2 Cor. ii. 17, and iii. 1–6.
“For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God:
but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we
in Christ. Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or
need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or
letters of commendation from you? Ye are our epistle,
written in our hearts, known and read of all men: forasmuch as ye
are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by
us; written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God;
not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.
And such trust have we through Christ to Godward; not that we are
sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but
our sufficiency is of God; who hath made us able ministers of the
New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the
letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
To “speak the same thing,”—to “be of
one mind in the Lord,”—to
be altogether one in the Father, and
in the Son, as they are one, is the
proper habitude of all the members of the church, and especially
of all ministers of the word, of God.
Because,
however, of human imperfections, differences have arisen in the
church, even from the earliest and holiest days. Wherefore
controversy in the present day need not surprise us; nor should
we shun it as if it were necessarily unchristian; nor is any man
obliged to take part in it with any other feelings than such as
are holy and benignant. With good will may we withstand or
intreat one another, or earnestly contend for the faith against
an adversary.
Did not the apostle Paul withstand Peter to the face, with
feelings anything but personally hostile, because he was to be
blamed for his dissembling example: and does not the silence of
the story most eloquently speak the silent and affectionate
concession of the brother who was blamed?
Do not the words, which I have just read, bring before us
another early conflict in holy times: when “many”
teachers of the word of God
“corrupted” it, and the apostle had to maintain the
truth against them as “false apostles” [2] appealing in his own behalf to sanctions
given to him by God Himself? And
are we not safely to conclude that his zeal and charity in the
contest obtained a blessed recompense in the preservation of many
from those ruinous corruptions.
Now it is
observable that the apostle concentrates the strength of his
defence, in this particular passage, in an appeal to the work of
the Holy Spirit of God attending his ministrations.
Whatever might be the truths or errors brought into
question,—whether concerning the Holy
Ghost Himself, or other subjects of a different
nature,—there were such effects of his labours to be seen,
as would prove the presence of that Divine
Spirit with his ministry, and not with the
contrary. And hence we may infer, that though all teachers
among Christians will assert their possession of the Spirit, all may not possess Him; and the
teaching of some may want this remarkable and distinguishing
evidence of being from God.
We need not dissemble that our own Church is Corinthian in
this respect in the present day. We clergy are so. We
cannot—(and in my heart I feel deeply what I say)—we
cannot all be right. And it is my honest and heart-rending
conviction, that some of our differences are such, as will
separate us for ever, if we die in them.
But come now, and let us reason together. We have all,
by our outward vocation, one common interest in one common and
most momentous work. We have to save our own souls, and the
souls of
them that hear us. Our responsibilities reach into
eternity! May we by love so serve one another that we may
all be workers together with God in
the immense design, for which His Son our Saviour died upon the
cross; that in the great day of His appearing many converted
souls may be our “epistles of commendation”
before His throne in glory!
Concerning the great controversy, which at present pervades
our church, some things relate to the Holy Ghost Himself, some
more especially to the Lord Jesus Christ, some to the Holy
Scriptures, some more particularly to the church.
Whatever of these I may notice, I wish to keep the Holy Spirit prominently in our view, and to
make our truth or error, as bearing upon Him, the main
matter of our discourse. The general subject will be The
sanction of that Divine
Person in the Holy
Trinity, attending one sort of doctrine and
ministry, and not another, and the evidences to be
observed of the fact: and it will involve this question,
namely, Who are the true ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ, accredited by
the Holy Ghost?
If I state things which some of us well know, I feel confident
that they will admit the importance of my bringing them before
others, who may not be aware of the position at which we are already
arrived in the matters we have to speak of.
I. The first thing which I have to propound is this:
That the Holy Ghost
is the essential Agent in the right administration and reception
of divine ordinances. In this, taken generally, we are
all agreed.
None of us doubts that the words of the apostle to the
presbyters of Ephesus would now apply to all true presbyters of
Christ: “Take heed to
yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you
overseers, to feed the church of God,
which He hath purchased with His own blood.” [5a] So, the seven deacons were
“men full of the Holy Ghost and
wisdom.” [5b] The word also is said to be
“preached with the Holy
Ghost sent down from heaven:” to come to those
hearing it aright, “in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much
assurance;” [5c] and to be received with
“joy of the Holy
Ghost;” and “in demonstration of the
Spirit and of power.” [5d] And so, both
in regard to ministers and members of the church, it is declared,
that “to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another
the word of knowledge by the same Spirit, to another faith by the
same Spirit;”—all these more
ordinary
gifts, as well as those which were miraculous, “worketh
that one and the self-same Spirit,
dividing to every man severally as he will.” [6a] And when it is also solemnly
declared—“I give you to understand, that no
man can say (aright) that Jesus is
the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost,” [6b]—and that “if any man have
not the Spirit of Christ, he is
none of His;” [6c]—how clear and
unquestionable is the conclusion, that the Holy Ghost must be the essential
Agent in the right administration and reception of divine
ordinances; and that in fact there can be none without Him, in
the minds both of ministers and people.
Hence it was that, in the words before us, the apostle
declared his “sufficiency to be of God;” that it was of God that he ministered the word without
corrupting it, as some did; and that the beautiful lineaments of
the living christian character, which he had been the means of
producing in them, were actually produced by the Holy Ghost, thus divinely authenticating the
office and instrumental ministrations of the apostle. Here
was the writing of his recommendatory letters.
This view of things carries in it the point, that no man can
be a true minister of Jesus Christ, unless the Spirit of Christ
be with him. And so general is the conviction of this
as a fact, that strange indeed would it be to find a single
bishop, priest, or deacon of our church, who should not feel it
essential to his integrity to lay claim to this holy
authentication of himself from God to men.
Now here is the question! Let us calmly and seriously
examine it. Can we all have the Holy
Ghost, who lay claim to His presence and power with
us? I propose to meet this question negatively, and
therefore,
II. My next position is the following: That it is
impossible to suppose that we ALL have the Holy Ghost, who lay claim to his
presence and power in our ministrations.
1. The awful ungodliness of some of us too plainly
proves the truth of this, believe it who will. It is
fearful to think of their standing as they are in the sanctuary
of the Most Holy God! “To
the wicked God saith, What hast thou
to do, to declare my statutes, and to take my covenant in thy
mouth? Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words
behind thee.” [7]
2. But, alas! It is not only the unholy beyond
dispute that may fail of the Holy
Ghost. What say the habits of vain conversation in
many; their ease and pleasure in worldly occupations and
amusements; their constraint under sacred employments, their gladness
when such works are done? Must their hearts be the
temples of the Holy Ghost? Will
He make the word to be “the power of God,” to honour their preaching
of it; or the sacraments means of grace, to own their
administration? May He not, does He not refuse to do
so? Where is the fruit of their labour?
3. But even were we questionable in nothing but points
of doctrine and religious practices which we teach, this were
enough, not only to raise the question, whether we minister by
the Holy Ghost, but also to determine
it. For the Spirit cannot
testify to both of two systems differing from one
another in many fundamental points.
Such are the two systems at present in agitation. That
of Protestant Evangelical Christianity on the one hand, and that
of Anglo-catholicity on the other: the one rejecting Romanism in
all its peculiarities; the other sympathizing with it, and
avowedly rejecting the principles of the Protestant faith. [8a] The controversy is not new,
though it has seldom been so vigorously conducted on either side
as now. The same spirits were in active warfare some forty
years ago. [8b] But, in fact, it has been fairly
said by one of the chief writers on the Anglo-catholic side, that
there have ever been these two principal parties in the Church of
England, whom he calls the Apostolical and the
Puritan; introducing a third also, (not now in the
controversy,) namely, the Latitudinarian. [9a]
In point of doctrine, the terms Apostolical, Laudian,
Orthodox, and Anglo-catholic, have more or less of connexion with
each other; and the terms Evangelical, Puritan, Calvinistic, and
Protestant, have a similar affinity.
a. Now it has often been acknowledged by the
opposite party, that the compilers of our Articles were not only
Protestant, but Calvinistic, and what we now call Evangelical, in
their religious views. It has often been felt and allowed,
that, in the plain and full meaning of these Articles,
according to their literal and grammatical sense, which
the royal Declaration peremptorily claims for them, without
admitting of any new sense whatever, they favour less the
Laudians and the Arminians, than the Puritans and Calvinists. [9b] In this sense they
are freely and confidently appealed to by the latter; and the
appeal is ever most happily and strongly sustained by other
appeals to the writings of the Reformers, in proof of what they
meant. The true Protestants, therefore, are perceived to
have always had the best of the controversy, when
conducted by sustaining the full and literal sense on the one
hand, and softening it down on the other:—wherefore it is
now attempted, with a determination never shown before, not
merely to incline the Articles to speak a softer Protestantism;
but at once to seize them violently, and force them to an
absolute recantation; or, to stifle them under the reiterated
pressure of directly antagonist opinions; affirming, against
evidence, that those opinions were intended by the
compilers to be admissible into the meaning! [11]
They
thus, in purpose, completely take away the old, and substitute a
new confession of faith, whatever care may seem to be taken to
retain the form of words. And, casting out the
Writings of our Reformers also, as a Court of Appeal, and
proposing extraordinary additions to our Formularies, and various
ceremonial innovations, they declare it to be their intention to
unprotestantize [12] the Church of
England altogether, and to re-unite her, in due time, with the
Church of Rome. And they are steadily and gradually
advancing.
While they are labouring with most devoted assiduity at this
achievement, we, on the other hand, are firmly maintaining our
old Church of England ground, standing by our old appeals as
resolutely as ever, and humbly believing that the same God, who has for years been gradually and
steadily increasing our numbers and our strength, will still go
on to increase them, until the Church of England shall stand in
the full and undisputed possession of the sons of her reforming
fathers; and true Anglo-catholicity shall be the share
which the English Protestant Church shall enjoy in
Catholic Christianity throughout the world.
But now, the question is, how can we possibly imagine that the
Holy Ghost can accredit both
these opposing systems, and the advocates of both, so
essentially differing from each other? For, either
the whole system of the Protestant Reformation, and of our
Church as Protestant, is one enormous, awful, and tremendous
error; or Anglo-catholics are doubly dishonest, first to the
Church of England, which they still subscribe to; and secondly to
the TRUTH of God according to our confession of
faith. The decision of the question may be suspended for a
moment.
b. The more we inquire into this subject, the
wider will the difference appear to be. There is one most
vital part of it, on which I will not say much; because it is so
generally heard of, and amongst ourselves so easily
understood. I mean the union, by the Anglo-catholics, of
tradition with Holy Scripture as the Rule of Faith, [13a] in direct contradiction (as I think)
to our sixth Article. It is contradictory also to testimony
upon testimony from their own favourite Fathers and Divines, [13b] as well as the Reformers; and even to
the plainest testimony of Holy Scripture itself. “From I
child,” says the Spirit of God by St. Paul to Timothy, “thou hast
known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise
unto salvation though faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given
by inspiration of God; and is
profitable for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness; that the man of God may
be PERFECT, THOROUGHLY FURNISHED unto all good
works.” [14]
Here, in particular, an opposition of sentiments appears upon
a vital point, in which the Holy
Ghost, in the very nature of things, can only take one
side.
But they want the tradition, and therefore they must
have it. It supports superstitions, which Scripture will
not. And the difficulty of explaining ignota per
ignotiora aggravates the importance of a present priesthood
to explain both, as may seem good to them, without the
possibility of popular private judgment being exercised on their
interpretations and conclusions.
c. Again; their doctrine of mystery in religion,
putting, (by a strange mutation,) the most obvious things for the
deepest, is made particularly to produce a comparative silence
respecting the atonement of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is remarkable that they should choose for
the example of this mysterious reserve, the very subject
concerning which the Apostle St. Paul declares to the Corinthians,
“I am determined not to know anything among you,
save Jesus Christ, and Him
crucified:” “We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord:” “We preach Christ crucified!” [15a] But then, their Christ
crucified, by a painful perversion, is shown to be
self-crucified; tears, and penances, and mortifications
constituting their substitution for sin, (atonement I cannot call
it;) while Christ is kept back,
chiefly for mere sacramental exhibition. [15b]
That glorious name of Jesus, “the
Lord our righteousness,” they almost veil from our
sight, as far as His obedience to the law for us is
concerned; and His sole justification, wrought for us,
they actually displace by another thing. The Lutheran
doctrine upon the subject, which is that of our eleventh Article,
is called radically and fundamentally monstrous,
immoral, heretical, and antichristian. [16a] And justification, instead of
being by the works and deserving of Christ accounted unto us, and received by
faith, is said to consist in the “habitation of Christ in
us,” or “of God the FATHER, and the WORD incarnate, through the Holy Ghost:” “the Spirit’s work, not Christ’s:” “an imparting
of righteousness;” [16b] “not
imputation merely, but the act of God imparting His divine
presence to the soul through baptism, and so making us temples of
the Holy Ghost.” [16c] But something also is said about
our being able to “obey unto justification,”
[16d] in opposition to Luther; which
intimates clearly that human works, resulting from this
indwelling, are to be the substantial justifying material; and
faith is to be the first of those works. For when they
refer to the Article, asserting that “we are justified
by faith only,” they say, “Faith, as being the
beginning of perfect or justifying righteousness, is taken
for what it tends towards, or ultimately will be. It is
said by anticipation to be that which it promises; just as one
might pay a labourer his hire, before he began his
work.” [16e] And thus,
their Christ justifying seems to be made much like their
Christ crucified in us; self imitating Christ in another part of His work. A
more complete removal of the Saviour
out of His place in the great work of redemption, with a specious
introduction of the Holy Ghost to aid
in the removal, that man may do the work of his own
justification, it is not easy to conceive. Whether this
be right or not, judge ye. But that the Holy Ghost should testify both to
this justification, and to that which is by faith only in
the righteousness of Christ, which is
the justification of the Protestant Reformers and their
Evangelical descendants, it is clearly impossible to suppose.
d. The Holy Ghost
himself, and all that religion which consists in spiritual
experience, are expressly removed from full and ordinary
teaching,—the glory and excellency of them being consigned
to reverential reserve! [17]
The new birth of the soul by the Spirit, (except as in baptism,) the fruits
of the Spirit in holiness, the comfort
of the Spirit, the witness of the
Spirit, the seal, the earnest, the
fellowship, the indwelling, the anointing of the Holy Spirit,—His work as a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of Christ, and the deep
things of God,—a Spirit of intercession, a Spirit of adoption, a Spirit of glory, and all other subjects of
Christian experience, are to be said little about,—while it
is the very fear of others that they should grieve and
dishonour this glorious Person in the ever-blessed Trinity by not
fully declaring them. They are deeply impressed by the fact
that His work is equally essential to their salvation with that
of Jesus Himself, and full of
consolation and delight. And some perhaps may be the more
intent upon preaching all that ever appertains to Him from a
spirit of holy jealousy, knowing that it is a subject in which so
many of us halt.
And what is their substitute? Mere morality with some:
devotions, fastings, and almsgiving, with our brethren who are
more in earnest; all busy in suspending fruits upon the evil
tree, to make it good; instead of “first looking to the
Spirit of God to make the tree good, that his fruit
may be good also.” [18]
e. The sacraments are a subject in which
the difference and the controversy exhibit remarkably strong
characteristics. Our Anglo-catholics, it is evident, use
the very term sacrament as if the spiritual grace
signified thereby constituted the substantial meaning of the
term: but our twenty-ninth Article shows at once that our
Reformers applied it to the outward sign; “The
sign OR sacrament of
so great a thing:” and they there apply the term to the
bread and wine, in contra-distinction to the body and
blood of Christ. In the
twenty-fifth Article the sense is carried out, and the term is
applied to the ceremony, still having reference to that,
which is ordained of God indeed, but perceived by the outward
senses. And these are essential matters: for there is no
sacrament, by the same article, where there is no visible
sign or ceremony ordained of God. Baptism is called a
sign of regeneration, whereby they that receive it rightly
are, as by a significant process or instrument, not regenerated,
but visibly “grafted into the church,” as already
regenerated; [19] and “have the promises of
forgiveness and adoption,” not then first brought home to
their souls, but “visibly signed and sealed” to
them;—“faith,” not first imparted, but
“stirred up”—and “grace,” not first
given, but “increased, by virtue of prayer to God.”
And if the Liturgy and Catechism speak of the inward and
spiritual grace signified as part of the sacrament, or
seem to say that the sacrament of baptism, as much as that of the
Lord’s Supper, is a mean of receiving that
particular grace which is signified,—they should be
explained so as to harmonize with the Articles, which do already
harmonize with Holy Scripture. It is a part, not as
tied to the Form in time and place, but as the distinct reality,
on which all the value of the formal representation is founded,
and which therefore should always be steadily eyed in it. [20]
It is
evident that our twenty-seventh Article contemplated, in the body
of it, the baptism of adults, spiritually born. And though
our ritual prefers to pray for the Holy Spirit, that they may then
surely have His regenerating grace, to presuming on the previous
certainty of its experience; yet the certain answer to this
prayer is assuredly taken for granted as the ceremony proceeds;
inasmuch as the acts of living souls are forthwith required of
the subjects before they are baptized; namely, that they
can speak spiritually, and deliver “the answer of a good
conscience before God” in the exercise of repentance and
faith, and the avowal of them. And so it is observable,
that though our form of infant baptism prefers to
implore regeneration then, to presuming certainly
that the infant is regenerated ere he comes, yet the fact
is presumed to be granted previously to the answers
being made; for they are the answers of a new-born soul.
Charity afterwards hopeth all things, though often
disappointed. And thus our church uniformly goes upon the
apostolic rule, given in answer to the question, “What doth hinder
me to be baptized?” viz., “If thou believest with
all thine heart, (which is the fruit of regenerating grace,
[22a]) thou mayest.” A heart,
even in infants, that would show faith, if organs served, is
presumed to be; for “except they be born again, they cannot
see the kingdom of God.” [22b] The law has no exception.
The terms baptize and baptism are used in
Scripture to express the spiritual regeneration as well as the
mystical. On the one hand, we hear of “the
Baptism of John;” “I indeed baptize you
with water;” “he that believeth and is
baptized, shall be saved;” “Christ sent me not to baptize;”
“there is one baptism;” “they were
baptized in the name of Jesus;” “baptizing them
in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost;” and many other instances, having reference
only to baptism with water. On the other hand, we read,
with reference to spiritual baptism, “He shall
baptize you,” saith John, concerning Jesus,
“with the Holy
Ghost and fire;” [23a] where water is not
contemplated: “By one Spirit are we all”
“baptized into one body.” [23b] “So many of us as were
baptized into Jesus Christ, were
baptized into His death. Therefore we are buried with Him
by the baptism unto death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory
of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life. Our old man is crucified
with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed;” and
that we should “yield ourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the
dead.” [23c] And St. Peter, speaking of the
salvation of Noah through the flood, says, “The antitype,
or counterpart, of which, even baptism, doth also now save
us; not the putting away of the filth of the flesh,”
(which is of water baptism,) “but the answer of a
good conscience towards God,” (which is of spiritual baptism,)
“by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead.” You have it [24a] also, where the apostle speaks of the
Colossians as “circumcised with the circumcision made
without hands,” and “buried with Christ in baptism, wherein also they
were risen with Him through faith of the operation of
God, and quickened together with
Him.” [24b]
Now, whether this latter baptism is, or is not, ever
without the former, and the washing of the Spirit only synchronous, or not, with that
of water; it is unquestionably evident that the two things are
perfectly distinct, the one from the other.
Proceed, however, a step further, and observe that it is not
water baptism which the Holy oracles
speak of as the mean, instrument, or channel, of spiritual
baptism or regeneration, but the Holy Scriptures
themselves without it; and immediately the general
separation of the two is as clear as the distinction
between them. “Of His own will,” saith St.
James, “begat He us with the word of truth.”
[24c] “Being born again,”
saith St. Peter, “not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for
ever.” “And this is the word, which by the
Gospel, (not water-baptism,) is preached unto you.” [25a] And add to this, concerning the
thousands of outwardly baptized sinners, the testimony of St.
John, that “whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; in
this the children of God are
manifest, and the children of the devil, whosoever doeth not
righteousness is not of God;” [25b] and the proof is conclusive, that in
the formal baptism of these thousands upon thousands, who do so
commit sin, no regeneration of God was
ever experienced at all. The separation is clear. Men
are born, without water-baptism, by the Spirit and the word; multitudes have it, and
are never born of God at all. [25c]
Against all this, however, the system of the Anglo-catholics
speaketh on this wise:—“The Scriptures, the Church,
and the Fathers declare, with united voice, that regeneration
takes place at baptism. But they go farther; they tell us
very definitely what regeneration is; they tell us that it is
an engrafting into Christ; a new
creation in Christ; and by
consequence, that all the gifts of grace are actually and really
imparted to us in baptism; that in short we are justified,
sanctified, quickened, crucified with Christ, planted together in
the likeness of His death, risen with Him by the power of His
resurrection, and seated with Him in heavenly places; and that
all this is effected by baptism.” [26] This is in a sermon entitled
“Nehushtan, or an Attempt to break the Trifle of
Brass.” And this Nehushtan is the doctrine of
justification by faith; concerning which I refer you to the glory
of our Articles, the eleventh; and then I close this point with
the plain question, Who are the true members of the Church
of England; and with whom is the Spirit of the Holy Scriptures, the Spirit of the martyrs of the Reformation,
the Spirit of the living God, the Holy
Ghost? He cannot be with both.
f. The assigning of regeneration and remission of
sins to outward baptism gives immediate occasion to many
other errors: but to one in particular, of a very lamentable
character. I mean the deplorable, and all but hopeless
condition of those, who sin away their regeneration, and their
plenary remission received in baptism; as innumerable multitudes
are held to do. “The great majority,” say the
Anglo-catholics, “die under the bond of their sins;”
yet so far “under God’s
favour,” that if they pray, and fast, and give alms, and
confess, mourn, and judge, humble, afflict, and abhor themselves,
they may peradventure obtain pardon somewhere, plenary pardon;
though it cannot be granted them any more in this life! [27a] And that somewhere, is
Purgatory, plainly avowed! [27b]
All this ministers strongly to the authority of a priesthood,
in confessions, partial absolutions, and penances; [27c] but our Church (Art. 22) seems to us
to say that it is plainly repugnant to the word of God: and so we believe. Certainly,
therefore, the Holy Ghost is not with
one portion of us in this matter. We know of no
condition, except that of blaspheming against the Holy Ghost, in which, “if we confess
our sins, God is” not
“faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness;” and, “if any man
sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation for our
sins.”
g. I shall not go over the same ground again, with
reference to the sacrament of the holy Communion, as I have done
with respect to Baptism, but state little more than that the way,
in which the Anglo-catholics treat it, is precisely similar.
Spiritual communion in the body and blood of Christ, which we hold that believers
always may enjoy by faith in the living words of
Christ, the Anglo-catholics
bind inseparably to the sign or sacrament thereof; namely to the
bread and wine, and the sacred ceremonial. Their
body and blood of Christ is the bread
and wine made so by their priests, and given only by their
means to the people. “The sacraments,” to the
exclusion of other ordinances, “are (with them) the sources
of divine grace.” [28a] One is the
very and only womb of regeneration itself; the other the only
breast that nurses the child of God
with the very body and blood of Christ. These forms their
clergy can handle and talk about, and they reservedly hint at the
work of the Spirit of God in them: howbeit of spiritual life and
spiritual communion, as things distinct from them, and much more
large, and of other times and places, and means also, they
profess to believe nothing. They hold the Spirit of God
mostly within their own sources; and the body and blood of Christ quite at their own disposal. [28b]
Now,
when our Saviour says, “Except
ye eat my flesh and drink my blood ye have no life in you,”
and it is held that the baptized have life, though they
have not come to the table of the Lord; it will needs be granted that eating
the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ is a thing previous to coming
to that holy table: therefore it may be, as no doubt it is,
after coming thither also; of course in other
places and by the use of other means. Jesus says, therefore, “Whoso eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life:” and when
He would save them from the delusive idea of eating His carnal
body and blood, He tells them “it is the Spirit,” that is, the Holy Ghost taking of the things of Christ, and showing them unto us
spiritually, “that quickeneth,” ministereth
life; and then he refers them for the means, not to any
contemplated sign or sacrament, but to His words attended
by His Spirit: “The words that I
speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”
In them believers have their constant food.
The very flesh of Christ itself, if
they could have it in a literal sense, would profit them nothing;
all that is effective being the “ministration of the Spirit.” Even in the sacrament,
the Word, thought of, and received by
faith of the operation of the Holy
Ghost, is that medium by which the Spirit most properly conveys the Saviour to the soul. The bread and
wine have no more in them than the character of the most beautiful,
significant sign or sacrament of so great a thing: just as the
king’s letters, and not his picture, even in the most
affecting transactions of his life or death, would really convey
the presence of his mind and attributes to his people.
It is, however, habitually true of this sacrament, though not
so of the other, that it is A means (not THE means) whereby the inward and
spiritual grace signified is received by the faithful.
But if the same precision were used in a review of our Liturgy
and Catechism, as was exercised in the framing of our Articles,
we might avoid asserting anywhere, as well as in the latter, that
the sacraments are means of the grace signified, without the loss
of anything essential; and so we should be saved from predicating
that in the definition of a thing, which is proved
not to be universally true of it. We might be saved from
seeming to affirm that we are made children of God spiritually by formal baptism,
when in fact it is only formally that we are thereby made
so; or by baptism are regenerate. That sacraments are
signs and seals to the faithful of the inward and
spiritual grace signified is universally true, and therefore
proper in a definition of them: that they are means
thereof, or pledges, [30] is not universally
true, and therefore improper in a definition, though true in part. And
our conflicts upon the subject will never be put an end to until
our church clearly expresses herself agreeably to the distinction
and separability between things spiritual and things formal. [31a]
It does not appear that any of the principal Protestant
Confessions of faith affirm the sacraments to be means of
the special grace signified by them, except the Augsburg,
which is the Lutheran. And if it is generally to this that
the English articles are to be traced, the difference of the
latter from the former upon this particular point can scarcely be
otherwise than purposely intended. [31b]
When our Anglo-catholic brethren seem as if they would
“not oppose anything existing,” [31b] or touch so much as an iota of our
Anglican Confession in verbal alterations, and yet
hesitate not deliberately to sharpen their weapons, and at a few
gashes to embowel it of its vitals; (I allude to the ninetieth
Tract;) if they describe our church as “teaching with the
stammering lips of ambiguous formularies,” and as
“incomplete in her formal doctrine and discipline,”
and would totally change her Protestant character by
introductions from the Roman Breviary and
Missal;—with all this havoc of change before us, it is a
small matter to desire merely a clearer distinction between
formal and spiritual things, or any other sanatory touch of like
character, which would fulfil the work of the Reformation,
instead of thoroughly undoing it, [32a] as they
design to do.
In such a process we should be casting off the last frontlet
of our ancient grave-clothes, and putting a crown of pure
gold upon our head. Rome would have done with us for ever,
and we with Rome; and our separated brethren of other communions
would see the way opening for re-union to an unlimited
extent.
g. The essentials of the OFFICE and WORK of the ministry, as propounded on
either side, constitute another very material ground of
difference. [32b]
We are, I suppose, agreed that the first essential of the OFFICE is, that we be clearly called to
it, and effectually sustained in it, by the Holy Ghost. But when we come to the
outward and visible proofs of this call and this supporting
power, then we differ. The Anglo-catholics consider it
essential to be ordained by bishops receiving their appointment
in regular succession from the apostles; as that, without which
no benefit of sacraments or other ministrations can be imparted,
nor, in fact, any church exist. The Anglo-protestants, on
the other hand, attach not the same importance to the apostolical
succession of bishops; and will say with Melancthon, “When
bishops do not teach the truth, an ordinary succession avails
nothing to the church;” [33a] and they hold that
the appointment of a bishop by presbyters among themselves is
valid. They consider the laying on of the hands of a bishop
and others of the presbytery, to be the most scriptural
Ordination of presbyters, and best for their own church; [33b] yet not so essential to the being of
a church but that Ordination without a bishop may be valid, and
is so in other churches, and has scriptural succession in its
Presbytery.
By the former, it is assumed, that the Holy Ghost is given in ordination to all who
are thus ordained, for the custody of the good deposit, the
fundamentals of doctrine and practice, and all other parts of
their office; and that through these ministers alone the people
can derive sacramental grace; and if this ordination once be
given, it is of itself the grand, essential, and sufficient proof
of a true minister, and of the abiding of the Holy Ghost, with him continually.
Now, it is true that we hold, that an evil minister, incurring
even deposition by our discipline, does not necessarily prevent
the communications of divine grace to the souls of men in the
ministration of the word and sacraments. But we hold also
that he is to be deposed, and that there is something vastly
contrary to the true system of things in his being where he is;
though God has acted with inscrutable
wisdom in having suffered it. But unless ministers
continually prove by all the “fruits of the Spirit,” that the Spirit of God is
with them, their ordination does nothing for them in our
esteem, but load them with extraordinary sin and guilt. It
is expected, that they be “not of the world;” though
it is not by monasteries that they are to go out of it; but by
keeping themselves unspotted from the sins and vanities and pomps
of it; while their light shines before men in doing good in it,
for the glory of their heavenly Father. Their love of souls dictates
zeal and labour and self-denial and holy co-operation. They
weep and pray and wrestle with God for
blessings on their unworthy ministrations; they reprove, rebuke,
exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine; they humble the
proud to penitence without penance; they comfort the
feeble-minded, and heal the broken-hearted, without the
unhallowed domination of confessionals, or absolutions other than
declarative or merely ecclesiastical; [35] and they are
conscious of maintaining, (without forced explanations,) an
honest consistency, in doctrine and practice, with the plain
meaning of their own articles and of Holy Scripture. These
and all other fruits of the Spirit,
love, joy, peace, long-suffering gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance;—these are their essential proofs of
office; without which the form of Ordination would be nothing but
a heavy grief to them. It always has been, moreover, and I
believe it ever would be, did circumstances lead to it, the
blessedness and glory of these men to die as martyrs for their
faith. The love of Christ would
constrain them to do it joyfully. Few indeed are the clear
instances of any other kind of religious persecutions unto death;
while the thousands upon thousands of those who have been the
usual martyrs for Christ, have
been, not of the Anglo-catholic, but of the Evangelical
faith. The Reformers are granted to us: the
Huguenots, the Waldenses, the Lollards and
Hussites, the Paulicians, the martyrs of Lyons and
Vienne, &c., have all been of the same confession of faith
and the same character. But, alas! if the likeness of the
Anglo-catholic creed and practices to Popery be considered, how
near are the professors of that creed most fearfully coming to
the character of the accusers of the brethren, the persecutors of
the saints, the very crucifiers of the Lord
of Glory! With whom then is the Holy Ghost to be supposed to be?
So, with respect to the essentials of ministerial WORK, they say that “the
Church,” i.e. the Clergy, and her sacraments, are
the ordained and visible means of conveying to the soul what
is supernatural and unseen. [37] “The
sacraments, not preaching, are the sources of divine
grace.” We do not disparage the sacraments; but we
say that in holy Scripture preaching has the pre-eminence;
preaching the Gospel of Christ,
“the everlasting Gospel,” “the Gospel of
salvation,” “the glorious Gospel of the blessed God.” And I am anxious that we
should all feel this, understand it well, and study to be
“able ministers of the New Testament.” The
Anglo-catholic doctrine of the wonderful importance of
sacramental grace and of the mysterious dignity and power of the
priesthood in connexion with it, is a comparative nullifying of
the great commission of Christ,
“Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to
every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned.”
Christ also sent the apostle Paul,
“not” with a commission, “to baptize,”
though he did baptize; “but to preach the
Gospel.” And his triumphant argument for preaching,
as the grand mean of grace, and faith, and salvation, will never
be overcome. “Whosoever shall call upon the name of
the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in
whom they have not believed; and how shall they believe in Him of
whom they have not heard; and how shall they hear without
a
preacher; and how shall they preach except they be
sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them
that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings
of good things!” [38a] Of
regeneration itself as produced by the special instrumentality of
the word, we have already heard: and so also the remission of
sins; for “be it known unto you,” says St. Paul to
the people of Antioch in Pisidia, “that through this man is
preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him all
that believe are justified from all things from which ye could
not be justified by the law of Moses.” [38b] The Acts of the Apostles, in
fact, are full of it. By the foolishness of
preaching it has always pleased God to save them that believe, incomparably
more than by any other means. And forasmuch as the
ministers and stewards of God’s
mysteries “cannot,” (as our Ordination Service
speaks,) “by any other means compass the doing of so
weighty a work, pertaining to the salvation of man, but with
doctrine and exhortation taken out of the Holy Scriptures,
and with a life agreeable to the same,” the assiduous study
and preaching of the Holy Scriptures have been the main subject
of the charge given to them, from the days of Timothy to the
present. With ministering “the Holy Sacraments”
they have been most solemnly intrusted; but with preaching the
word CHIEFLY: and to
this has the “success” of their ministry been
consigned. [39a] This is that which, (as
Anglo-catholic teachers affirm,) “to say the least,
Scripture has never much recommended;” an assertion very
much to be blamed, as very untrue. [39b]
Now they who are not sensible of the inconceivable importance
of preaching, will not seek the Spirit of preaching, neither will they
have Him, if they do not ask for Him to be given
them. The word, to be “the power of God unto salvation,” must be
“preached with the Holy
Ghost sent down from heaven,” [39c] “not in the words of man’s
wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” [39d]
I feel convinced, that after all this, my main position will
be generally admitted to be extremely probable, if not certainly
proved; that we cannot on both sides, have the Holy Ghost in the ministrations I have
described, though both lay claim to His presence and power in
them. [39e]
III. I now, therefore, intreat your permission
briefly to press a third position on your serious consideration,
namely, that whoever of us have Him NOT, they are under most
FEARFUL GUILT in
PRETENDING to His
presence.
We all make the pretension. We are guilty therefore, it
is to be feared, on one side or the other: deeply guilty!
a. The guilt is that of being false; of
lying in some things concerning the Holy Ghost, and in some things unto
Him, when false before His saints in whom He dwells. Are we
incurring then the very guilt of Ananias and Sapphira? Let
us fear their condemnation.
b. Our guilt is also that of resisting the
Holy Ghost, in His truth, in
His work, in His people. If we have not known
the ways of God aright, we have erred
in our hearts and hardened them,—against what the Holy Ghost saith, “Harden not your
hearts;” and hereby He is grieved: and the result is that
God swears in His wrath, that we shall
not enter into His rest. [40]
c. Our guilt is that of substituting another
spirit for Him: the Anti-spirit in league with
Anti-christ. It may be said that I go nigh to affirm that
our work may possibly be the working of Satan, if it be not of
the Holy Ghost. My brethren, I
mean quite to say it. For of all evil men, who are
instruments of Satan for seduction, false apostles and ministers
are the most so. And the more apparently holy they are, the
more diligent to put on the form of godliness when they have not
the power,—the more they imitate the love, the
meekness, the humility, the self-denial of Christ,—and profess, at the same time,
that it is by the Holy Ghost that
hereunto they have attained; the more awful is their reception of
Satan for the Holy Ghost.
Am I not right in saying, that errors in principle and in
doctrine are quite as full of guilt in the sight of God as sins of the flesh? They are
sins of the mind, it is true: but are the sins of purely
intellectual evil spirits less than the sins of men, because they
are sins of minds and not of fleshly bodies? And is Satan
to be gently dealt with, and not rather the more indignantly
repulsed, when, and because, he comes as an angel of light?
He is the very best imitator in the universe, and will be amiable
in commending heresies to men. And you may take him to your
hearts in the very resemblance of the Spirit of God
Himself, and assume that you possess the holy anointing of that
blessed Spirit; and hence may issue
the most deadly perversions of the truth of God, under the most amiable guise. You
may be making an unction to yourselves, like unto the holy
anointing oil, under that curse of God, that
you “shall be cut off from His people.” [42] Consider the guilt and
danger!
IV. We are now prepared to come to the consideration of
our fourth point; That the possession of some accrediting
proofs of the presence of the Holy
Ghost is essential to our most important
interests.
Am I a true minister of Jesus
Christ, or am I not? And if I am, is all as it
should be with me? Have I full proof that my
ministry is a participation in the “ministration of the
Spirit,” or have I not? Is
He present with me at all? Is He present with me in all
that fulness and power, that is most justly and rationally and
earnestly to be desired? What are the most certain
credentials or proofs of this?
Two are all that I shall refer to: one is in my text;
the other, which I advert to first, is elsewhere found; I mean
the scriptural Character of the true minister of Christ. You find it concisely
expressed in 2 Tim. iv. 1–5, “I charge thee therefore
before God and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and His
kingdom,—Preach the word, be instant in season, out
of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and
doctrine. Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions,
do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy
ministry.” And in 1 Tim. iv. 12, “Be thou
an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in
charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Take heed to
thyself and to the doctrine: continue in them: for in so doing,
thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.” [43]
As to integrity in doctrine, enough has been said, we should
imagine, to prove the true servant of Christ from the false, the Holy Scripture in
its plainest sense being taken for our guide.
And who, you ask, is to say what the standard of Scripture
doctrine is, and so to determine what we ought to teach?
You must decide for yourselves. “I speak as
unto wise men; judge ye what ye say.” “Wisdom
is justified of her children.” Nothing can possibly
be plainer than Holy Scripture. Pray for the Holy Spirit to be your guide
in understanding it. We shall soon see, if we have Him
indeed, “who is the Lord’s, and who is
holy,”—without his judgments to convince us.
We must do the same with regard to ascertaining who
have that true consistency of ministerial character and
conduct which is laid down in Scripture, and are therefore those,
whom we should “follow; considering the end of their
conversation, Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever.”
Consider, brethren, what and where the power of
godliness really is, and where the form; what and where is
the most honest self-abasement, and where, on the other hand, the
exaltation of man by means of office:—consider whether it
be right to say, where the human commission is, there, and there
only, all is right as to the Spirit;
and not rather, where the Spirit is
vitally proved to be, there, and there only, all is right as to
the human commission: consider what is that dominion over the
people’s faith, which is to be unselfishly repudiated; and
who is their true servant, for Jesus
sake, and the fellow-helper of their joy. Think whether it
is indeed and beyond a doubt the fact, that you have yourselves
“passed from death unto life,” and know what a
wounded spirit is, and what the godly sorrow of a broken and
contrite heart, and the agonizing conviction of being a sinner
deserving eternal condemnation.
I will add nothing concerning the happier experience of a sure
interest in Christ, of that holiness
without which no man shall see the Lord,—and all the work of the Spirit in the soul of the believer; and of
the love of Christ shed abroad in the
heart. But such as this, is the personal character
of the true minister of Christ, which
ought to be a discriminating credential of the presence of the
Spirit of God with us. O that we may have it in
all its fulness and excellency!
2. The other point, which St. Paul appeals to in the
text, is the effectual blessing of God upon ministerial
labours. “Ye,” says the apostle, speaking
of souls brought out of death into life by his means, “Ye
are our Royal letters, which we carry out in our hearts, as
ambassadors for Christ, to be read by,
and spoken of unto, all men. Jesus ordained them on my behalf; I was the
ministering hand by which He wrote; the Holy
Ghost was with me, and indelibly impressed them on the
tablets of your hearts; the character, and language are those
which pourtray the new creature, the children of the living God, the heirs of everlasting
glory.” He disclaims all sufficiency, not only to
write, but even to conceive, what was written, except as it was
given to Him by God, (a point they
would readily admit,) and thus, in their conversion by his means,
he had the clearest and strongest evidence that God was with him of a truth. So he
says in another place, “The seal of mine apostleship are ye
in the Lord: are not ye my work in the
Lord?” And it is evident
that this is a most essential, decisive, and therefore desirable,
proof of our ministry being of God. I do not think we should by any
means rest and be satisfied without it. I know that a
minister may be a true prophet without always having this
testimony; and though the Israel of God be not gathered by his means, his work
is with the Lord, and his judgment
with his God; and Isaiah says,
“Lord, who hath believed our
report, and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?” But this is
the exception and not the rule. What are
pastors and teachers for? Truly “for the perfecting
of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of
the body of Christ; opening
men’s eyes, turning them from darkness to light and from
the power of Satan unto God; that they
may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among all them
which are sanctified, by faith that is in Christ.” [46] If these holy
and heavenly purposes be not evidently answered by us, what are
we better than others? If they be but feebly and
equivocally answered, why are we not afraid, and put upon inquiry
as to the cause, and upon prayer, most earnest prayer, that we
may not be disowned both of God and
man? What letters have we to show that we are not thus
disowned? O that our gracious Lord and master may give us all imperishable
seals of our apostleship in great numbers! Let us earnestly
see to it that we obtain them. The double testimony
of
scriptural character, and of such seals given to our ministry, is
irresistible.
But it may be asked, have not even false apostles their
disciples, and sometimes many; Theudas, four hundred; Judas of
Galilee, much people? [47] They have: but
not of such sinners converted into saints, as evidently prove the
operation to be of God; not such as
would glorify God on the racks of
persecuting torture; not such as would die martyrs in the flames,
if called to it; nor such as, in peaceful departures, could
triumph through faith in the Son of
God, and rejoice in the certain
hope of a glorious immortality. The happy and heavenly
deaths of those who had lived upon the doctrines of Evangelical
Protestantism are immortal and irresistible testimonies in favour
of that sort of Christianity, as the truth of God. They constitute an evidence,
which Anglo-catholics will never be able to produce. What
were the latter days of Froude, their modern proto-saint, if not
their proto-martyr? Where are their dying witnesses?
What do they in the formation of such characters as I speak
of? Here, my honoured fellow-labourers in the Church of
God,—the questions which I would
put concerning them, allow me to put pointedly to you all.
What are you really doing in the work of the ministry you have
received of the Lord? Are you
answering the purposes for which you were called to it?
What can you do, by the grace of God? Can you convert a sinner from the
error of his way? Can you give me the heart of stone broken
down and melted into the humble and contrite heart? Can you
display a compassionate and crucified Saviour, till men love Him fervently, and
mourn for their sins which pierced Him? Can you heal a
wounded spirit? Can you beautify disciples with Christian
graces? Can you help the saints of God in their preparations for death and
eternal glory, when Jesus shall come
and receive them to Himself? Shall you then have any, of
whom you will be humbly able to say, “Behold, I and the
children whom Thou hast given me! These are my letters of
commendation! These are my joy and crown of rejoicing:
while all the supreme and sovereign glory, O Christ, is thine!”
Thus let us examine and prove both ourselves and our
work. And may God indeed make us
able ministers of the New Testament; that we be not ashamed, but
may rejoice before Him, at His appearing and His kingdom.
THE END.
LONDON:
G. J. PALMER, PRINTER, SAVOY STREET,
STRAND.