The above is the title of a small pamphlet that has obtained some considerable circulation among believers in the Lord Jesus; especially among those who, dissatisfied with the ordinary evangelical experience of our day, are seeking with sincerity of heart to grow "in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Longing, according to the instinct of the divine life within them, to enter more practically into that "kingdom of God which is not meat and drink; but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," they have found, in this little book, and other kindred publications, that spoken of, as known and experienced by others, which they are longing for, and, as they hope too, the way marked out for arriving at it themselves.
Feeling that this longing after Christ and fellowship with Him, for it is that in true souls in whom grace is working, is really a wide-spread movement of God's Spirit among believers, and that this little book, with all its many and marked imperfections, may have in some instances been used of God to help souls, as showing that there is a better state of soul to be reached, we hesitate to condemn it thus publicly in our pages, but having been more than once asked to warn our readers against it, and the teachings that it gives currency to, we believe we should fail in love to souls, and in responsibility to the Lord and His truth, did we longer refrain.
We believe the writer of the book in question to be sincerely desirous of helping his fellow believers, and of glorifying the Lord Jesus. His tone, spirit, and aim we love, and thank God for. All this makes it the more difficult to find fault with it; besides which we have no desire to give our pages the savor of hypercriticism or controversy.
We would mention here, and it is one of our chief reasons for making these remarks, that the little work we are considering has been carefully and thoroughly discussed by a well known and accepted teacher in the church of God, and is advertised on our last page under the title, "A Review of R. Pearsall Smith, on Holiness Through Faith,' by J. N. D." We have read this " Review " with ranch profit ourselves, and have heard of very many instances in which it has been blessed to others. We therefore greatly desire to 'commend it to the attention of our readers, believing that it will, not only give them a true estimate of the real evil of the doctrine that is taught in the book reviewed, but be directly used of God to give them, in a divine way, the blessing their souls are seeking.
The great defect of the teaching of Mr. Smith is, that lie makes a certain state of soul the object before the mind, instead of Christ and His grace. In this way self occupies the heart, and not Christ. In the language of the writer we have named, " It makes a subtle self dominant, which lowers the spiritual state." He goes on to say, " I never saw any one make his experience the object before his mind, or that with which his mind was occupied. that it did not make self a great object to self, whether the experience was ordinary evangelical experience, seventh of Romans, Gal. 5:1717For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. (Galatians 5:17), or that of the perfectionists, self holds a large place in the mind's eye, and it cannot be otherwise. And I think this book is a clear example of it. The blessedness and beauty of Christ Himself nowhere appears in it. He tells us that, this doctrine makes more of Christ, and ourselves humble, but, if you examine it, it is what Christ effects and produces in us, not what Christ is. And this makes all the difference."
We believe thoroughly in the state of soul, or experience, Mr. Smith advocates. That is to say, we believe, not only in forgiveness of sins, but in deliverance practically from the power of sin, and in the unclouded and uninterrupted enjoyment of divine power, as living in the consciousness, not merely that by the work of Christ we are set beyond condemnation, but that we are loved by the Father as Jesus is loved. It is not then with this experience we find fault, but with Mr. Smith's teachings with refer-mice to it. Teachings which, however well meant, are fundamentally unsound. The very title of his book is unsound, and if' taken in an exclusive sense, completely sets aside the work of Christ on the cross, as that by which the believer has been sanctified and made holy, according to the teachings of Heb. 10:1010By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10), where with reference to the will of God in the sacrifice of Christ, the Spirit of God says: "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering up of the body of Jesus Christ once." Tins is not our faith, as practically bringing us into holiness as a state of soul; but the work of Christ on the cross for us, true of course only of believers, but true, of every believer, the moment he believes in Jesus.
This is holiness through sacrifice, and not "holiness through faith," which is a misinterpretation of the expression in Acts, used with reference to the conversion of the Gentiles, "purifying their hearts through faith." In some remarkable way this expression was used for blessing to Mr. Smith's; own soul, as he tells us, and thus became, so to speak, the keystone of his whole system, being made to mean an act of faith whereby, at one leap, the believer attains to purity, and conformity to Christ as He was on earth. It is a mere perversion of scripture, and is a fair sample of the way in which throughout his whole book Mr. Smith misuses scripture to support a false system. All that is taught by it is, that, in contrast with law-keeping and ceremonial ordinances, God was purifying the hearts of the Gentiles in a practical sense, putting no difference between Jews and others. It was the work of grace that was being carried on by God continuously in their souls, and by no means a state of purity reached by a single act of faith, as taught by the author of "Holiness through faith."
The fact is, Mr. Smith confounds purity and holiness with deliverance from the power of sin, i. e. gaining victory of it, as a thing that remains in the believer. This scripture does teach. Blessedly teach. But for the moment we must end our remarks, and the Lord willing, continue them in our next.