and five of them were asked to draw up a letter to him. This was done the next day and warrants being given here in full:

June 22, 1909

Beloved Pastor,

We the Elders and Deacons of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Church send you our most cordial greetings in the Lord.

We know your objection to long and wordy communications, but we must ask your patience while we say to you what is burdening our hearts.

You have expressed to many a feeling of dissatisfaction with the condition of things at the Tabernacle since your acceptance under such trying circumstances of the Pastorate of the Church and you have so plainly declared your discomfort and uneasiness, that we cannot quietly stand by and see you suffer in mind as we know you are doing. Now it is no exaggeration nor fulsome flattery to say that since you have been our Pastor you have bound to yourself very closely the heart of the Church—both Officers and members. Your election was unanimous and after your two years of gracious ministry, the choice of yourself as our Leader would be even more enthusiastic now. But this is a small thing compared to the more important matter we now mention, God has set the unmistakable seal of his Divine favour upon your work among us. We know you rejoice in the frequent additions to the membership. Moreover the testimony of experienced Christians in the Church, and of workers not only in the Tabernacle and its Schools, but in its Missions, is repeatedly heard to the effect that your expositions of the Divine Word feed their souls and establish them increasingly in the faith. We fear you hardly recognize the extent of the blessing which our gracious God has vouchsafed.

We cannot live in London today without being too well aware of the decreasing attendances at the Places of Worship and the growing dearth of conversions. Is it not for us all to magnify the grace of God in your ministry which yields such results, rather than to look upon discouragements which do but slightly reflect the state of things all around us. But even more than all this: you are called to a great task at an age when most men are seeking rest. You are filling a position which the greatest preacher of his day, when younger than yourself, found a heavy burden. But the importance of the position is as honourable as the work is arduous. The Church at the Metropolitan Tabernacle needs your wise strong guidance and powerful exposition of the Word, more than language can express. We entreat you do not let disappointments of any sort or size, blind your mind to the clearly Divine Call to one of the highest places in the field, for which your past experience and God-given powers have so exceptionally fitted you.

The fight will thicken before victory is assured; and Oh! how necessary it is for such accredited leaders as yourself to hold the fort in the face of the rising tide of infidelity and materialism.

Satan will weaken God’s hosts and steal the heart from the bravest if he can. He will multiply temptations and inducements to surrender; not only our field of service, but our homes and our social circles will yield him arguments to hinder us, at the time when our Lord needs us the most. Will you not hearten us by a new manifestation of prayerful faith and the zeal you have exhibited ever since your early ministry, to do battle more vigorously with the powers of evil? The Master we adore and love is by your side! Your Church is with you! Difficulties of every shape and complexion are but tests of holy courage. There is a sound of a Divine ‘going’ in the congregation!³ Sinners are being saved!Saints are reviving in faith and zeal! Dear Pastor, accept our affectionate assurance that we believe God has chosen you to stand for him in this mighty war.

We shall not fail to bear you up in daily intercession, earnestly crying to God that he will incline your heart to continue as the beloved Pastor of this great Church.

With our united love,

We are, dear Pastor, on behalf of the Officers of the Church.

To this fine letter Brown replied on June 24:

Words cannot tell all I feel in the way of loving gratitude for the letter received from the united courts of the deacons and elders.

Your verdict on the two years of work is such a contrast to that passed by my own heart that I am staggered. Let me in quiet think over the letter when mental weariness, the result of heart depression, shall have passed away through a little rest. That God may reward you all for your loving consideration is the heart-felt prayer of yours most gratefully.

At the deacons’ meeting on September 6, 1909, the first after Brown’s return from his summer break, he raised a significant question before speaking of his decision. He wanted ‘to know the views of the brethren in respect to the duties comprised in the office of the Pastor, and asked whether these included any responsibility in regard to the oversight of the Institutions’. He was assured he had no responsibility, except for the Colportage Association. The College and the Orphanage were managed by separate bodies of trustees. All that was expected was that he kept ‘in close touch’ with the Institutions. It was then minuted that ‘the Pastor’s duties comprise the preaching of the Word, and looking after the spiritual interests of the Church’. On this understanding he said he was willing to continue in the work.

They must have seemed long years since his arrival in the summer of 1907 and not ones he would have wished to live again. When the interviewer, already quoted, met Brown in the vestry of Chatsworth Road Baptist Chapel in December 1900, he said of his appearance: ‘Mr Brown has changed little in recent years save that hair and whiskers have assumed a decidedly grey tinge. The same erect, broad-chested figure, frank manly face and clear eye.’ Not all that could have been repeated ten years later when his hair had changed to silver white. He had been through the most testing period of his ministry.

It is to the credit of the deacons and elders that the troubles repeatedly discussed in their courts never reached the ears of the members of the church. The preaching they heard from Sunday to Sunday gave them no suspicion of any resignation, nor was there any note of depression in the sixteen sermons preached at this time and published under the title, The Full-Orbed Gospel. In accordance with its title, the book shows AGB was riding no hobby-horse. One of the sermons however leads us into a subject which clearly exercised him at this date. As he reminded the church in the sermon, ‘A Sound from Heaven’, the year 1909 brought them to an important anniversary:

The sound from heaven came in 1859; that sound was maintained, in 1860, and indeed all through the 60s, the days were days of wonder and joy in the mighty working of God. I am very glad that revival is going to have its jubilee, and be remembered. Perhaps it will enable some of the Churches today to see how far we have fallen . . . All honour to dear Charles Haddon Spurgeon—we love his memory—but let it be remembered that Charles Haddon Spurgeon was living in that revival age. When was this building reared? It was reared when the flames of revival were sweeping through London.

The church upon which there came ‘a sound from heaven’ (Acts 2:2), he preached, was a complete congregation (‘they were all in one place’); they were all in unity (‘with one accord’); and a people ‘steeped in prayer’. What was needed, as he repeatedly said at this period, was that ‘the whole membership will join in devout and constant supplication for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit’s reviving power’. In a sermon on ‘The Supply, Fellowship and Worship of the Spirit’, he went over the relationship between the giving of the Spirit and prayer, as stated in Paul’s words, ‘through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ’ (Phil. 1:19). Beginning with the axiom, ‘All Christians are not equally filled with the Spirit’, he urged that it is through prayer that other Christians receive a fuller supply of the Holy Spirit, and that it is fellowship with the Holy Spirit that is at the heart of a living church. Adhering to a tradition, and belonging to a denomination, he warned, was no substitute. Not that he believed the division of the church into denominations was necessarily detrimental to spiritual health: ‘I believe it is a good thing, for one denomination looks after some doctrine that would be neglected if it were not made her speciality; but the moment one denomination interferes with Spirit-sharing and fellowship in the Holy Ghost, it becomes a curse and not a blessing.’

Building on an illustration used by James Hamilton, he contrasted churches without the anointing of the Spirit with those enjoying his favour: the first are like little isolated pools between the rocks on the sea shore when the tide is out:

The little shrimp in this pool knows nothing about the little shrimp in the other pool, although only separated from it by a small ridge of rock. Every little shrimp is living in its own world. But by-and-by the tide begins to flow in, and it fills up all the separate pools until all the little pools become lost in the mighty ocean, and the little shrimps are no longer in their isolated pools, they are all in the great fullness of the ocean. So it is with us: when the religious life is low and ebbing, how big our little pools look! How little fellowship there is with others round about us! . . . You will never have fellowship with anyone so delightful as fellowship in the Spirit. That is the charm of the prayer-meeting . . . Did we not realise at our prayer-meeting last Monday how really the Holy Ghost just came in and took possession of the meeting? . . . I was so glad to hear that somehow the Spirit of God had laid hold of the teachers in the school this morning, and they said, ‘Let us have a quarter of an hour’s prayer before we begin teaching.’ That is the right thing—the supply of the Spirit through prayer. Then let us ask God to give us the fellowship of the Spirit. Oh, dear little shrimp, do come out of that little puddle of your own! Do not be so small; do not live in a clique; ask God to let you know what it is in the power of the Holy Ghost to allow you to have fellowship with all those in whom the Spirit dwells.⁴

As already mentioned, Brown was now a Vice-President of the Pastors’ College, and at the annual College Conference in 1908 he had pressed the need of the Holy Spirit in their midst. The Principal, Dr McCaig, reported in The Sword and the Trowel, that after other proceedings, ‘Mr Brown gave his address on “How to Secure a Revival”. Our brother spoke with great power and feeling, and brought his subject home to the hearts of the brotherhood in a very forceful way.’ In that address he laid down six principles:

1. As ministers we must be right ourselves with God.
2. There must be absolute separation from the world in all the methods adopted.
3. We are not to accept the help of hell to cast out demons.
4. Strict limitation to the divinely provided means, viz., ‘The Book and the Holy Ghost’.
5. Freedom from all complicity with error.
6. Wait on God until he send the atmosphere of revival, that will produce the desired results without any ‘forcing’ on our part.

Brown clearly believed that confidence in their spiritual health was not warranted. While evangelism and missions were in vogue in many Baptist churches, and the immediate announcement of ‘converts’ was becoming more common, the annual ‘Statistics of the Churches’ for 1907 were disquieting. The churches pastored by men from the Pastors’ College showed an average increase of about 3 members per church, losses were heavy: 2,683 by dismission to other churches; 108 by exclusion; 2,360 by erasure for non-attendance. Compared with figures kept for earlier years, these showed a failure to retain those who became church members.⁵

‘Arrested Progress’ was a theme for the 1909 College conference. In the main address on that theme, the speaker, Pastor E. Roberts, had this to say:

It is not wide of the mark to ask whether some of these modern methods do any more than capture emotional professions. The secretaries of our associations can tell us that one column in the statistical returns of our churches has grown in gigantic size, viz., the erasures column. I believe I am right in saying that more than half of the net decrease last year can be found in the erasures column of the LBA. I believe from this cause alone the Baptist churches of London alone lost more members last year than the early church gained on the day of Pentecost . . . Is that evil to be looked for on the surface or must we not go far deeper? Does not such wholesale slipping away point to a large amount of superficial conversions? There must be something better than the measures which produce such transient results.⁶

Whether or not Brown had a hand in asking Roberts to speak, there can be no doubt that the above words represented his own concerns. Outside the churches of the Pastors’ College men the situation was worse. In 1908: ‘The Free Churches report a decrease of 18,000, our own Baptist Church of 5,000. The Methodist Recorder describes the last annual census of Wesleyanism as “distressing in the extreme”.’⁷

Despite the trials he felt, Brown’s years at the Metropolitan Tabernacle were filled with endeavour, and were certainly not without conversions. James Ellis, who was a contemporary and an eye-witness, says, ‘Mr Brown at the Tabernacle proved a great success.’ In his three years to June 1910, the additions to the Tabernacle membership numbered 454. If this did not stop the declining membership it certainly arrested the pace of the fall.⁸

Brown’s sermon record for 1910 shows he was often conscious of much help from God, and notes included in The Sword and the Trowel by its editor confirm this: ‘The Pastor has been sustained and helped in the preparation and proclamation of the Truth in a very gracious manner, so that the Word has been pleasant and profitable to God’s people; whilst many, who had hitherto remained outside the family circle, have become participators in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.’⁹

But his sermon record for 1910 also notes concerns. While entries such as ‘Good gathering’, and ‘Large gathering’, predominate, there are also notes of ‘Poor gathering’; ‘Sweet subject. Congregation slack’; and ‘Poor gathering but joy in preaching.’ On a mid-week service on August 25, when he preached on ‘But if not’, from Daniel 3:18, he noted, ‘Largest Thursday gathering yet. Baptism. Good time.’ Attendance was evidently prone to fluctuate.

By 1910 the question whether his health could sustain the ministry was again forcing its attention on him. The year did not begin well. He was absent from the deacons’ meeting of January 3 on account of influenza, and at the meeting on the January 24 it was recorded ‘that Pastor A. G. Brown was very unwell, and that his medical man had forbidden him to preach for a month.’ When the summer came, his health required him to be absent on Sundays from June 26 to August 7. On returning he noted in his sermon record, ‘Had a most delightful holiday and feel better for it.’ But this improvement did not last and on October 6 he wrote a letter of resignation:

Beloved Brethren,

After many weeks of constant thought and prayer, I have been led to the definite decision of retiring from public life, so far as a stated pastorate is concerned.

You will, I am sure, remember that when I came into your midst as Pastor, it was simply to try and fill the gap until some younger man could be found. This I have tried to do to the best of my power and amid many difficulties, and I gratefully acknowledge the measure of blessing granted of the Lord. At the same time I am painfully conscious of much weakness and failure. For all the kindness I have experienced, both from the Deacon’s Court and also the Elders, I am more than grateful, and as I retire into private life I shall carry with me many a happy memory that will abide for my remaining days . . .

The difficulty he had in writing these words is probably indicated by the fact that it was not until seven days later, on Thursday, October 13, that his sermon record has this note, ‘This evening I handed in my resignation having decided to retire into private life.’ Against the previous Sunday evening, when he preached on ‘Hadad died also’ (1 Chron. 1:51), his sermon record had this entry, ‘Striking theme. Great slump in congregation.’

His resignation letter went first to the deacons. Instead of proceeding to give it the church they asked (October 17) ‘for time to make mature deliberation . . . the fact that his ministry had resulted in so much blessing to themselves and the Church generally made it difficult for them to approach the subject calmly.’ Two days later they decided to ask Brown to meet with them and the elders on October 31, and queried what assistance could relieve him of some of his heavier duties. This invitation the pastor declined, convinced as he told William Olney (chairman) ‘that his health and age precluded the possibility of the retention of the pastorate’. Regretfully, at the October 31 meeting, Olney counselled the letter of resignation should go before the church. No resolution for the church was drawn up, so ‘that whatever action is taken at the meeting shall be the spontaneous action of the membership.’

On the Lord’s Day, November 13, Brown noted in his sermon record, ‘Taken ill in the reading, but returned to preach.’ The evening service was taken by Edwards, his assistant. Yet, not surprisingly, when a church meeting met the next day, and the resignation letter read, there was resistance to its acceptance. It was the first time they had ever heard that the subject had ever been raised. A fine resolution was drawn up, enumerating the reasons why his ministry meant so much to them; recording their ‘profound and loving sympathy’; asking for any suggestion how ‘the strain and burden may be lightened’ for him; and affirming, ‘it would rejoice our hearts if it were possible for him to reconsider his decision’. They also noted, with gratitude, ‘that if any period of our Pastor’s Service has been more blessed and more evidently full of power than another, it has been during the last three months; so that although God has permitted physical suffering, he has also granted special spiritual power’.

Reconsideration of his resignation decision was out of the question, as he wrote to a special meeting of the church on November 25, 1910:

I would gladly do anything you ask that is in my power, but your request in the closing paragraph,—‘to reconsider my decision’—is impossible. Had I arrived at it hastily, and with little, if any, seeking of God, it would be different. It is not the result of emotion, but conviction. It has been arrived at through no little heart-agony, and the arguments of advancing age and ill-health retain all their force. The suggestion of lightening the work is very kind, but does not meet the case. Whoever is pastor should, in my judgment, be really so, and do the work.¹⁰

Brown was able to resume Sunday services, but not the mid-week ones, till Sunday, December 4, when his sermon record read: ‘At home ill.’ But he was out to preach the following Thursday on ‘Ye Have an Unction’ (1 John 2:20, ‘Very wet night. Poor gathering’). The next Sunday, he took, ‘The Cup of Trembling in Gethsemane’ in the morning (‘Had a remarkably good time’), and ‘Peace, Perfect Peace’, in the evening (‘Made a glorious theme’). After one more Thursday evening, and this time, ‘Large congregation’, his ministry at the Tabernacle closed on Sunday, December 18, 1910, with the texts Ephesians 3:21, ‘Unto Him Be Glory’, and Acts 20:24, ‘The Ministry Received’. The sermon record, kept during his three pastorates, closed with this note: ‘The Tabernacle was crammed in every part. I felt the power of God. Thus ends my pastorate at the Met. Tab.’

The post Being Faithful without Revival appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

 Introduction

‘I first came across the book, Heart Treasure by Oliver Heywood, in a box of old books in a furniture barn in the town of Central, South Carolina, back in 1990.  Shortly thereafter I started reading this book, published in 1852 by the American Baptist Publication Society, and discovered what  I have often designated as the best Puritan book I have ever read.  I am hoping to have the entire volume readily available in the near future; but for now I am pleased that the Banner Magazine is including Chapter 2 as an introduction to the forthcoming book. Herein lies the crème de la crème. May you find in these words an unfolding of the unsearchable riches of Him Who is our soul’s greatest treasure. ‘ — Decherd Stevens

CHAPTER II.

THE NATURE OF A TREASURE.

A treasure consists of things laid up for subsequent use; and the acquisition of treasure involves several particulars, all of which suit with the laying up of spiritual provision in general.

One, It implies carefulness, anxious thoughts, and solicitous endeavors. It is easy to scatter, but it requires industry to gather. Experience shows us, that they who strive for a great estate, take pains in the day, and plan in the night, while the eagerness of desire will not suffer them to sleep.

So is it in spiritual things. It requires much care and effort to secure an abiding provision for the soul. Spiritual goods are not got with a wet finger. They drop not into the mouth of a careless loiterer. The more choice anything is, the more difficult is it to be attained. O think not to gain heaven by laziness! “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” A resolute Christian, as it were, storms this uphill city; as soldiers run to seize the prey, or racers to obtain the prize.

Two, It implies choiceness in the things laid up. It is not all labor that obtains a treasure. “They labor in the very fire, that weary themselves for very vanity.’’ Men may expend money and labor for that which can neither profit nor satisfy. Many things are better missed than gained. Stones and straws make no good treasure. A wise man will not account himself rich with toys and trifles. A Christian’s treasure consists in spiritual things, which alone possess intrinsic and lasting value.

Gold and silver are but worthless clay, compared with eternal riches. Spiritual blessings only make believers blessed. Nothing can be esteemed a treasure, which does not come from heaven, and lead to it. The good things of the throne are a saint’s treasure; the good things of the footstool are the portion of wicked men. But whatever abundance of them they may possess, even though “their bellies be filled with hid treasures,” they can derive from them no solid happiness. All earthly comforts are vain and empty, when viewed as the heritage of the soul. The whole world cannot counterbalance a single grain of grace. We estimate things by their worth, not by their bulk. The small diamond is of more value than mountains of sand. Only heavenly riches can make a treasure fit for the immortal mind.

Three, It implies suitableness in the things stored up. No sensible man will lay up what he knows he shall never need, and account it his treasure. Every tradesman lays up that which is adapted to his calling. Clothiers, staplers, tanners, husbandmen, have all their appropriate provisions, suited to their respective vocations. That may be an encumbrance to one, which is an advantage to another. Kings have their peculiar treasure–possessions, to which none but kings may aspire. So all God’s kings have their peculiar treasure, which, as it is different from all others, is likewise, in some respects, various in itself. Moses had a treasure of meekness, Job of patience, Solomon of wisdom, John of love. As the child of God is to come behind in no gift, so is he to excel in that which he is more especially called to exercise. It is a great duty and mystery in religion to be wise in observation, and prudent in providing. Let Christians lay up supplies suitable to the several ages, states, offices, burdens, duties, relations, trials, and temptations, through which they may have to pass in the course of their lives; so shall they not be unfurnished or unprepared, but whichever way the Lord may lead them in this uneven world, still their feet shall stand in an even place, and go straight to heaven.

Four, A treasure imports sufficiency. Store has no lack. It is abundance that constitutes a treasure. The granary of Egypt afforded plenty of corn. A scant portion is not wealth. Spiritual goods are a Christian’s riches; and he ought to be rich in these riches, rich in faith, and rich in good works. What a significant expression is that of the apostle Paul, where he prays that believers “may be filled with all the fullness of God!” What, can our narrow vessels contain an infinite ocean? This is, indeed, impossible. Yet, though we cannot hold all, he would have us possess all. He would have us know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that our intellectual faculties may be furnished with heavenly light; and he would have us filled with all grace, as the richest treasure of our will and affections. Nothing less than fullness can satisfy his desire; nay, further, the fullness of God; yet, higher, all the fullness of God. Let the vessel be filled to the brim, and let it be made more capacious to receive larger incomes. Never can the believing soul have grace enough, till grace be perfected and crowned with glory. A gracious heart has an insatiable appetite after heavenly delights and dainties. Nothing is so good as grace; and the more a soul has of it, the more it longs for increased supplies.

Five, A treasure implies secrecy. Valued possessions are not exposed to the common view of all men. It was weakness and folly, begotten by ostentatious pride, that induced Hezekiah to exhibit his treasure to the Babylonian messengers. Treasures are usually hid in secret places. Hence we read of “treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places,” and of “a treasure hid in a field.” So this good man’s treasure is said to be in his heart. The apostle Peter calls inward holiness “the hidden man of the heart. Into this none can see but the heart-searching God. He only, who knows all things, is the anatomist of this close and hidden man. Men see the face, but they see not what lies within. Hence it is that the greatest and best part of a Christian’s treasure is invisible; as the roots of a tree under the earth, or the bottom of a ship under water; or rather as a merchant’s goods in his warehouse. Thus is it with the saint’s treasure. He is a Jew inwardly. His circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God. The regenerate soul is the King’s daughter, all glorious within, though some sparklings of grace appear without. The best and the worst of a soul is hid from the view of men. Happy were it for a Christian if he had no more corruption than appears outwardly; and wretched were he also, if he had no more grace than others can take notice of.

Six, It is a treasure for its safety. This treasure being out of men’s view, is therefore secure from their reach and touch. Treasures lie not loose, but are under lock and key. Treasure-cities are always well fenced, with guards appointed to attend them. And sure I am, that the treasure of a Christian is safe. Grace and peace are a saint’s freehold, of which neither men nor devils can deprive him. Mary’s better part cannot be taken from her. As soon may Christ be plucked out of heaven, as grace out of a believer’s heart. The treasure of joy can no man take from him; for this pure stream grows stronger and sweeter, until it is swallowed up in the vast ocean of our Master’s joy on high. A Christian’s treasure is locked up in his heart, which is a cabinet that none can wrest open. Christ heart was pierced, that a Christian’s might remain untouched; hence it becomes impenetrable and invulnerable. A lively emblem of this was the heart of John Huss, which remained entire, even when his body was consumed by the flames. The heart of a saint may be pulled out of his bosom, but not his treasure out of his heart.

Seven, In a treasure there is readiness for a present supply. It is but giving a turn with the key, and taking out provision, and making use thereof, and all is as soon prepared as Abraham’s feast for the angels, or Jacob’s venison for his father Isaac. He that has a treasure of food, has it not to seek when he should use it. He is not perplexed and embarrassed, like the man in the Parable, who ran to call up his neighbour, to borrow three loaves, because he had nothing to set before his friend that came unexpectedly. The well-furnished Christian can make God welcome in all His visits; can own Him as a Friend, whether He come by day or by night, in mercy or in judgment; and be ready, even in the most sudden and unlooked for emergencies, to receive and entertain his celestial Guest. Of this we have a striking illustration in the Parable of the wise and foolish Virgins. The oil in the lamp is the treasure of grace in the heart; and although the virgin Christian may slumber as to the exercise of grace, yet, having its root and essence still living within him, he is ready, on a sudden alarm, to go forth to meet the Bridegroom, and to enter with Him into eternal blessedness. The foolish virgin is the treasureless soul, the graceless sinner, who has no oil at all, but while he goes to buy, is shut out of the presence-chamber. On this I shall dwell more at large hereafter. At present, let it only be observed in general, that he that has a treasure, will be quickly furnished with all accommodations, on all occasions.

This excerpt appeared in Issue 692 of the Banner of Truth Magazine, May 2021.

Featured Photo by Ashin K Suresh on Unsplash

The post The Nature of a Treasure: Oliver Heywood Excerpt appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

—Psalm 44:1 (NKJV).

The early years of the Free Church of Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century produced literature of enduring value for the Christian church. Much of that emanated from the faculty of New College, Edinburgh—for example from Thomas Chalmers, James Buchannan, John “Rabbi” Duncan and James Bannerman.¹ But perhaps the outstanding theological and literary figure of this galaxy of Christian ministers was William Cunningham.² It is a great joy to introduce this new edition of his Historical Theology, a major feature of which is the provision in footnotes of English translations of all of Cunningham’s foreign language quotations, words and phrases.³

Who was William Cunningham?

Cunningham was born in 1805. His father died in 1811 and Cunningham was largely brought up by his mother. She was dependent on the generosity of her family for support, much of which came from Cunningham’s uncle—a minister whose sympathies were with the “Moderate” party in the Church of Scotland.⁴ Cunningham was academically able, and he began studies in the University of Edinburgh in 1820. At this time he was, given his family background, attached to the same “Moderate” party in the church as his uncle.

However, he was converted under the ministry of one of the leading evangelical preachers, Dr Robert Gordon, in 1825. Thereafter he studied Divinity in Edinburgh and began his ministerial calling in Greenock (a small town west of Glasgow). While in Greenock he demonstrated his theological ability, and his commitment to the doctrine of the Westminster Confession, in opposing the teaching of John McLeod Campbell of Row. McLeod Campbell had abandoned (at least) particular redemption, and commitment to that doctrine was to mark Cunningham’s career.

Cunningham came to national prominence at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1833. These were days of substantial debates over the relationship between church and state in Scotland. In particular the right to choose their minister had long been denied to congregations. But the tide was turning against this abuse. At the 1833 Assembly Cunningham delivered a powerful speech against the “intrusion” of ministers. His abilities came to the attention of the Evangelical party in the church.

As a result of this he was called to Edinburgh in 1834 to serve in Trinity College Kirk. This move brought Cunningham to the centre of the great events of the “Ten Year Conflict” which eventually resulted in the formation of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843. During those years Cunningham provided the theological drive and steel that held men fast to the principle of the rights of congregations to choose their ministers. So, it has been said, “During the struggle which preceded the Disruption, few sustained such a prominent position as Dr Cunningham, to whose powerful advocacy the Free Church was largely indebted for the hold which her principles took of the mind of the Christian community.”⁵

After the Disruption Cunningham was chosen to serve in New College, Edinburgh, the new training college for ministers in the fledgling Free Church. Initially he was a junior colleague of Thomas Chalmers in theology, but on the death of David Welsh he was moved to the professorship of church history. He adorned this department with exceptional distinction and his great works are the fruit of his labours here. On Chalmers’ death, Cunningham was made principal of the college. He served in this capacity for the rest of his life, and taught until his death in 1861, shaping many future ministries. On Cunningham’s death his literary executors, James Bannerman and James Buchanan, saw several volumes into print. Whether or not they demonstrate that Cunningham was, as Charles Hodge felt, “the greatest Calvinistic divine of our new time,” there is no doubt that to read Cunningham is to read a great theologian.⁶ And nowhere is that displayed more fully than in Cunningham’s two-volume Historical Theology.

Why Read Historical Theology?

But why pick up a work of historical theology that is over 150 years old? There are many reasons.

First, this is not simply a work of historical theology. It is more accurately a systematic theology framed around the great historical doctrinal debates of the Christian church, e.g. Trinity, Christology, Pelagianism, the fall, the will, justification, Socinianism, atonement, Arminianism. Cunningham does not merely give us a history of dates and figures. Nor does he simply give an account of what people believed in the past and why. Of course, he does both of these things. But beyond this Cunningham gives us his theological judgment. He writes as a believer, one who is interested in right and wrong. To be guided through the grand sweep of doctrinal development in church history, and to have a great believing mind provide his theological evaluation of these developments is invaluable.

And in this regard, it is important to note one of his key strengths— his ability to state a question properly. Indeed, he has been called “the scholastic of his party” due to “the prominence he gave to the exercise of determining the true nature of the question raised, and the burden of proof, and the kind and amount of evidence to be reasonably expected.”⁷ No one reading Cunningham on the great debates in church history is left in any doubt as to the real nature of the issue at hand.

The following is a beautiful summary of Cunningham’s value as a precise but believing historical theologian: “Under the scholastic forms of discussion, there always burned and shone a moral and spiritual intensity of earnestness which made them [his students] feel that the matter in discussion was one of profound and vital interest to them, not only as the future teachers of the church, but also and especially as men whose personal relations to God depended on their clear and full ascertainment of his truth.”⁸

Second, Cunningham devoted significant attention to a topic which has been neglected for too long, namely church-state relations. Clearly, with Cunningham having to wrestle through the overreach of the state into the affairs of the Scottish church, this was a pressing matter for him. But in the years since Cunningham the relation of church and state has not been of such practical relevance. However, with the decisions of the state impacting the church during the recent Covid pandemic, and with the state potentially encroaching on the sphere of the church in various “conversion therapy” laws, these are live issues again. It is therefore of great interest to hear a master on these topics cover areas such as “The Civil and Ecclesiastical Authorities,” and “The Civil Magistrate and Religion.” Cunningham’s writings on church and state abundantly justify the comment that he possessed “an aptitude for ecclesiastical business, and a capacity for ecclesiastical discussion, such as rendered George Gillespie so famous.”⁹

Third, Cunningham discusses many difficult and intricate areas with great modesty of thought and expression. Cunningham’s discussions of the trinitarian debates in church history and of Scholasticism are orthodox and deeply committed to classical confessional orthodoxy, but they are wisely balanced in terms of what is of first importance. He was wary of the value of overly complex philosophical or metaphysical distinctions for, “as to merely metaphysical considerations, derived from contemplation of the natural system of things, he habitually repelled them as incompetent in the domain of Christian theology.”¹⁰ As an example, he states, “Some of the fathers indulged in unwarrantable and presumptuous speculations about the relations of the persons in the Godhead; and this was carried to a far greater excess, and exhibited much more offensively, by the schoolmen, who were accustomed to discuss many questions concerning this subject which assuredly the word of God affords us no materials for deciding …”¹¹ However, he was equally concerned about “the opposite extreme; and to leave out, or to refuse to take up, positions which there is good ground to believe that the word of God sufficiently warrants.”¹² Cunningham even seems to suggest that “disgusted with the presumptuous speculations of the schoolmen” Calvin had tendencies in its direction.¹³ Consistent with this, “While making the resources of Church history of thought richly available as an introduction to the study of doctrines, he was unwearied in inculcating and practising the principle, that with reference to any question of distinctively Christian doctrine the only real source of evidence is the written revelation of God’s mind …”¹⁴

Fourth, there is value in Cunningham’s occasional disagreements with earlier reformed theologians. It was undoubtedly true that “Dr Cunningham was justly regarded as one of the Master Theologians of the day. He had thoroughly studied the [reformed] system, and might indeed be regarded as an embodiment of the old orthodox theology.”¹⁵ However, it would be wrong to deduce from this that Cunningham was a mere reproducer of earlier thought. He was his own man, and when he differs from prior reformed views he is worth listening to.

One clear example of this is how Cunningham rejected the positions of earlier theologians on toleration. Cunningham said, “we admit that they [the Reformers] held erroneous views upon the subject of toleration, and ascribed to the civil magistrate a power of punishing upon religious grounds, which is now universally rejected by Protestants.”¹⁶ Great figures are always advancing as well as conserving truth.

Fifth, Cunningham combines a zeal for truth with a warm catholicity of spirit. It has been said of him, “He was a man of war … such a powerful man-at-arms, with immense resources, and erudition, and learning, and knowledge, with almost matchless intellect, ready to fence, ready to fight for the truth, and fearing no man.”¹⁷ Cunningham himself believed he was constitutionally fitted for controversy, saying while a student that, “If my life is spared, it will be spent in controversy, I believe.”¹⁸ Indeed, among Cunningham’s last words were “I have done with fighting; I am going quietly home.”¹⁹

But it was equally true that “he did not love controversy even when he lived in it. He fought because he fought for the truth.”²⁰ And so “while in ecclesiastics he was a Free Churchman of Free Churchmen, and while in theology he was a Calvinist of Calvinists, he was at the same time much more than this: in comprehensiveness at once of affection and of thought, he was the most catholic of Free Churchmen after Chalmers.”²¹ Thus while Cunningham was moulded by “the type of Reformation theology, as set forth by the great divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” he was also deeply knowledgeable in “Patristic and Scholastic Theology.”²²

And this balance comes across in his discussions of the key theological debates in church history. While all error comes under his criticism, there is a fairness in his description of opposing views that demonstrates a vast intellect and a charitable heart. This is a good model.

Conclusion

To conclude, it is not necessary to agree with all Cunningham argues for in this volume to benefit from it. There is no denying, that granting his catholicity, Cunningham writes as one whose “theological opinions were very decidedly and completely Calvinistic and Presbyterian.”²³ Each reader (including this Calvinist and Presbyterian!) will therefore have their own areas where we see relative weakness. Nevertheless, even in these areas, it is instructive to see a great Christian mind wrestle with difficult questions, and where Cunningham fails to persuade, there remains significant value in engaging with his perspective. To read Cunningham’s Historical Theology will likely lead you to see the truth that “men such as he was are extremely rare.”²⁴ You may even be brought to say: “we believe the best judges will be the most decided in pronouncing him the greatest systematic theologian that Scotland has produced.”²⁵ But Cunningham, no doubt, would rather you left these volumes with a more profound understanding of the truths of Scripture, a deeper love for the triune God, and a renewed commitment to live for his glory. I have no doubt, blessed by the Spirit, they will have that effect.

The preceding article is the introduction to William Cunningham’s Historical Theology, written by Dr. Donald John Maclean, one of the elders at Cambridge Presbyterian Church and a trustee of the Banner of Truth.

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Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.—Exod. 20:8.

THERE is a subject in the present day which demands the serious attention of all professing Christians in Great Britain. That subject is the Christian Sabbath, or Lord’s day.

It is a subject which is forced upon our notice, whether we like it or not. The minds of Englishmen are agitated by questions arising out of it. ‘Is the observance of a Sabbath binding on Christians? Have we any right to tell a man that to do his business or seek his pleasure on a Sunday is a sin? Is it desirable to open places of public amusement on the Lord’s day?’ All these are questions which are continually asked. They are questions to which we ought to be able to give a decided answer.

The subject is one on which ‘divers and strange doctrines’ abound. Statements are continually made about Sunday, both by speakers and writers, which plain unsophisticated readers of the Bible find it impossible to reconcile with the word of God. If these statements proceeded only from the ignorant and irreligious part of the world, the defenders of the Sabbath would have no reason to be surprised. But they may well wonder when they find educated and religious persons among their adversaries. It is a melancholy truth that in some quarters the Sabbath is wounded by those who ought to be its best friends.

The subject is one which is of immense importance. It is not too much to say that the prosperity or decay of English Christianity depends on the maintenance of the Christian Sabbath. Break down the fence which now surrounds the Sunday, and our Sunday schools will soon come to an end.

Let in the flood of worldliness and dissipation on the Lord’s day, without check or hindrance, and our congregations will soon dwindle away. There is not too much religion in the land now. Destroy the sanctity of the Sabbath, and there would soon be far less. Nothing, in short, I believe, would so thoroughly advance the kingdom of Satan in England, as to withdraw legal protection from the Lord’s day. It would be a joy to the infidel; but it would be an insult and offence to God.

I ask the attention of all professing Christians, while I try to say a few plain words on the subject of the Sabbath. I have no new argument to advance. I can say nothing that has not been said, and said better too, a hundred times before. But at a time like this it becomes every Christian writer to cast in his mite into the treasury of truth. As a minister of Christ, a father of a family, and a lover of my country, I feel bound to plead in behalf of the old English Sunday. My sentence is emphatically expressed in the words of Scripture,—let us ‘keep it holy’. My advice to all Christians is to contend earnestly for the whole day against all enemies, both without and within. It is worth a struggle. Let our united cry be, ‘We do not want the Sabbath law of England to be changed.’

There are four points in connection with the Sabbath which require examination. On each of these I wish to offer a few remarks.

I. The authority on which the Sabbath stands.
II. The purpose for which the Sabbath was appointed.
III. The manner in which the Sabbath ought to be kept.
IV. The ways in which the Sabbath may be profaned.

I. Let me, in the first place, consider the authority on which the Sabbath stands.

I hold it to be of primary importance to have this point clearly settled in our minds. Here is the very rock on which many of the enemies of the Sabbath make shipwreck. They tell us that the day is ‘a mere Jewish ordinance’, and that we are no more bound to keep it holy than to offer sacrifice. They proclaim to the world that the observance of the Lord’s day rests upon nothing but church authority, and  cannot be proved by the word of God.

Now I believe that those who say such things are entirely mistaken. Amiable and respectable as many of them are, I regard them in this matter as being thoroughly in error. Names go for nothing with me in such a case. It is not the assertion of a hundred divines, whether living or dead, that will make me believe black is white, or reject the evidence of plain texts of Scripture. I care little to be told what Jeremy Taylor, or Paley, or Arnold have thought. The grand question is, ‘Were their thoughts worth credit?—were they right or wrong?’

My own firm conviction is, that the observance of a Sabbath day is part of the eternal law of God. It is not a mere temporary Jewish ordinance. It is not a man-made institution of priestcraft. It is not an unauthorized imposition of the church. It is one of the everlasting rules which God has revealed for the guidance of all mankind. It is a rule that many nations without the Bible have lost sight of, and buried, like other rules, under the rubbish of superstition and heathenism. But it was a rule intended to be binding on all the children of Adam.

What saith the Scripture? This is the grand point after all. What public opinion says, or newspaper writers think, matters nothing. We are not going to stand at the bar of man when we die. He that judgeth us is the Lord God of the Bible. What saith the Lord?

(a) I turn to the history of creation. I there read that ‘God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it’ (Gen. 2:3). I find the Sabbath mentioned in the very beginning of all things. There are five things which were given to the father of the human race, in the day that he was made. God gave him a dwelling-place, a work to do, a command to observe, a help-meet to be his companion, and a Sabbath day to keep. I am utterly unable to believe that it was in the mind of God that there ever should be a time when Adam’s children should keep no Sabbath. ¹

(b) I turn to the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. I there read one whole commandment out of ten devoted to the Sabbath day, and that the longest, fullest, and most minute of all (Exod. 20:8-11). I see a broad, plain distinction between these ten commandments and any other part of the law of Moses. It was the only part spoken in the hearing of all the people, and after the Lord had spoken it, the book of Deuteronomy expressly says, ‘He added no more’ (Deut. 5:22). It was delivered under circumstances of singular solemnity, and accompanied by thunder, lightning, and an earthquake. It was the only part written on tables of stone by God himself. It was the only part put inside the ark. I find the law of the Sabbath side by side with the law about idolatry, murder, adultery, theft, and the like. I am utterly unable to believe that it was meant to be only of temporary obligation.²

(c) I turn to the writings of the Old Testament prophets. I find them repeatedly speaking of the breach of the Sabbath side by side with the most heinous transgressions of the moral law (Ezek. 20:13, 16, 24; 22:8, 26). I find them speaking of it as one of the great sins which brought judgments on Israel and carried the Jews into captivity (Neh. 13:18; Jer. 17:19-27). It seems clear to me that the Sabbath, in their judgment, is something far higher than the washings and cleansings of the ceremonial law. I am utterly unable to believe, when I read their language, that the fourth commandment was one of the things one day to pass away.

(d) I turn to the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ when he was upon earth. I cannot discover that our Saviour ever let fall a word in discredit of any one of the ten commandments. On the contrary, I find him declaring at the outset of his ministry, ‘that he came not to destroy the law but to fulfil’, and the context of the passage where he uses these words, satisfies me that he was not speaking of the ceremonial law, but the moral (Matt. 5:17). I find him speaking of the ten commandments as a recognized standard of moral right and wrong: ‘Thou knowest the commandments’ (Mark 10:19). I find him speaking eleven times on the subject of the Sabbath, but it is always to correct the superstitious additions which the Pharisees had made to the law of Moses about observing it, and never to deny the holiness of the day.³ He no more abolishes the Sabbath, than a man destroys a house when he cleans off the moss or weeds from its roof. Above all, I find our Saviour taking for granted the continuance of the Sabbath, when he foretells the destruction of Jerusalem. ‘Pray ye,’ he says to the disciples, ‘that your flight be not … on the sabbath day’ (Matt. 24:20). I am utterly unable to believe, when I see all this, that our Lord did not mean the fourth commandment to be as binding on Christians as the other nine.

(e) I turn to the writings of the apostles. I there find plain speaking about the temporary nature of the ceremonial law and its sacrifices and ordinances. I see them called ‘carnal’ and ‘weak’. I am told they are a ‘shadow of good things to come’,—‘a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ’, and ‘ordained till the time of reformation’. But I cannot find a syllable in their writings which teaches that any one of the ten commandments is done away. On the contrary, I see St Paul speaking of the moral law in the 1 See Bishop Daniel Wilson of Calcutta’s Seven Sermons on the Lord’s Day, pp. 60-61. most respectful manner, though he teaches strongly that it cannot justify us before God. When he teaches the Ephesians the duty of children to parents, he simply quotes the fifth commandment: ‘Honour thy father and mother, (which is the first commandment with promise)’ (Rom. 7:12; 13:8; Eph. 6:2; 1 Tim. 1:8). I see St James and St John recognizing the moral law, as a rule acknowledged and accredited among those to whom they wrote (James 2:10; 1 John 3:4). Again I say that I am utterly unable to believe that when the apostles spoke of the law, they only meant nine commandments, and not ten⁴

(f) I turn to the practice of the apostles, when they were engaged in planting the church of Christ. I find distinct mention of their keeping one day of the week as a holy day. (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2). I find the day spoken of by one of them as ‘the Lord’s day’ (Rev. 1:10). Undoubtedly the day was changed:—it was made the first day of the week in memory of our Lord’s resurrection, instead of the seventh:—but I believe the apostles were divinely inspired to make that change, and at the same time wisely directed to make no public decree about it. The decree would only have raised a ferment in the Jewish mind, and caused needless offence: the change was one which it was better to effect gradually, and not to force on the consciences of weak brethren. The spirit of the fourth commandment was not interfered with by the change in the smallest degree: the Lord’s day, on the first day of the week, was just as much a day of rest after six days’ labour, as the seventh-day Sabbath had been. But why we are told so pointedly about the ‘first day of the week’ and the ‘Lord’s day’, if the apostles kept no one day more holy than another, is to my mind wholly inexplicable.

(g) I turn, in the last place, to the pages of unfulfilled prophecy. I find there a plain prediction that in the last days, when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth, there shall still be a Sabbath. ‘From one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord’ (Isa. 66:23). The subject of this prophecy no doubt is deep. I do not pretend to say that I can fathom all its parts: but one thing is very certain to me,—and that is that in the glorious days to come on the earth there is to be a Sabbath, and a Sabbath not for the Jews only, but for ‘all flesh’. And when I see this I am utterly unable to believe that God meant the Sabbath to cease between the first coming of Christ and the second. I believe he meant it to be an everlasting ordinance in his church.

I ask serious attention to these arguments from Scripture. To my own mind it appears very plain that wherever God has had a church, in Bible times, God has also had a Sabbath day. My own firm conviction is, that a church without a Sabbath would not be a church on the model of Scripture.⁵

Let me close this part of the subject by offering two cautions, which I consider are eminently required by the temper of the times.

For one thing, let us beware of under-valuing the Old Testament. There has arisen of late years a most unhappy tendency to slight and despise any religious argument which is drawn from an Old Testament source, and to regard the man who uses it as a dark, benighted, and old-fashioned person. We shall do well to remember that the Old Testament is just as much inspired as the New, and that the religion of both Testaments is in the main, and at the root, one and the same. The Old Testament is the gospel in the bud: the New Testament is the gospel in full flower. The Old Testament is the gospel in the blade: the New Testament is the gospel in full ear. The Old Testament saints saw many things through a glass darkly: but they looked to the same Christ by faith, and were led by the same Spirit as ourselves. Let us, therefore, never listen to those who sneer at Old Testament arguments. Much infidelity begins with an ignorant contempt of the Old Testament.

For another thing, let us beware of despising the law of the ten commandments. I grieve to observe how exceedingly loose and unsound the opinions of many men are upon this subject. I have been astonished at the coolness with which even clergymen sometimes speak of them as a part of Judaism, which may be classed with sacrifices and circumcision. I wonder how such men can read them to their congregations every week! For my own part, I believe that the coming of Christ’s gospel did not alter the position of the ten commandments one hair’s breadth. If anything, it rather exalted and raised their authority. I believe, that in due place and proportion, it is just as important to expound and enforce them, as to preach Christ crucified. By them is the knowledge of sin. By them the Spirit teaches men their need of a Saviour. By them the Lord Jesus teaches his people how to walk and please God. I suspect it would be well for the church if the ten commandments were more frequently expounded in the pulpit than they are. At all events, I fear that much of the present ignorance on the Sabbath question is attributable to erroneous views about the fourth commandment.

II. The second point I propose to examine, is the purpose for which the Sabbath was appointed.

I feel it imperatively necessary to say something on this point. There is no part of the Sabbath question about which there are so many ridiculous misstatements put forward. Many are raising a cry in the present day, as if we were inflicting a positive injury on them in calling on them to keep the Sabbath holy. They talk as if the observance of the day were a heavy yoke, like circumcision and the washings and purifications of the ceremonial law. They rail at ministers of religion for defending the Sabbath, as if they only wanted it kept for their own selfish ends. They insinuate that our motives are not pure, and that we feel ‘our craft in danger’. And all this sounds very plausible in the ears of ignorant persons.

Once for all, let us understand that all such statements are founded in entire misconception, and are rank delusions. The Sabbath is God’s merciful appointment for the common benefit of all mankind. It was ‘made for man’ (Mark 2:27). It was given for the good of all classes, for the laity quite as much as for the clergy. It is not a yoke, but a blessing. It is not a burden, but a mercy. It is not a hard wearisome requirement, but a mighty public benefit. It is not an ordinance which man is bid to use in faith, without knowing why he uses it. It is one which carries with it its own reward. It is good for man’s body and mind. It is good for nations. Above all, it is good for souls.

(a) The Sabbath is good for man’s body. We all need a day of rest. On this point, at any rate, all medical men are agreed. Curiously and wonderfully made as the human frame is, it will not stand incessant work without regular intervals of repose. The first gold-diggers of California soon found out that! Reckless and ungodly as many of them probably were,—urged on as they were, no doubt, by the mighty influence of the hope of gain,—they still found out that a seventh day’s rest was absolutely needful to keep themselves alive. Without it they discovered that in digging for gold they were only digging their own graves. I firmly believe that one reason why the health of working clergymen so frequently fails, is the great difficulty they find in getting a day of rest. I am sure if the body could tell us its wants, it would cry loudly, ‘Remember the Sabbath day.’⁶

(b) The Sabbath is good for man’s mind. The mind needs rest quite as much as the body: it cannot bear an uninterrupted strain on its powers; it must have its intervals to unbend and recover its force. Without them it will either prematurely wear out, or fail suddenly, like a broken bow. The testimony of the famous philanthropist, Mr Wilberforce, on this point is very striking. He declared that he could only attribute his own power of endurance to his regular observance of the Sabbath day. He remembered that he had observed some of the mightiest intellects among his contemporaries fail suddenly at last, and their possessors come to melancholy ends; and he was satisfied that in every such case of mental shipwreck the true cause was neglect of the fourth commandment.

(c) The Sabbath is good for nations. It has an enormous effect both on the character and temporal prosperity of a people. I firmly believe that a people which regularly rests one day in seven will do more work, and better work, in a year, than a people which never rest at all. Their hands will be stronger; their minds will be clearer; their power of attention, application, and steady perseverance will be far greater. What two nations on earth are so prosperous at this day as Great Britain and the United States of America? Where shall we find on the globe so much energy, so much steadiness, so much success, so much public confidence, so much morality, and so much good government, as in those two countries? Let others account for all this as they please. I say without hesitation that one grand secret of it all has been the observance of the Sabbath. Great Britain and the United States, with all their sins, are the two most Sabbath-keeping nations on earth. They have given up seven years of good working-days in the last fifty years to keeping the Lord’s day holy. But have they lost anything by it? No! indeed. The two Sabbath-keeping nations are the most prosperous nations in the world.⁷

(d) Last, but not least, the Sabbath is an unmixed good for man’s soul. The soul has its wants just as much as the mind and body. It is in the midst of a hurrying, bustling world, in which its interests are constantly in danger of being jostled out of sight. To have those interests properly attended to, there must be a special day set apart; there must be a regularly recurring time for examining the state of our souls; there must be a day to test and prove us, whether we are prepared for an eternal heaven. Take away a man’s Sabbath, and his religion soon comes to nothing. As a general rule, there is a regular flight of steps from ‘no Sabbath’ to ‘no God’.

I know well that many say that ‘religion does not consist in keeping days and seasons’. I agree with them. I am quite aware that it needs something more than Sabbath observance to save our souls. But I would like such persons to tell us plainly what kind of religion that is which teaches people to keep no days holy at all. It may be the religion of poor corrupt human nature, but I am sure it is not the religion of revelation: it is not the religion which tells us that we ‘must be born again’, and believe in Christ, and live holy lives. Revealed religion teaches me that it is not quite so cheap and easy a thing to go to heaven, as many now-a-days seem to fancy, and that it is essential to our soul’s prosperity that in every week we give God a day.

I know well that there are some good people who contend that ‘every day ought to be holy’ to a true Christian, and on this ground deprecate the special sanctification of the first day of the week. I respect the conscientious convictions of such people. I would go as far as any one in contending for an ‘every day religion’, and protesting against a mere Sabbath Christianity; but I am satisfied that the theory is unsound and unscriptural. I am convinced that, taking human nature as it is, the attempt to regard every day as a Lord’s day would result in having no Lord’s day at all. None but a thorough fanatic, I presume, would say that it is wrong to have stated seasons for private prayer, on the ground that we ought to ‘pray always’; and few, I am persuaded, who look at the world with the eyes of common sense, will fail to see, that to bring religion to bear on men with full effect, there must be one day in the week set apart for its business.

Now I believe I have advanced nothing that can be fairly gainsaid. I believe that if every church and chapel were pulled down, and every minister of religion banished from this kingdom, it would still be an unmixed benefit for the nation to preserve untouched the institution of the Sabbath, and an act of suicidal folly to part with it. Whether Englishmen know it or not, their Sabbath is one of their richest possessions, and the grand secret of their position in the world. It is good for their bodies, minds, and souls. Of it the famous words may be truly used, that ‘it is the cheap defence of a nation’.

III. I propose, in the third place, to show the manner in which the Sabbath ought to be kept.

This is a branch of the subject on which great difference of opinion exists: it is one on which even the friends of the Sabbath are not thoroughly agreed. Many, I believe, would contend as strongly as I do for a Sabbath, but not for the Sabbath for which I contend. In a matter like this I can call no man master. My desire is simply to state what appears to be the mind of God as revealed in Holy Scripture.

Once for all, I must plainly say, that I cannot entirely agree with those who tell us that they do not want a Jewish Sabbath, but a Christian one. I doubt whether such persons clearly know what they mean. If they object to a Pharisaic Sabbath, I agree with them; if they object to a Mosaic Sabbath, I would have them consider well what they say. I can find no clear evidence that the Old Testament Sabbath was intended by Moses to be more strictly kept than the Christian Sunday. The case of the man stoned for gathering sticks on the Sabbath, is clearly not a case in point: it was a special offence, committed under specially heinous aggravations, in the very face of Mount Horeb, and just after the giving of the law. It is no more a precedent than the striking dead of Ananias and Sapphira, in the Acts, for lying; and there is no proof that such a punishment was ever after repeated. My own belief is, that the explanations of the law of the Sabbath given by our Lord are the very explanations which Moses himself would have given. I have a strong suspicion that, allowing for the difference of the two dispensations, David, and Samuel, and Isaiah would not have kept their Sabbath very differently from St John and St Paul.

What then appears to be the will of God about the manner of observing the Sabbath day? There are two general rules laid down for our guidance in the fourth commandment, and by them all questions must be decided.

One plain rule about the Sabbath is, that it must be kept as a day of rest. All work of every kind ought to cease as far as possible, both of body and mind. ‘Thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.’ Works of necessity and mercy may be done. Our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us this, and teaches also that all such works were allowable in the Old Testament times. ‘Have ye not read’, he says, ‘what David did?’—‘Have ye not read … that … the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?’ (Matt. 12:5). Whatever, in short, is necessary to preserve and maintain life, whether of ourselves, or of the creatures, or to do good to the souls of men, may be done on the Sabbath day without sin.⁸

The other great rule about the Sabbath is, that it must be kept holy. Our rest is not to be the rest of a beast, like that of the ox and the ass, which have neither mind nor soul. It is not to be a carnal, sensual rest, like that of the worshippers of the golden calf, who ‘sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play’ (Exod. 32:6). It is to be emphatically a holy rest. It is to be a rest in which, as far as possible, the affairs of the soul may be attended to, the business of another world minded, and communion with God and Christ kept up. In short, it ought never to be forgotten that it is ‘the Sabbath of the Lord our God’ (Exod. 20:10.)

I ask attention to these two general rules. I believe that by them all Sabbath questions may be safely tested. I believe that within the bounds of these rules every lawful and reasonable want of human nature is fully met, and that whatsoever transgresses these bounds is sin.

I am no Pharisee. Let no hard-working man, who has been confined to a close room for six weary days, suppose that I object to his taking any lawful relaxation for his body on the Sunday. I see no harm in a quiet walk on a Sunday, provided always that it does not take the place of going to public worship, and is really quiet, and like that of Isaac⁹ (Gen. 24:63). I read of our Lord and his disciples walking through the corn-fields on the Sabbath day. All I say is, beware that you do not turn liberty into licence,—beware that you do not injure the souls of others in seeking relaxation for yourself,—and beware that you never forget you have a soul as well as a body.¹⁰

I am no enthusiast. I want no tired labourer to misunderstand my meaning, when I bid him to keep the Sabbath holy. I do not tell any one that he ought to pray all day, or read his Bible all day, or go to church all day, or meditate all day, without let or cessation, on a Sunday. All I say is, that the Sunday rest should be a holy rest. God ought to be kept in view; God’s word ought to be studied; God’s house ought to be attended; the soul’s business ought to be specially considered; and I say that everything which prevents the day being kept holy in this way, ought as far as possible to be avoided.

I am no admirer of a gloomy religion. Let no one suppose that I want Sunday to be a day of sadness and unhappiness. I want every Christian to be a happy man: I wish him to have ‘joy and peace in believing’, and to ‘rejoice in hope of the glory of God’. I want every one to regard Sunday as the brightest, cheerfulest day of all the seven; and I tell every one who finds such a Sunday as I advocate, a wearisome day, that there is something sadly wrong in the state of his heart. I tell him plainly that if he cannot enjoy a ‘holy’ Sunday, the fault is not in the day, but in his own soul.

I can well believe that many will think that I am setting the standard of Sabbath observance far too high. The thoughtless and worldly, the lovers of money and lovers of pleasure, will all exclaim that I am requiring what is impossible. It is easy to make such assertions. The only question for a Christian ought to be, ‘What does the Bible teach?’ God’s measure of what is right must surely not be brought down to the measure of man: man’s measure should rather be brought up to the measure of God.

I want no other standard of Sabbath observance than that which is laid down in the fourth commandment. I want neither more nor less. It is a rule which has been sanctioned by the Prayer-book of the Church of England, the writings of all the leading Puritans, and the Scotch Confession of Faith. No English Churchman, no Scotch Presbyterian, no Nonconformist who walks in the steps of his forefathers, has any just right to find fault with it.

I maintain no other standard of Sabbath observance than that which all the best and holiest Christians, of every church and nation, have maintained almost without exception. It is extraordinary to mark the harmony there is among them on this point. They have differed widely on other subjects in religion:— they have even disagreed as to the grounds on which they defend Sabbath sanctification:—but as soon as you come to the practical question, ‘how the Lord’s day ought to be observed’, the unity among them is truly surprising.

Last, but not least, I want no other standard of Sabbath observance than that to which a calm, rational reflection on things yet to come, will lead every sober-minded person. Are we really going to die one day and leave this world? Are we about to appear before God in another state of existence? Have we any hope that we are about to spend an endless eternity in God’s immediate presence? Are these things so, or are they not? Surely, if they are, it is not too much to ask men to give one day in seven to God; it is not too much to require them to test their own meetness for another world, by spending the Sabbath in special preparation for it. Common sense, reason, conscience, will combine, I think, to say, that if we cannot spare God one day in a week, we cannot be living as those ought to live who are going to die.

IV. The last thing I propose to do, is to expose some of the ways in which the Sabbath is profaned.

This is a painful and melancholy part of the subject; but it is one that must not be avoided. The Sabbath, no doubt, is far better kept than it was a hundred years ago. Nevertheless, after all that has been done, there remains amongst us a vast amount of Sabbath profanation, which is every week crying against England in the ears of God. The census of 1851 revealed the fearful fact that five millions of our fellow-country men go to no place of worship at all on a Sunday! It is a fact that should make our ears tingle. What an enormous quantity of weekly sin against God this single fact brings to light!

There are two kinds of Sabbath desecration which require to be noticed. One is that more private kind of which thousands are continually guilty, and which can only be checked by awakening men’s consciences. The other is that more public kind, which can only be remedied by the pressure of public opinion, and the strong arm of the law.

When I speak of private Sabbath desecration, I mean that reckless, thoughtless, secular way of spending Sunday, which every one who looks round him must know is common. How many make the Lord’s day a day for visiting their friends and giving dinner parties,—a day for looking over their accounts and making up their books,—a day for going journeys and quietly transacting worldly business,—a day for reading newspapers or new novels,—a day for writing letters, or talking politics and idle gossip,—a day, in short, for anything rather than the things of God.¹¹

Now all this sort of thing is wrong, decidedly wrong. Thousands, I firmly believe, never give the subject a thought: they sin from ignorance and inconsideration. They only do as others; they only spend Sunday as their fathers and grandfathers did before them: but this does not alter the case. It is utterly impossible to say, that to spend Sunday as I have described is to ‘keep the day holy’: it is a plain breach of the fourth commandment, both in the letter and in the spirit. It is impossible to plead necessity or mercy in one instance of a thousand. And small and trifling as these breaches of the Sabbath may seem to be, they are exactly the sort of things that prevent men communing with God and getting good from his Day.

When I speak of public desecration of the Sabbath, I mean those  many open, unblushing practices which meet the eye on Sundaysin the neighbourhood of large towns. I refer to the practice of keeping shops open, and buying and selling on Sundays. I refer especially to  Sunday trains on railways, Sunday steamboats, and excursions to tea gardens and places of public amusement; and especially I refer to the daring efforts which many are making in the present day, to throw open such places as the British Museum, the National Gallery, and the Crystal Palace on Sundays, and to have bands playing in the public parks.

On all these points I feel not the smallest doubt in my own mind. These ways of spending the Sabbath are all wrong, decidedly wrong. So long as the Bible is the Bible, and the fourth commandment the fourth commandment, I dare not come to any other conclusion. They are all wrong.

These ways of spending Sunday are none of them works of necessity or works of mercy. There is not the slightest likeness between them and any of the things which the Lord Jesus explains to be lawful on the Sabbath day. To heal a sick person, or pull an ox or an ass out of a pit, is one thing: to travel in an excursion train, or visit picture galleries, is quite another. The difference is as great as between light and darkness.

These ways of spending Sunday are none of them of a holy tendency, or calculated to do any good to souls. What soul was ever converted by tearing down to Brighton, or dashing down to Gravesend? What heart was ever softened or brought to repentance by gazing at Titians and Vandykes? What sinner was ever led to Christ by looking at the Nineveh Bull or the Pompeian Court? What worldly man was ever turned to God by listening to polkas, waltzes, or opera music? No, indeed! all experience teaches that it needs something more than the beauties of art and nature to teach man the way to heaven.

These ways of spending Sunday have never yet conferred moral or spiritual good in any place where they have been tried. They have been tried for hundreds of years in Italy, in Germany, and in France. Sunday music has been long tried in Continental cities. The people of Paris have had their Sunday visits to the fountains and statues at Versailles. The Italians and Germans have had their splendid works of art thrown open to the public on Sundays. But what benefit have they derived that we should wish to imitate them? What advantages have we to gain by making a London Sunday like a Sunday at Paris, or Vienna, or Rome? I say decidedly we have nothing to gain. It would be a change for the worse, and not for the better.

Last, but not least, these ways of spending Sunday inflict a cruel injury on the souls of multitudes of people. Railway trains and steamboats cannot be run on Sundays without employing hundreds of persons. Clerks, porters, ticket-takers, policemen, guards, engine-drivers, stokers, omnibus-drivers, must all work on the Sabbath day, if people will make Sunday a day for travelling and excursions. Museums, exhibitions, and galleries of pictures, cannot be opened on Sundays without servants and attendants to take care of them and wait on those who visit them. And have not all these unfortunate persons immortal souls? Beyond doubt they have. Do they not all need a day of rest as much as any one else? Beyond doubt they do. But Sunday is no Sunday to them, so long as these public desecrations of the Sabbath are permitted. Their life becomes a long unbroken chain of work, work, unceasing work: in short, what is play to others becomes death to them. Away with the idea that a pleasure-seeking, exhibition-visiting, Continental Sabbath is mercy to any one! It is nothing less than an enormous fallacy to call it so. Such a Sabbath is real mercy to nobody, and is positive sacrifice to some.

I write these things with sorrow. I know well to how many myriads of my fellow-countrymen they apply. I have spent many a Sunday in large towns. I have seen with my own eyes how the day of the Lord is made by multitudes a day of worldliness, a day of ungodliness, a day of carnal mirth, and too often a day of sin. But the extent of the disease must not prevent us exposing it: the truth must be told.

There is one general conclusion to be drawn from the conduct of those who publicly desecrate the Sabbath in the way I have described. They show plainly that they are at present ‘without God’ in the world. They are like those of old who said, ‘When will the Sabbath be gone?’—‘What a weariness is it!’ (Amos 8:5; Mal. 1:13). It is an awful conclusion, but it is impossible to avoid it. Scripture, history, and experience all combine to teach us, that delight in the Lord’s word, the Lord’s service, the Lord’s people, and the Lord’s day, will always go together. Sunday railway excursionists and Sunday pleasure-seekers are their own witnesses. They are every week practically declaring, ‘We do not like God- we do not want him to reign over us.’

It is not the slightest argument, in reply to what I have said, that many great and learned men see no harm in travelling on Sundays and visiting exhibitions. It matters nothing in religious questions, ‘who does a thing’: the only point to be ascertained is, ‘whether it be right’. Let God be true and every man a liar. We must never follow a multitude to do evil.

The public ways of profaning the Sabbath I have referred to are likely to be often thrust on our notice, if we live many years in England. Let us remember that they are an open breach of God’s commandment. Let us have nothing to do with them ourselves, and let us use every lawful means in our power, both publicly and privately, to prevent others having anything to do with them. Let us not mind the epithets of Puritans, Pharisees, Methodists, bigoted and narrow-minded, or be moved by the specious arguments of newspaper writers. If they only studied their Bibles as much as politics, they would not write as they do. Let us fall back on that old Book which has stood the test of eighteen hundred years, and  of which every word is true. Let us take our stand on the Bible, and hold fast its teaching. Whatever others may think lawful, let our sentence ever be that one day in seven, and one whole day, ought to be kept holy to God.

And now, in concluding this paper, I wish to address a parting word to several classes of persons into whose hands it may fall. I write as a friend to men’s souls. I have no interest at heart but that of true religion. I ask for a fair and patient hearing.

(1) I appeal first to all readers of this paper who are in the habit of breaking the Sabbath. Whether you break it in public or private, whether you break it in company or alone, I have somewhat to say to you. Do not refuse to read it. Give me a hearing.

I ask you to consider seriously, how you will answer for your present conduct in the day of judgment. I put it solemnly to your conscience. I ask you to think quietly and calmly, how utterly unfit you are to appear before God. You cannot live always: you must one day lie down and die. You cannot escape the great assize in the world to come: you must stand before the great white throne, and give account of all your works. You have before you but two alternatives,—an eternal heaven, or an eternal hell. These are great realities, and you know they are true. I repeat it deliberately: unless you are prepared to take up some silly fable of man’s invention, and to be that poor credulous creature, a sceptic, you  know these things are true.

Now where is your fitness for the solemn change which is yet before you? Where is your preparedness for meeting the God of the Bible, and reckoning with him? Where is your readiness for an eternity in his company, and the society of saints and angels? Where is your meetness for a heaven, which is nothing but an eternal Sabbath, an everlasting Sunday, a Lord’s day without end? Yes! I may well ask, Where? You cannot give an answer. You cannot give God one single day in seven! It wearies you to spend one seventh part of your time in attempting to know anything about him, before whose bar you are going one day to stand! His Bible wearies you! His ministers weary you! His house wearies you! His praises weary you! The excursion train is better! The newspaper is better! The merry dinner-party is better! Anything, in short, anything is better than God! Alas, what an awful state this is to be in! But, alas, how common!

Oh, Sabbath-breaker, unhappy Sabbath-breaker, consider your ways, and be wise! What harm has Sunday done the world, that you should hate it so much? What harm has God done you, that you should so obstinately turn your back on his laws? What injury has religion done to mankind, that you should be so afraid of having too much? Look at that body of yours, and think how soon it will be dust and ashes. Look at that earth on which you walk, and think how soon you will be six feet beneath its surface. Look on the heavens above you, and think of the mighty Being, who is the eternal God. Look into your own heart, and think how much better it would be to be God’s friend than God’s enemy. As ever you would lie down on your dying-bed with comfort,—as ever you would leave this world with a good hope,—break off from your Sabbath desecration, and sin no more. Let the time past suffice you to have robbed God of his Day. For the time to come give God his own.

The very next Sunday after you read this paper, go to the house of God, and hear the gospel preached. Confess your past sin at the throne of grace, and ask pardon through that blood which ‘cleanses from all sin’. Arrange your time on Sunday so that you may have leisure for quiet, sober meditation on eternal things. Avoid the company that would lead you to talk only of this world. Take down your long-neglected Bible, and study its pages. Murder no man’s soul by obliging him to work on Sunday in order that you may play. Do it, do it, do it, without a week’s delay! It may be hard at first, but it is worth a struggle. Do it, and it will be well for you both in time and eternity.

(2) I appeal, in the next place, to all readers of this paper, who either belong to the working-classes, or profess to take an interest in their condition. Give me a hearing.

I ask you, then, never to be taken in and deluded by those who want the sanctity of the Lord’s day to be more publicly invaded than it is, and yet tell you they are ‘the friends of the working classes’. Believe me, however well-meaning and fair-spoken such persons may be, they are not their real friends. They are in reality their worst enemies: they are taking the surest course to add to their burdens. They do not mean it, very likely, but in reality they are doing them a cruel injury.

Be assured that if English Sundays are ever turned into a day of play and amusement, they will soon become a day of labour and work. It is vain to suppose that it can be avoided: it never has been in other countries; it never would be in our own land. Once establish the principle that galleries and museums and crystal palaces are to be thrown open on Sundays, and you let in the thin edge of the wedge. The enemy would have got inside the walls; the sacredness of the day of rest would be entirely gone. Soon, very soon, shops would be opened; farmers would insist on cultivating the land; factories would go on working; contractors would press forward their operations. The working-classes would have lost their Sabbath, and with it they would have lost their best friend.

If men want to secure the working-classes a little more time for rest and relaxation, they should not try to take that time out of Sunday. Let them take a little piece out of one of the six working days, if possible, but not a bit out of the day of God.—As the world has got six days for its business, and God has only left himself one for his, it is only fair and right that the world should give up some of its time, before we begin robbing God of his.

I do trust that the working-classes in England will not be deceived about this Sabbath question. Of all people on earth they are the most interested in it. None have so much to lose in this matter as they, and none have so little to gain.

(3) I appeal, in the next place, to all readers of this paper who profess to reverence the Sabbath, and have no wish to see its character changed. I have only one thing to say to you, but it deserves serious attention. I ask you, then, to consider whether you may not be more strict in keeping the Sabbath day holy than you have been hitherto. I am sadly afraid there is much laxity in many quarters on this point. I fear that many who have no thought of infringing the fourth commandment, are culpably inconsiderate and careless as to the way in which they obey its precepts. I fear that the world gets into the Sundays of many a respectable church-going family far more than it ought to do. I fear that many keep the Sabbath themselves, but never give their servants a chance of keeping it holy. I fear that many who keep the Lord’s day with much outward propriety when they are at home, are often grievous Sabbath-breakers when they go abroad. I fear that hundreds of English travellers do things on Sundays on the Continent, which they would never do in their own land.

This is a sore evil. It weakens the hands of all who defend the cause of the Sabbath, to an enormous extent: it supplies the enemies of the Lord’s day with an argument which they know too well how to use. Let us all remember this. If we really love the Lord’s day, let us prove our love by our manner of using it. Wherever we are, whether at home or abroad,—whether in Protestant or Roman Catholic countries,—let our conduct on Sunday be such as becomes the day. Let us never forget that the eyes of the Lord are in every place, and that the fourth commandment is just as binding on us in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, or France, as it is in our own country. Last, but not least, let us remember that the fourth commandment speaks of our ‘man-servant and maidservant’, as well as ourselves.

(4) I appeal, in the last place, to all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and are zealous in his cause. I have one thing to say to you in connection with the Sabbath question, which I commend to your most serious attention.

I ask you, then, to consider whether it does not become the solemn duty of all true Christians to take far more effectual measures than we have done hitherto, to preserve the holiness of the Lord’s day? For my own part I am satisfied that it is our duty, and that we must go to work in a very different way from that hitherto adopted.

We all complain of Sabbath desecration in large towns: we sorrow over the crowds who every Sunday spend their time in places of sensual amusement, or fill the steamboats and railway trains. They are all evidently in a deplorable state of spiritual ignorance; they are a growing evil, which threatens mischief: but are we taking the right means to remedy the evil? I say unhesitatingly that we are not.

We besiege the House of Commons with petitions when the advocates of these Sabbath-breaking crowds demand an extension of their present licence to sin. But is that enough? No: it is not!

We form societies to defend the Lord’s day, and propose measure after measure in Parliament to stop Sunday trading. But is that enough? No: it is not!

The truth must be spoken:—we must begin lower down. We cannot make people religious by Acts of Parliament alone. We must teach right as well as forbid wrong: we must try to prevent evil as well as repress it. We must strike at the root of the evils we deplore. We must endeavour to evangelize the masses of men and women who now break their Sabbaths every week. We must show them a better way. We must divert this fountain of Sabbath breaking into different channels, and not content ourselves with damming up its waters when they overflow.

Are there not many parishes in our large towns where you may now find 12,000 or 15,000 people under one clergyman, and with one church to go to? Have we any right to wonder if a large proportion of this population regularly break the Sabbath every week? The bulk of the people in such a parish know nothing hardly about the way to ‘keep the Sunday holy’. They have no place of worship to go to, if they have a mind to keep it. To expect such a population to keep the Sabbath holy, is preposterous and absurd: they are quite as much to be pitied as to be blamed. We have surely little right to find fault with them for not honouring the Lord’s day, while we leave them in utter ignorance of its meaning.

What then ought we to do? We ought to break up these large overgrown parishes into districts of a manageable size, containing not more than 3,000 people at the very most. We ought at once to put a minister of the gospel and two lay agents in every one of these districts, and give them the spiritual oversight of the people. We must not wait to build a fine church. We must send a man who is able to preach anywhere,—in a garret, a coach-house, an alley, or even in the street,—and give him abundant liberty to work, unfettered by precedent and routine. This is the best antidote for the evils over which we mourn. The preached gospel applied to the conscience, and not pains and penalties,—the preached gospel, and not fines and imprisonment,—the preached gospel carried home to every house in a parish,—this is the grand remedy for Sabbath-breaking.

I know well that all this sounds impracticable and Utopian to many ears. Ecclesiastical laws, rectorial rights, the want of funds, the want of men,—all these, and twenty other like objections, will at once be started.

Be it so. All I say is that until something of this kind is done, we shall never stop the Sabbath-breaking of great towns. It will be a festering sore on the face of our country, which will every now and then break out and lead to enormous mischief.

For my own part I see nothing in the proposal I have made which might not easily be attained, if the subject was fairly grappled with. Laws are repealed easily enough when public opinion demands it, and if they are bad the sooner they are repealed the better.—Rectorial rights must never stand in competition with the wants of immortal souls: they have succumbed already to the Burial Acts in many cases,—and why not again? They have had to give way when it was needful to provide for dead bodies; we may surely require them to give way when we want to provide for dead souls.—Men, I believe, of the right sort are to be found, if the bishops will only encourage them to come forward.—Money, I am convinced, will never be wanting for a good cause, if a case is really made out. And after all we had better sacrifice fifty canonries than leave our great town parishes in their present condition.

I commend these things to the attention of all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Let London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and other large towns be thoroughly evangelized, and you will strike a deadly blow at the root of all Sabbath-breaking. Leave them alone, or go on at the rate we go at present, and my firm conviction is that we shall never be free from a Sabbath question agitation. It will return periodically, like an ague fit, until the sources which now supply it are dried up.

The plain truth is, that the Sabbath-breaking of the present day is one among many proofs of the low state of vital religion, and the awful want of union among British Christians. We have wasted our time on petty internal quarrels, and neglected the mighty work of converting souls. We have wrangled and squabbled about matter of mint, anise, and cummin, and forgotten our Master’s business. We have allowed vast town populations to grow up in semi-heathen ignorance, and are now reaping the fruit of our gross neglect in their Sabbath-breaking propensities. In short, while the doctors have been disputing, the disease has been spreading and the patient dying.

I pray God that we may all learn wisdom, and amend our ways before it be too late. We want less party spirit and sectarianism, and more work for Christ. We want a return to the old paths of the apostles in every branch of the church; we want a generation of ministers whose first ambition is to go into every room in their parish, and tell the story of the cross of Christ.

I am not sanguine in my expectations. Routine and precedent seem to bind men now-a-days with iron chains. But I deliberately repeat once more, that unless our large towns are more thoroughly evangelized, we shall never be long without a struggle TO KEEP THE SABBATH HOLY.

NOTE

I take the liberty of recommending to the attention of my brethren in the ministry, the following extract from the Charge of the Venerable Bishop of Calcutta, in the year 1838:—

‘Honour especially in your public and private instructions the primaeval law of the Sabbath; the chief vestige of our Paradisaical state; the one command inscribed on the order of creation; the grand external symbol of revealed religion; a prominent branch of the first table of the moral law, and standing on the same footing as the love of God and our neighbour; the theme of the Prophets’ exhortations in their descriptions of the Evangelical age: vindicated indeed from the uncommanded austerities of the Pharisees, but honoured by the constant practice of our blessed Saviour; transferred by the Lord and His Apostles, after the resurrection, to that great day of the Church’s triumph, but remaining the same in its apportionment of time, its spiritual character, and its Divine obligation on the whole human race, and handed down and commended by the constant and unvaried usage of the Church from the very birth of Christianity to the present hour.’

The following extracts from a speech of the late Lord Macaulay speak for themselves:—

‘I have not the smallest doubt that, if we and our ancestors had, during the last three centuries, worked just as hard on the Sundays as on the week days, we should have been at this moment a poorer people and a less civilized people than we are; that there would have been less production than there has been, that the wages of the labourer would have been lower than they are, and that some other nation would have been now making cotton stuffs and woollen stuffs and cutlery for the whole world. Of course I do not mean to say that a man will not produce more in a week by working seven days than by working six days. But I very much doubt whether, at the end of a year, he will generally have produced more by working seven days a week than by working six days a week; and I firmly believe that, at the end of twenty years, he will have produced much less by working seven days a week than by working six days a week. ‘We are not poorer in England, but richer, because we have, through many ages, rested from our labour one day in seven. That day is not lost. While industry is suspended, while the plough lies in the furrow, while the Exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the factory, a process is going on quite as important to the wealth of nations as any process which is performed on more busy days. Man, the machine of machinery, the machine compared with which all the contrivances of the Watts and Arkwrights are worthless, is repairing and winding up, so that he returns to his labour on the Monday with clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporal vigour.’—Macaulay’s Speech on the Ten Hours Bill. Speeches, pp. 450, 453-454.

The famous Blackstone says, ‘The keeping one day in seven holy, as a time of relaxation and refreshment, as well as for public worship, is of admirable service to a State, considered merely as a civil institution.’—Blackstone’s Commentaries, Vol. iv, p. 63.

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Remember to keep holy the day of rest. You shall labour six days and do
all your work. The seventh is the rest of the Lord your God. You shall do
no work, neither you, your son, your daughter, your manservant, your
maidservant, your cattle nor the stranger who is within your gate. For in
six days etc. (Exod. 20:8-11).

The aim of this commandment is to show that, being dead to our own desires and works, we should meditate on the kingdom of God, and that to help us in our meditation we should apply the means which he has ordained. Nevertheless, because this precept involves a special condition which is distinct from the others, it requires a rather different explanation.

The Sabbath: the principle of rest

The teachers of the early church were accustomed to call this commandment ‘shadow-like’, because it has to do with the outward observance of a day which was abolished at Christ’s coming, as were the other symbolic rites. That is certainly true, but it only deals with half the problem. Our explanation must thus begin higher up, and must consider the principles which are enshrined in this commandment.

By the Sabbath rest, the Lord sought to signify to Israel’s people spiritual rest. Believers are required to rest from their own works so as to allow God to do his work in them. In the second place, he wished there to be a fixed day on which they should come together to hear his law and to have access to his ceremonies. Third, he desired to give one day’s rest to servants and to workers under another’s authority, so that they might have some respite from their labours. However, as we see from many passages, the image of spiritual rest has first place in this precept. For God never required a commandment to be more strictly obeyed than this one (Num. 15:32-36; Exod. 31:13-16; 35:2-3). When, for example, he seeks to make clear through his prophets that all religion has been destroyed, he laments that his Sabbath has been polluted and transgressed, or that it has not been properly kept and sanctified (Jer. 17:21-23, 27; Ezek. 20:12, 16, 20-21; Isa. 56:2). It is as if to abandon this article would leave nothing by which he might be honoured. Moreover he greatly commends the keeping of this day, and accordingly believers prized the revelation of the Sabbath as a singular blessing, above all the others which had been conferred on them. Thus the Levites declare in Nehemiah: ‘You made known to our fathers your holy Sabbath, your commandments and your rites, and you gave them the law by the hand of Moses’ (Neh. 9:14). So we see how especially they esteemed this commandment above all the others.

All this shows how noble and pre-eminent the Sabbath was—something which is clearly propounded also by Moses and Ezekiel. This is what we read in Exodus: ‘Observe my Sabbath, for it is a sign between me and you in every generation, that you may understand that I am the God who sanctifies you. Keep, therefore, my Sabbath, for it must be holy to you. Let the children of Israel keep it and celebrate it in their generations, for it is a perpetual covenant and a sign for all eternity’ (Exod. 31:13-17). Ezekiel says the same thing at greater length, but the sum of what he says comes to this: it was a sign by which Israel should know that God was their Sanctifier (Ezek. 20:12).

Now if to be sanctified is to renounce our own will, it is obvious that a likeness exists between the external sign and the inner reality. We must rest completely in order that God may work within us; we must set our own will aside, resign our heart, deny and forsake all the desires of the flesh. In short, we must cease from everything which our own mind suggests to us, so that with God working within us we may be at one with him. That too is what the apostle teaches us (Heb. 3:10-11; 4:9-10). In Israel that was what the Sabbath rest represented, and in order to provide stronger religious sanction for the practice, our Lord confirmed his command by his own example. For it is no small stimulus for man to be taught that he may copy his Creator.

Why the seventh day?

If someone needs to know the secret meaning of the number seven, it is plausible to say that since in Scripture it stands for perfection, it was chosen here to signify perpetuity, which corresponds well with what we find in Moses. For having said that the Lord rested on the seventh day, he adds no further detail, thus fixing an end to God’s work. Another probable conjecture about this might also be suggested. Perhaps in specifying this number the Lord meant us to understand that the Sabbath for believers will never be perfectly fulfilled until the last day, for we only begin it here and daily pursue it, but because we are continually at war with our flesh there will be no end until Isaiah’s statement comes true, namely that in the kingdom of God there will be a Sabbath which goes on forever, that is, when God is all in all (Isa. 66:23; cf. 1 Cor. 15:28). It might therefore appear that the Lord intended the seventh day to be a symbol to his people of that Sabbath perfection which will be realized on the last day, so as to help them aim for that perfection by constant effort throughout this life.

If that explanation appears too involved and is therefore unacceptable to some, I have no objection if this simpler one were preferred: the Lord appointed a day by which the people were trained under the law’s tutelage to reflect on that spiritual rest which knows no end; he therefore set apart the seventh day, either thinking that it would be enough, or the better to urge the people to observe this practice, following his own example, or else to show them that the Sabbath’s only purpose was to make them like their Creator.

It scarcely matters, as long as the meaning of this mystery is preserved—which is that the people should be taught to cease from their works. That was the thought to which the Jews were always being directed by the prophets, in case they should think that they were blameless merely by refraining from manual work. Besides the texts which we have cited, this is written in Isaiah: ‘If you abstain on the Sabbath so as not to follow your own will on my holy day, and if you solemnly make the Sabbath a holy day and a delight to the Lord of glory, and if you glorify him by leaving off your work and your own wants are neglected, then you will prosper in God’ (Isa. 58:13-14).

The Sabbath fulfilled in Christ, but rest and worship to be preserved

Now there is no doubt that the ceremonial content of this precept was abolished by Christ’s coming, for he is the truth who, by his presence, makes all these symbols disappear. He is the body, in respect of whom the shadows flee away. He is, I say, the Sabbath’s true fulfilment, since buried with him in baptism, we are grafted into the fellowship of his death, in order that, as those who share in his resurrection, we may walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4). That is why the apostle says that the Sabbath was a shadow of what was to come, and that its body is in Christ (Col. 2:17). He, as the passage well explains, is the real, solid and substantial truth. Now this is not simply a matter of one day; it affects our entire life to the point where, dying to self, we are filled with the life of God. Hence it follows that Christians should pay no heed to the superstitious observance of days.

Nevertheless, the remaining two purposes which the commandment has in view should not be included among the shadows of ancient times: they apply equally in every age. Although the Sabbath has been revoked, it does not prevent the custom among us of having certain days when, first, we gather to hear sermons, to offer public prayer and to celebrate the sacraments, and, second, when some relief is given to servants and to manual workers. There is no question that the Lord intended both things when he issued the Sabbath injunction. Ample evidence for the first is found in the practice of the Jews themselves. The second was mentioned by Moses in these words of Deuteronomy: ‘So that your servant and maidservant may rest as you do, remember that you were a slave in Egypt’ (Deut. 5:14-15). Again, in Exodus: ‘So that your ox, your ass and your household may have rest’ (Exod. 23:12). Who can deny that both these things are as relevant to us as they were to the Jews?

Church assemblies are enjoined on us by God’s word, and experience itself demonstrates how much we need them. Now if there were no appointed days, when could people meet? The apostle declares that everything should be done among us decently and in order (1 Cor. 14:40). But there is no way that propriety and order could be preserved without this weekly arrangement. If it did not exist we would immediately see incredible trouble and confusion in the church. So if the Lord would meet our needs in the same way as he did when he appointed the Sabbath for the Jews, let no one claim that this law is in no way meant for us. For it is quite certain that our kindly Father has provided for our needs no less than for those of the Jews.

Then why, it may be asked, do we not assemble every day in order to remove this distinction between days? I would be very glad if that were the case. The cause of spiritual wisdom would be well served indeed if there were some hour in the day reserved for it. But if the weakness of many makes a daily assembly impossible, and if love forbids us pressing them further, why do we not follow the reasonable course revealed to us by God?

Is Sunday observance legalistic?

We must spend a little longer on this question, because some erratic spirits are today making a terrible fuss about Sunday. Christians, they complain, are being fed a kind of Judaism, since they still continue to respect certain days¹. I answer that Judaism has nothing to do with the fact that we observe Sunday, for there is a big difference between us and the Jews. We do not observe it out of strict religious scruples, as if it were a rite replete with what we thought of as a spiritual mystery. Rather we use it as a necessary remedy so as to maintain good order in the church. Even so, they say, Paul denies that Christians should be judged by the observance of days, since that was a shadow of things to come. For that reason he fears that his work among the Galatians has been in vain, since they continued to observe certain days (Gal. 4:10-11; Col. 2:16). And he assures the Romans that to distinguish one day from another is superstition (Rom. 14:5).

Now what man of sound sense does not understand the kind of observance of which Paul is speaking? The Galatians were not setting out to respect the good government and order of the church such as we have described; their concern instead was to retain the feast days as the shadows of spiritual things, and thus to obscure Christ’s glory and the light of the gospel. They did not refrain from manual work because this stopped them reflecting on God’s word, but did so out of foolish devotion, fancying that by resting they were doing God a favour. It is thus against this perverse teaching that Paul protests, and not against the lawful ordinance established to preserve peace in the Christian fellowship. For it was for that purpose that the churches which he had built up kept the Sabbath, a point he proves by reserving that day as the one on which the Corinthians should bring their alms to the church (1 Cor. 16:2).

If we are afraid of superstition, it is more to be feared on Jewish feast days than it is now on Sundays. For since it was fitting that superstition be abolished, the day which the Jews kept was abandoned, and because it was necessary to maintain order, good government and peace in the church, another day was substituted. I do not insist on the numeral ‘seventh’ in order to subject the church to some sort of bondage, for I would not condemn churches which had different solemn days for their gatherings as long as no superstition was involved. And indeed there is none when the sole aim is to maintain discipline.

To summarize, then, the precept means this. As the truth was revealed to the Jews in symbolic form, so now, devoid of symbols, it is made known to us. Throughout our lives we must think of a perpetual rest from our works, so that God may work in us by his Spirit. Second, we should observe legitimate church order in the hearing of the word, the celebration of the sacraments and the offering of solemn prayers. Third, we should not place excessive burdens on those who are under our authority. In this way, there will be an end to the lies of those false teachers who in times past have fed poor common folk on Jewish beliefs, making no distinction between Sunday and the Sabbath except by saying that the seventh day, which was formerly in force, has been revoked, but that one day should nevertheless be kept. That is simply to maintain that the day has been changed to spite the Jews, and to remain wedded to the superstition which Paul condemns. It is to preserve some secret meaning, as was the case under the Old Testament.

To be sure, we can see what fruits their teaching has produced. Those who follow it surpass the Jews in their carnal belief in the Sabbath, so much so that the reproofs which we find in Isaiah apply more to them than to those whom the prophet rebuked in his own time (Isa. 1:13; 58:13).

Addendum: Calvin’s Correction²

The authority of Calvin has often been quoted to support the view that the substance of the fourth commandment cannot be separated from the ceremonial law and that its authority is therefore ended for Christians. It is true this was Calvin’s belief. In his Institutes he rejects the teaching that while ‘the ceremonial part of this commandment has been abrogated . . . the moral part remains — namely, the fixing of one day in seven.’³ But what has not been sufficiently noticed is that this did not remain the reformer’s teaching. The passages on the fourth commandment found in the final edition of the Institutes of 1559 were written some years before that date and never revised. When preaching on Genesis, in 1559, Calvin very clearly takes the position which he earlier rejected:

Concerning the creation of God’s works, it is said that ‘God rested in order to consider his works’. How can that be? He did not need to, as we have stated, but he instructs us what we are to do, as if saying, ‘Behold, I want a day set aside for contemplation of my works.’ Therefore, we have a God who is resting to be a mirror and pattern so that we may conform ourselves to him . . .⁴ Because we are so weak and fragile and fickle, God has given us a day to help us sustain ourselves for the remainder of the week . . . help will come to us from the day itself which is given to us, during which we abandon all occupations, all worldly cares and thoughts in order to give our minds to that holy meditation we mentioned . . . Now in the Law, God commanded the day of rest for another reason, and at this point we must carefully distinguish between the order God established in the creation of the world and this commandment which appears in the Law of Moses . . . to give another and differing view, namely that it is a shadow and figure of spiritual rest . . . But the fact remains that we have one definite day of the week which is to be completely spent in hearing God’s word, in prayers, and petitions and meditating upon his works that we may rejoice in him.

There are two facets of observance. For the present, it will suffice us to know that God continued in the Law what he had begun at the creation of the world . . . So let us learn to sanctify the day of rest in order to bring ourselves into conformity with our God’s example and preserve the order which he established to be inviolable till the end.⁵

Calvin’s change of judgment had already taken place by the time his Commentary on Genesis was published in 1554.⁶ In that volume, on God’s blessing of the seventh day in Genesis 2:3, he said:

That benediction is nothing else than a solemn consecration, by which God claims for himself the meditations and employments of men on the seventh day. This is, indeed, the proper business of the whole of life, in which men should daily exercise themselves, to consider the infinite goodness, justice, power, and wisdom of God, in this magnificent theatre of heaven and earth. But, lest men should prove less sedulously attentive to it than they ought, every seventh day has been especially selected for the purpose of supplying what was wanting in daily meditation . . . he dedicated every seventh day to rest, that his own example might be a perpetual rule.⁷

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Featured Photograph: Lionel Constable, 1828–1887, British, View on the River Sid, near Sidmouth, ca. 1852, Oil on paper on board, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1981.25.173.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

The post True Piety in Children: Some Observations and Encouragements appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

‘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.

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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

The post The Mystery of the Trinity – T. J. Crawford (2/2) appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

‘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

The post The Mystery of God’s Oneness – T. J. Crawford (1/2) appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

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)

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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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