In my present review I have to do with a more serious paper, written in a more earnest and serious tone, treating upon subjects of the deepest interest, detecting the false points in current evangelical views, and opposing to them forms of truth drawn from the word, but appropriating the value of these truths to that which is wholly unscriptural and even antichristian in its nature, so as to give, if received, the force of these truths to that which is itself, such. Now when truth is used to detect error, and the defects of the erroneous scheme are seen by it, the human mind is apt to believe that what is associated by the detector of the error with these truths is part; of the truth, and thus dangerous error is often introduced by the force of the truth.
It was thus with Irvingism. The Church had lost the doctrines of the coming of the Lord and the presence of the. Holy Ghost in the Church, and the enemy used these truths to introduce deadly error. So it is with the Tractarians. On nearly every point on which they attack the Dissenters and Evangelicals they can produce Scripture to prove their defects; but they use this only to accredit more deadly error still, and to sanction views and practices which subvert Christianity. I will quote their statements as to Dissenters and Evangelicals:
" The theory of the latter requires a disbelief in the doctrine of the visible church; that is, in a divinely instituted Body and an equally divinely-appointed government of the visible Body; it requires a denial of the fact that our Lord appointed a Priesthood in His Church, whose office is to celebrate those mysteries' which are the means and channels of grace and communion between CHRIST and His body. Nay it denies that the Body itself is a visible community or kingdom, separated from the rest of mankind by the partaking of, or communicating in, these Sacraments. On the contrary, the notion seems to be that the Church is not strictly a Body, but an aggregation of individuals who hold a certain theological or philosophical system, gathered out of the Holy Scriptures; that certain truths are revealed in the Scriptures, which truths were systematized by certain learned men in the sixteenth century; and that a belief in these truths constitutes the membership with CHRIST, irrespective of the visible Body and the Sacraments. This is the objective aspect.
Besides this, there is the subjective aspect: a certain consciousness of personal interest in these truths, and a sense of general unworthiness, and a further sense of the removal of that unworthiness, in the belief and apprehension of these truths-the whole matter of salvation being a personal one, between the individual and CHRIST the Savior; and that for purposes of mutual edification and advantage, it is expedient that individuals should unite into distinct bodies or communities, appoint their own teachers, frame their own terms of communion, and administer their own ordinances. Admitting for the most part-not universally-the divine authority of the two greater Sacraments, a form of Baptism is used, and a form of Communion in bread and wine; but these are not really Sacramental in the sense that the Church holds them, as means of grace to the recipients; but rather as seals and pledges of grace already given, outward signs of GOD'S SPIRIT already bestowed, on the part of GOD; and signs of faith in His promises, or rather the fulfillment of His promises, on the part of the recipient " (Pp. 183, 184).
The writer avows he, is " not speaking of the formularies of the different Protestant sects " (p. 184), but " of the views of Protestants at the present time." He is wise; he would have to speak of himself and his own church; nor would it be true in some important statements, and further he takes no notice of national Churches formed by the Magistrate, of which his is one, although he may urge its having in a great measure escaped the hand of the spoiler: " the least deformed because reformed the least." Still, as describing the present state of Protestants, Dissenters and those associated with them in their general views, it is in the main just as to the principal charges. I continue my citation that we may fully have the views of the essayist:
"We repeat, then, that the idea held by Protestants of the present day really amounts to this-That there is no such thing as a visible Church; but there is in the world a body of elect members, known to God only, who shall finally be saved; and that these, and these only, form the. Church of Christ; that the union with CHRIST consists chiefly, if not wholly, in holding certain doctrines of Justification by faith alone in the Atonement of CHRIST, together with a belief in God's promises as set forth in Scripture: and that, consequently, the whole matter is a private and personal one between each individual and CHRIST, quite independent of the belonging to the visible Church, or any sect. In accordance with this, we hear everywhere proclaimed the doctrine of a Universal Priesthood-every man is his own priest, and, in some sects, every woman her own priestess-but that it tends to good order and mutual advantage that individuals thinking alike should unite in some one community or another, choose their own teachers, and frame rules for general government and conduct; that the gifts of grace are not attached to any outward form or ordinance, excepting perhaps that of preaching, but that they are a private concern between Go]) and the individual; that the highest form in which grace manifests itself, is in the knowledge of Scripture and of Protestant doctrine, and especially in the power of preaching.
"In direct opposition to this, is the idea of the Catholic Church, the leading features of which may be stated in the following propositions:-First, that it is a spiritual system, not an intellectual one; a system whose purpose is a re-union of man with GOD, through the incarnation of the Second Person of the HOLY TRINITY. That this union is not effected by merely believing in a certain system of theology, or in the Revelation of GOD in the Bible; but, being essentially spiritual, only effected through those means by which spiritual gifts are conveyed to man. That those means are the Sacraments, which may be termed "extensions of the Incarnation," or means whereby the benefits of the Incarnation are applied to man. That such a union is, in most cases, and at first, independent and irrespective of any exercise of the intellect on the part of the person brought into union, but is by means of the gift of GOD in CHRIST'S own appointed way-Holy Baptism. That that Sacrament is the means of conferring on the recipient a new and spiritual life, similar and parallel to the natural life into which every infant enters at birth: so that it is called regeneration, or the new birth: and that one great effect of the Church is to feed, support, educate, this spiritual life till it comes to the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ.' That the Church is the body of persons possessing this life, and consequently wholly distinct from the world' without; it is, therefore, a visible body with an invisible life, and that the means of support for this invisible life is invisible grace conveyed through visible forms or signs, instituted and appointed of Christ for that purpose. That the whole being of the Church rests on the Incarnation, or rather, to speak properly, on the SON of GOD become man. CHRIST is the Head of the Body, the Church' (Col. 1:1818And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. (Colossians 1:18)). That in order to the extension and communication of this spiritual life and grace, our Divine Lord appointed a ministry in His Church, whose office is to administer the means of grace to its members; so that it is His work, though done by the hands of His ministers and ambassadors: consequently, no one can take this office on himself without a direct commission from CHRIST. That He appointed His disciples, in the first place, to be Apostles, with a power to transmit their commission to others, as the need of the Body required; and that without this commission no acts are valid, and no ordinances have any assurance of grace attached to them. That the Episcopate and Priesthood is not only a form of Church government most nearly after the model of Scripture; but it is the one only of divine appointment in the Body, the one only which has the promise of grace attached to it, the one only which has the stamp of the divine commission" (Pp. 184-186).
The Protestant assertion that ministers are mere delegates of and therefore are elected and commissioned by the congregation, at once completely overturns the whole constitution of the Church, reverses the divine order, and substitutes human authority for that of CHRIST."... " The Body is dependent on the ministry, and the ministry is ordained for the Body, mutual fellowship and communion being requisite for growth in grace. Thus the Catholic idea is, that union and communion with the Church is absolutely necessary for union and communion with CHRIST; and that persons are received into communion with the Church in order to union with CHRIST; and, further, that this communion is effected by a communication of a spiritual gift, an actual bestowal of the grace of GOD to the person 'through this ministration of the Church's ordinances; that thus communion with the Church implies and connotes union with CHRIST, as well as supplies the means of such union (p.187).
"On the other hand, the Protestant theory reverses this making an intellectual process called Faith, and a mental conviction. called apprehension of CHRIST by faith, to be the means -not the condition, but the means -of effecting this union with CHRIST; it puts out of sight the fact that a special gift of the Spirit is necessary to create a union; or, perhaps, we shall describe the theory more correctly if we say, that it supposes grace to be an intellectual process going on in the mind, whereby a certain effect called Faith is produced; and that the production of this mental effect accomplishes the union between the individual and CHRIST; that any communion with fellow Christians is subsequent to this, not necessary in itself, but productive of good to the individual in a secondary and inferior way. Thus, according to this theory, the existence of the Church is in no way necessary. It may be believed in as an abstract proposition. but its existence, and communion with it, are quite immaterial" (p.187).
The writer refers to Eph. 4:4,5,64There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (Ephesians 4:4‑6), and adds (p.187):
" A unity of faith and a unity of constitution are predicated here, both of which are essential to the idea of the oneness of the body. The former is defined in the Creeds and the decrees of the Six General Councils; the latter is found in the universal practice of the one Body. We shall not attempt to prove either of these from Holy Scripture; for we must bear in mind, that both the faith of the Church and her visible constitution were complete and in full force before a single word of the New Testament Scriptures was written."
Now there are very grave questions here. The assumptions are without end, and I shall notice them before I close, but the questions meantime are to be met seriously; but I beg my reader to mark the confession that the system is not found in Scripture. There are, they say, allusions to it. But such a confession, when the Word of God assures us that in the last days perilous times shall come, in which there will be a form of godliness with the denial of its power, referring to the Scriptures as the safeguard in them and to nothing else; but those from whom Timothy had learned, had personally learned, the truths he held, that is, Paul himself, to which we may add the other inspired witnesses whose teaching, so
as to know from whom we have learner' them, we have now only in the Scriptures-such a confession is of all importance. But, further, the Scripture, if it does not teach these doctrines, may contradict and condemn them. All this must be seen into. But they tell us the creeds and the six general councils have defined the faith. With what authority? why the six? Are there no more than six? why am I to believe six? Anglican authority speaks of four-why six? Romanists, though it be a sore subject with them for many reasons, and they declare some are to be said " to be and not to be" a council, as Pisa and Basel, yet they make some nineteen. The Anglican articles say they are not infallible and have erred. How can I trust to them as defining faith? And as to the creeds, the Nicene creed which we have now, contains an article-and an article which has divided the Greek, or most ancient Church system, and the Roman- which was not in the ancient creed, and which, was inserted contrary to the express decree of one of these councils and the decision of a very illustrious Pope, who put up the creed without it on silver plates in a Church at Rome that it might not be added; it was introduced by a small Spanish council, insisted on by Charlemagne; sanctioned by a council of three hundred prelates at Frankfort, who also condemned image-worship which had been sanctioned by what the Romanists hold for the seventh general council at Nice; and if we are to believe modern Anglican Catholics, an article forced upon the Pope against his better judgment, and authority, and certainly in spite of the prohibition of a general council and the Pope of the day. And this article is not on some immaterial point, but nothing less than the procession of the Holy Ghost, the third person in the Trinity, and the nature of His relationship with the Father and the Son. The Greeks hold procession from the Son to be error (nor do they nor the Anglicans believe in purgatory with the Romanists); the Anglicans and Romanists believe it to be truth, and recite it in the creed as essential truth. One of these general councils forbad any addition to the creed which did not contain it, and the Pope forbad insertion of this particular clause. What can we say of the certainly defined faith?
But further, " the universal practice of the one body" is the authority for the unity of the constitution. To say that one spirit and one body proves the unity of the constitution of the body and its form on earth, is rather violent; but this we may take up on its own merits further on. Only if this be a strict definition of the unity, it certainly defines nothing as to any constitution on earth, nor even alludes to it. They did well not to attempt to prove it from Holy Scripture, but then why say it defines it strictly? If it did, being Scripture it would prove it clearly; but it says nothing about any constitution, about the only point to be proved-a visibly constituted form on earth displayed in an episcopate and priesthood. But, in point of fact, about one-third of the universal professing Church has not this form, say a quarter of it; universal practice does not prove it now.
It will be said, "But they have separated from the unity as they have not the episcopate and priesthood"; but this is begging the question; universal practice, they say, proves the unity of the constitution of the one body. I show the practice is not universal, and I am told-they are therefore not of the body. This is a mere vicious circle. I shall be told that this is a mere modern thing. Now in the dark ages it was universal, or nearly so; but so, with rare exceptions, was the grossest and most horrible corruption. Our Anglican Catholic essayist will not receive the councils held in these days. Why not? Nor do the Greeks. Why not? But in earlier days it was not universal. We may inquire from Scripture whether it existed anywhere in the earliest days. This is certain, that in the Patriarchate next to Rome in dignity, till the council of Nice set up Constantinople, this constitution did not prevail; but what contradicts formally the whole theory of our Anglican of the necessity of Episcopal ordination to the communication of grace. For this we have no less authority than Jerome, or, if they please, St. Jerome, who declares moreover that there was no difference originally between bishops and, presbyters and that it was introduced as a matter of order to prevent disputes. A singular thing if it was a necessary channel of grace, and equally singular that he should not have known it if it was universal practice, one who was a correspondent of Popes, translator of the Bible and equally conversant with the East and West. He tells us there were not originally bishops, that it was only introduced to keep peace among the presbyters. But all this is by the bye.
But before I treat the main subject I have a few not unimportant remarks to make. In the first place the statement that faith is a mere intellectual process, and alleging this to be the theory of Protestants is an unfounded one-and savors of infidelity in the objector. At least it is the view taken of faith by modern infidels, or at least of belief, for they make faith a sentiment, a feeling of the heart. But the soul may be acted on by the Spirit of God so as to produce a divine conviction' of unseen things revealed by the word-when Paul says, " when it pleased God.... to reveal His Son in me," it was not an intellectual process, and it was not a sacrament. It would seem that the Essayist ignores this altogether—a very serious lack indeed in his religious system. The direct operation of the Spirit of God in bringing truth home to the soul is wholly ignored. His doctrine is practical Pelagianism. All he owns is a sacrament or an intellectual process. What then of the grace of the Spirit of God, as the Lord opened the heart of Lydia. I would further draw my readers' attention to the total absence of all reference to the truth, except to depreciate it and faith in it, in order to exalt the sacraments.
"Grace is communicated, life is communicated, by sacraments, is only effected through these means," "irrespective of any exercise of the intellect on the part of the person brought into union."
But, according to our Essayist, the truth has no place as an instrument in God's hands for quickening and converting souls. In the same way and for the same reason the action of the Holy Ghost is ignored. We have His gifts conferred in Baptism, but no action of the Spirit of God Himself on the soul. Hence preaching is depreciated, and the truth so little material, that in the case of those who have, according to the Essayist, been in heresy for centuries, and out of the pale of the Catholic Church, denying the true faith-yet because the Episcopal form is there, their orders are all valid, effectual grace has been communicated, and they have only to return to a sound confession, and they are part of the Catholic visible Church. Grace, union, life were all there. They denied the faith, left the visible Church through this; but they have all that is essential. But in the case, of Presbyterians or Lutherans, who are not charged with any heresy but may hold the truth as such, all must be begun over again.
"They have cut themselves off from the participation in the one Spirit as living in the Church and flowing through the sacraments, which are the arteries and veins of the body."
In a word, the truth as the instrument of God in the soul is wholly ignored by the Essayist, the action of the Holy Ghost also, and hence also preaching, which surely is not worship, of the importance of which I shall speak. Further, individual salvation, and hence individual responsibility is slighted as much as possible. It is inconsistent with Church authority. Hence we find, too, the Spirit in the Church insisted on; but the Spirit in the individual, mocked at among Romanists as fanaticism, by Anglicans ignored.. Now conscience must be individual, responsibility must be individual, no man can answer for another at the judgment seat of Christ. He may pretend to secure him here, he must leave him to answer for himself if he gets there. The priest will be on the same ground or worse. Hence salvation must be individual, and responsibility. Everyone of us shall give an account of himself to God, and if he is saved he is saved individually; if purged, purged individually. The saint does also become a member of Christ, of His body the Church; but it is a second and distinct thing, though both are true of those who have now believed through grace. But this individual salvation and responsibility does not chime in with the asserted authority of the Church, and they carefully set aside what they cannot secure anyone against, direct individual responsibility to God, and what goes necessarily with it, individual salvation. If I have an individual soul, I must have individual salvation. They reproach Protestants with this saying, "This is a private and personal matter between Christ and the individual." I answer, "It will surely be so for all in the day of judgment."
Even a Romish priest would admit that in the day of judgment each one must answer for himself, just as his conscience is individual now, his soul individual, his sin individual. Scripture is as plain as can be on the point. It, teaches plainly the unity of the body and its union with Christ the head, most true and precious; but the Lord dealt always with individuals as such, and further our individual relationship as Christians takes the first place, because it is with His Father. We are individually His children, the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty; El Shadai is our Father. We cry individually, Abba, Father, and Christ's relationship with us in this respect is of the first-born among many brethren. The reader will find in the first chapter of Ephesians, the epistle where the unity of the body is most fully brought out, that the children's or individual's place with God and the Father is first brought out, and then the relationship to Christ, as the body to the head; but only at the end of the chapter. All John's writings speak exclusively of the individual and of divine life in him. He never refers to the Church at all, but to individual life from and in Christ, adding our individual perfection in Him before God. The truth is, the Church is never mentioned in the epistles, but by Paul, nor the word even used, save in the case referred to in the note, and, similarly, in James. Paul declares he was a minister of the Church (as well as of the Gospel) to fulfill, or complete, the word of God.
This system then, is characterized by leaving out the truth's action in testimony on the soul. The presence and action of the Holy Ghost, and individual responsibility and salvation: all are passed by or slighted. The church is trusted, God is not. Man gets union with Christ, life, and every blessing, unconsciously, without the smallest actual effect in conscience, heart, or any. thing, in any way in which he is brought to God with the sense of what he is, and of God's grace. The parable of the Prodigal is all nothing to the purpose, the weeping, lost one of the city, or the believing thief, the invitation of the laboring and heavy laden, is all, according to this horrible teaching, misleading instruction, for this was individual; this was (not an exercise of intellect indeed, but) individual consciousness of their own state, wrought by God, individual faith in the Son of God, individual salvation taught, if the Savior is to be believed; divine action on the heart, the soul, the conscience, the affections; the eyes opened spiritually to see the Son and believe on Him; men brought to God and the state of their souls manifested, and a divine work wrought in them by the word of the Lord reaching them. I may ask my reader, Does the Savior teach this on the bringing of a person unconsciously into union by holy baptism? Read the Gospels and see if this unholy rejection of the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ, and the divine operation on souls around Him by it, producing faith in His person, in order to substitute unconscious union in baptism, is to be found in them.
But if these great principles and truths be ignored by the Anglican Catholic system, there are important truths on' which it pronounces, and in. which, while it can justly object to Protestant Evangelicism, it is far more deeply and fatally in error. It sets aside all that is vital in individual salvation, leading to carelessness of conscience. and insensibility to personal responsibility. It makes the world not what Scripture does, " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," but simply, the unbaptized heathen, so as to allow worldliness in Christians. It sets aside Scripture authority; ignores the Holy Ghost in individuals, on which the word of God insists, and passes over or falsifies history, when it meddles with it, and, as I shall now chew, is wholly false on the points as to which it has laid hold of certain truths which evangelical Christians have, by inefficient teaching, left in its hands.
It is not true that Protestants or Evangelicals make faith a mere intellectual process. No Christian does, unless it be the party of the Essayist. But the unity of a visible body on earth has been ignored or denied by them,-they have not generally held the real communication of a new, spiritual life; and they have (at least Dissenters) held the meeting together of voluntary associations which they call churches, and which frame regulations and choose or dismiss their ministers. In all this Scripture condemns them. On the last point the "Catholic," indeed, has not much to say; for it is held by them that everyone is at liberty to choose his own director or confessor, the most important of all their ministers in practice. As regards the true body of Christ, it is become invisible, and Scripture contemplates this without sanctioning it. " The Lord knows them that are His," though, of course, always true, is a state of things contemplated in the last days; but it was not the original state of things. On that, " the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved." There is in Scripture, as I. shall fully show, the doctrine of a visible body. But the object of the Anglican is not to prove that the word of God teaches the doctrine of a visible body on earth, but to set up a human priesthood in the clergy, and show that grace is communicated by their means, only, that grace comes by sacraments; divine life and union with Christ by baptism; that that visible body is to be found only where this priesthood or clergy is. The Reformers taught the being born of God in baptism, and, at any rate, the Anglican body becoming members of Christ by it-Evangelicals hold neither now, but they speak of union with Christ by faith which Scripture never does. When they speak of regeneration they do not, generally speaking, mean a new life really communicated, but the effect, produced by the operation of the Spirit of God on man as he is, not a really new, life communicated. Now Scripture does speak of the Church as one body on the earth, and of only one, with particular churches in each locality, which in that place held that of the body so far though not separated from other members of Christ. It has no idea of distinct churches in one place nor of a national church.
It does speak of the Church in the purpose of. God, as finally one with Christ in glory; but it also speaks of a Church and body of Christ on earth, responsible here below. It also speaks of the Church as the dwelling-place of the Spirit on earth, as the house of God as well as the body of Christ. Scripture does speak of a life really communicated to man; it does speak of a ministry received directly from Christ so as to exclude man s choice and nomination. It speaks of union with Christ. I will take up these points in order, and the setting forth Scriptural truth will, in a great measure, answer the erroneous statements on the subject, both of Evangelicals and Anglicans; but I will also take up, afterward, the positive errors taught by the latter, which are very grave indeed.
As regards the general truth of a body on earth, the Scriptures are plain. Thus, in 1 Cor. 12:12,13, " For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ." For by one Spirit we have all been baptized into one body, whether we be Jew or Gentile, whether we be bond or free; and have all been made to drink into one Spirit, and ver. 27 " Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular; and God hath set some in the Church-first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers; after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues." From this it is evident that there is a body, the Church, and that that body, the Church, is on earth. There are no healings in heaven. " So if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it" (ver. 26). So in Rom. 12:44For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: (Romans 12:4) and 5, "For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another "; and then they are exhorted to the present exercise of their gifts accordingly. So Eph. 1:22,2322And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. (Ephesians 1:22‑23), only here it is looked at in its completeness and perfection in the counsels of God as a whole, not yet attained, for " we see not yet all things put under Him," though we own Jesus' title as exalted to the right hand of God.. So Eph. 3:10;5. 25-32, all which show the Church set up on the earth as the body of Christ, though letting us understand that it will be presented to Christ a glorious Church. We have the Church also in the character of a building, and, as we shall see, which is of great moment, in a two-fold way. First, Christ Himself says, Matt. 16:1818And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18), "And on this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Whom Peter follows, " Unto whom coming, as unto a living stone.... ye, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house " (1 Peter 2:4,54To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, 5Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:4‑5)); and so Paul (1 Tim. 3:1515But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. (1 Timothy 3:15)), "But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." Here it is on earth too, for the question is of Timothy's conduct in it. So Eph. 2:2121In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: (Ephesians 2:21), " In whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." Here, as also in 1 Pet., it is only growing up to a future temple, not yet finished; but, in Eph. 22, it is added, "In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Here it is a present thing; God's habitation in the person of the Spirit come down from heaven. Now it is to be remarked that in the temple, as forming for its final perfectness and glory, in the gospels the workman is Christ only. " I will build." In the Epistles there is no workman at all who builds. The building, see Eph. 2:2121In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: (Ephesians 2:21), " fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple": in 1 Pet. the saints come " as living stones." Here it is growing to a house, and Christ carries on the work-against which the gates of hell cannot prevail-on earth but for glory. But when we come down to a present house or building on earth, the case is different "as a wise master-builder," says the apostle, 1 Cor. 3:1010According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. (1 Corinthians 3:10). "I have laid the foundation. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon"; men may build with wood, hay and stubble, and their work come to nothing; or with gold and silver, and their work abide. Nay more, a man may defile the temple of God and be destroyed himself. Here men are responsible for the way they build in this building of God on earth. So in the passage in 1 Tim. he was to learn how to behave himself in the house of God. The doctrine therefore of the body of Christ, a body to be perfected in glory, and also that of a body existing on earth-of a house to become a perfect and holy temple in the Lord, and that of a present habitation of God through the Spirit, that which Christ builds infallibly and perfectly for the final result, and that in which, as a present thing, man is responsible by the way-are all clearly taught in Scripture. One the Evangelicals and Dissenters admit, though obscurely, what Christ is building for final glory; but the body now formed on earth, by the Spirit, and the house now the habitation of the Spirit, they have wholly lost sight of; and of these Scripture speaks.
I turn to the doctrine of communicating life. The common Evangelical teaching is, that the operation of the Spirit changes a man's heart, takes the stony heart out of us, subdues the will, renews the affections, etc. Now this is practically true, but is in no way the whole truth. There is the reception of a new life; God hath given to us eternal life, and that life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God bath not life. Christ is that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us, and through grace becomes our life, as it is written, when Christ, who is our life." We are really born of God, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit, as that which is born of the flesh is flesh; as everything born partakes of the nature of that it is born of. He that is born of God sinneth not, the seed of God remains in him, he cannot sin, because he is born of God. Hence the apostle sought that the life of Jesus might be manifested in his body. It is a new creation in Christ Jesus,. a new man. And farther; living in Christ _risen, we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, crucified with Christ, yet alive, but not we but Christ living in us. The flesh still lusts against the Spirit; but we have the life of the last Adam as we had the life of the first. On this Scripture is clear. Christ is become the life of the Christian, but it is Christ who has died and who is risen, so that the Christian is accounted quickened together with Him and all trespasses forgiven-can reckon himself dead, is dead for faith, crucified with Christ, but Christ risen, his life. There is no condemnation thus for him. The word of God does speak of a new life communicated, a new man.
Lastly, the choice of a minister by man is not scriptural. Ministry is directly received from Christ. He, when He ascended up on high, gave gifts to men; apostles, prophets-who were, we are told, the foundation-pastors, teachers, evangelists. The Spirit distributed to every man severally as he would, and as every man has received the gift he is to minister the same as a good steward of the manifold grace of Christ. He that teacheth is to wait on his teaching, and the various gifts are so many various members of the body, to be exercised in their place; as Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12, 1 Peter 4:1010As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. (1 Peter 4:10), and all the history of the Acts show us; only women are not to speak in the assembly. The received talent is to be traded with, or woe be to him who possesses it. In the assembly, order was to be kept; not more than two or three speak, and in succession. These are a summary of the statements as to gifts of ministry in Scripture.
As regards offices, elders and deacons, the only ones spoken of, the elders were chosen by the apostles, Barnabas and Paul; among the Gentiles at least, or by Paul's delegate Titus. Those who served tables were chosen by the multitude, the apostles laying their hands on them when chosen. Choosing a minister or a pastor by the people is wholly unknown to Scripture. Christ chose and endowed them, they were bound to serve: they were again members in the body, and what they were at Ephesus they were at Corinth, that specific member of the-body, whose ministry was for the edification of the body everywhere. Elders, on the contrary, were chosen for each city by the apostles. But gifts were specific members of the body, men could not choose them. They were directly from Christ by the distribution of the Holy Ghost, and the possessors of them Christ's servants in them.' diversities of gifts, but the same. Spirit; differences of administrations, but the same Lord. Men cannot choose when Christ has chosen the vessel, and conferred the gift, and when they are Christ's servants in it, wherever they are, that member in His body,-its exercise being withal, ordered, and that for edification, by Scriptural rules. They are not ministers or pastors of a Church, but in the Church according to Scripture. Nor would such an idea as a pastor and his _flock have been tolerated in the apostles' days or have entered into anyone's mind; they had higher thoughts of service, lowlier of themselves, they were to shepherd the flock OF GOD. The truth is, a set of churches in a place is foreign to the whole teaching of Scripture. If Paul or John were to write now an epistle to the Church of God, which is at -, no one would get it. There is no such one recognized body to be found, not in the boasting Anglican, more than in the narrow Baptist; the Romanist would mock at the Anglican, and raise up his pretensions above all, and the rest would not in general dare to ascribe it to themselves. There is no Church for the letter to reach-the Church has ceased to be what it was, one, known, visible, and united body manifested in different places, but only one in all. Anglicans have pretensions enough, but Rome would not own them, if they own Rome, and no man's commendation of himself will do to give him a title. I know not whose commendation else the Anglican Catholic has got. Of his own he has plenty.
I admit, then, according to Scripture, a new life is communicated. We have now to consider what communicates life. " Holy baptism " says the Anglican. I recognize that the Church was, and ought to be, one visible body on the earth; but we have to consider what constitutes the body. I own a ministry direct from the Lord, but what makes the minister? This is the real question. if we bow to Scripture we have no ground, and, if taught of God, can have no wish to deny the manifestations and blessing of the unity of the body on earth; the communication of divine life; the direct gift of ministry from Christ not of man. But the Anglican uses these truths to set up a. humanly ordained priesthood and deny grace out of it; be attributes the communication of life and union with Christ to baptism. Priesthood and sacraments are the only divine means of grace and unity. The Evangelicals have foolishly denied or neglected the truths, which they have thus thrown into the hands of Anglicans to use as a weapon against themselves; but the Anglicans have- taken these truths to set up a wholly anti-Christian system of priesthood and sacraments of which these truths say nothing. They are wrong, even on their own ground, as to the sacraments, as I shall show; but the main point is, they teach falsely as to the whole way and application of grace to the soul, and set up, not Christianity, but the deceit of Satan clothed with the form of neglected Christian truths.
And first as to life. We have seen how they slight truth and faith, and drop the action of the Spirit of God. Now I shall show from Scripture that to these the communications of divine life is attributed by God. They slight preaching-and preaching, I repeat, is not worship—but to it Scripture attributes salvation. Let us remember that in the beginning Christians had to deal with Jews or the heathen world, and this will much simplify the matter; for unquestionably preaching-it may be private communications as well as public ones, for publicly, says Paul, and from house to house -but the ministry of the word was that which acted on souls, and that by which they were brought to baptism. As many as received the word. gladly, we read, were baptized. So Philip went down to Samaria and preached Christ to them. But when they believed Philip, preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus, Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. They believed and were baptized. The time was not come for winning kings by processions, so delighted in by Anglicans. and those Christianizing their subjects en masse; nor for driving the Saxons, by arms, into the Elbe to baptize and make Christians of them, as the famous Charlemagne. Faith came by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Let us see the positive teaching of the apostles on this subject. Whoever called on the name of the Lord was to be saved. " How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed; and how shall they believe on 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.... So then faith cometh by hearing (the report), and hearing by the word of God." Salvation is for faith, according to the apostle, and faith by hearing the word, And this is a moral dealing with souls, "Wherefore when I came was there no man when I called was there none to answer," is the appeal of to Israel.
No person can read the Gospels or Acts without seeing that the testimony of the word was the great means of divine dealing with souls. Whatever the miracles of goodness and the ineffable excellency of His person, the service of Christ was preaching, and so He declares, " And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also; for therefore am I sent" (Luke 4:4343And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent. (Luke 4:43)). Accordingly, in describing his service in Matt. 4:2323And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. (Matthew 4:23), "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching." " The poor have the gospel preached unto them " was one of the signs of His divine and blessed presence;-when He sent out His disciples, it was (Matt. 10:77And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. (Matthew 10:7)), "And as ye go, preach, saying," etc. And after His ascension (Mark 16:2020And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen. (Mark 16:20)), " They went forth, and preached everywhere." They were to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, he that believed and was baptized would be saved, and he that believed not would be damned. So in Luke 24:4747And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:47), "Repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in his name, beginning at Jerusalem." In carrying it out, Peter's preaching in Acts 2 reaches the hearts of some three thousand and brings them, as gladly receiving the word, to baptism. They could not but speak the things they had seen and heard, and sought grace to speak God's word with boldness. If there were miracles it was the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by signs following; Mark 16:2020And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen. (Mark 16:20). So Heb. 1-4. Philip went down to Samaria and preached Christ to them. It is needless to go through the whole history of the Acts, which, with abundant confirmatory signs, is the history of the preaching of Peter and Paul indeed,. while giving prayer the first place, it is to this Peter declares that, leaving the care of the poor, the apostles would give themselves. Peter to Cornelius calls the whole testimony of Christianity-" The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all): that word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached " (Acts 10:36,3736The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:) 37That word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; (Acts 10:36‑37)).
Salvation, then, is for every one that believes; faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. What, then, shall we say of' a system which depreciates preaching, calls faith an intellectual process, and puts a ceremony, be it a divinely instituted ceremony, performed on an unconscious person, in the place of living faith and the power of the Spirit and the word? I shall now show, as to the means of receiving life, the application of this grace of the gospel, that it is by the word through faith, faith as a means, not as a condition, but as a work wrought by. God in the soul. James declares: " Of His own will begat He us by the word of truth that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures " (i. 18). Peter tells us: " Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever " (1 Peter 1:22,2322Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: 23Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. (1 Peter 1:22‑23)). And to show that it is by the testimony of the gospel, it is added (ver. 25): " But the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you." Thus the word of God, and the word preached, is that by which we are born of God.
But faith, which receives that word as of God (for he that receives this testimony has set to his seal that God is true), is that by which we are thus born. We are all, says the apostle, the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Gal. 3:2626For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26). So 1 Thess. 2:13,1613For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. (1 Thessalonians 2:13)
16Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. (1 Thessalonians 2:16), " For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of. God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe ".... " Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved," etc. So 2 Thess. 10-14: " Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.... that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel." So the Lord: " Sanctify them by thy truth, thy word is truth." John 17 I might multiply quotations to the same purpose showing that the saving, quickening work of God is by the word, and hence by faith, and by faith as a means not as a condition. That we are justified by faith (the doctrine wickedly called Lutheran, and so hateful to Anglicans) is affirmed so repeatedly by the apostle that is by the word of God, that it is hardly needful to cite passages.
It is the main subject of the whole epistle to the Romans and of that to the Galatians. The whole Christian system is designated by it in contrast with law. "After that faith came' (Gal. 3:2525But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. (Galatians 3:25)); but our present subject is eternal life and salvation rather than justification. Paul preached the faith, he tells us, which once he destroyed. But the Lord Himself tells us: He that believeth on me, though he were dead yet shall he live, "and again, after stating that the Son quickeneth whom He will, He adds, as to knowing that we have it: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation (judgment), but is passed from death unto life." Thus, through hearing Christ's word and believing on Him that sent Him, a man has everlasting life. It is by the word, it is by faith. The other element of the new birth and the power by which it is wrought is, according to Scripture, the Holy Spirit. " That which is born of the Spirit is spirit, as that which is born of the flesh is flesh. And so is everyone that is born of the Spirit." That new nature or life given to us, which is contrasted with the flesh, is attributed to the Spirit, divinely and essentially so. Every life has its nature from that of which it is born. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. You cannot thus speak of water, it is not the communication of a nature, but cleansing power. As far as it 'represents anything, it represents unequivocally death, not life, for we are baptized into Christ's death. That which is born of water is water would be nonsense. It is not presented as the communicator of a nature, the Spirit is. It is a divine, lifegiving Spirit. So of Christ, who acts as well as the Father, in it. He is a quickening Spirit. As the Father raises up the dead and quickens them, so the Son quickens whom He will. Christ becomes our life. I do not doubt that John 3 refers to what baptism refers to, as John 6 refers to what the Lord's supper refers to; but John 3 does not refer to baptism, nor John vi. to the Lord's supper. The passages speak of what baptism and the Lord's supper also figure. Christ incarnate was the true bread come down from heaven, and, having been crucified, His flesh and blood become the way of life and the food of the believer's soul. But as the bread was Christ incarnate, so the flesh and blood are Christ sacrificed on the cross. And hence the chapter speaks of His going up where He was before, showing that it speaks of Christ personally, not of the Lord's supper. The chapter speaks, that is, of Christ, not of the Lord's Supper, in the bread come down from heaven and the flesh and blood, and this is evident and certain upon the face of it, because the Lord's Supper is for the Church only; the bread He gives is His flesh, which He gives for the life of the world. If any man eats of it, he lives forever; but that is not true of the sacrament. Who ever eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life. This is not true of the sacrament; and this partaking of eternal life is effectual and eternal, Christ " will raise him up at the last day." That cannot be said of every one that partakes of the sacrament. Every one of the passages proves the utter falseness of applying it to the sacrament. The truth is, there is no such Christ now as is figured in the sacrament in existence. It is Christ's body broken in death, and His blood shed, but there is no such Christ now any more than there is a self-humbled Christ come down from heaven. He is gone up glorified, and there is no dead Christ nor shed blood to be found. Those united to a living, glorified Christ, celebrate, till He comes, the blessed memorial of what is no longer, and which has given them a part in Him, now; and with Him and like Him hereafter.
And it is equally false of chap. 3 of John. The Lord speaks of the reality in the operation of divine power, the communication of a new life, of a spiritual life, by the Spirit-that which is analogous to the wind, which is seen in its effects not in itself. Baptism is seen in itself, on the contrary, not in its effects, as every one knows. What, then, does water refer to? Scripture teaches us fully. It typifies the word. Christ sanctifies and cleanses the Church for which He gave Himself, by the washing of water by the word-as James tells us we are begotten by the word. Again John 15, " Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." It is an allusion more particularly to Ezekiel, where Israel's blessings are promised to be restored to them:
"Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you," etc. Ezek. 36:25,2625Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. 26A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:25‑26). It is real cleansing within by the word. With this comes, in. Ezekiel, the earthly promises to Israel. Hence the Lord says to Nicodemus, " Art thou a teacher of Israel and knowest not these things?" He ought to have known them, from His own prophets. "If I have told you of earthly things and ye belieVe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things." And the "ye " and the " every one" of John 3:7,87Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 8The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:7‑8), refer, the first to Jews, the latter embracing the heathen.
The birth of the Spirit, or new life, the new man, is attributed to the Spirit. Cleansed in mind by the word, we are, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Baptism, we are expressly told, signifies our dying, our dying to sin, which is true inward cleansing, and in Colossians our resurrection is added, but communication of life never. The passage in Titus may be alleged, where the apostle uses the expression, the laver of regeneration; but regeneration is not used in Scripture for the communication of life but for a change of state and condition. It is only used once elsewhere in Scripture, for the new millennial world; where Christ shall sit on the throne of His glory. " In the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory" (Matt. 19:28). Here it is evidently a change of state and condition, not communication of life. Hence, in Titus 3:55Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (Titus 3:5), we have the laver of regeneration. One, before a heathen or Jew, or at least born in sin, and outside the place of grace and God's dwelling, was admitted within it. His state was changed. He had been a heathen, a Jew, a sinner, away from promises and God and hope; He passed into that condition where all these were; translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. Where being born of God is spoken of, it is another word, not παλιγγενεσια but γεννηθη ανωθεν, or αναγενναω, never παλνγγενναω and with the laver of παλνιγγενεσιας we have, "and the renewing of the Holy Ghost" as a distinct thing. New life is attributed to Him who can give it—the Spirit of God, the Father, and the Son. In result, quickening or communicating life is expressly attributed to the word, to faith, to the Spirit. It is never attributed to baptism. On the contrary, this signifies or figures death. It may be said resurrection, as coming up into a new state. For Christ being our life, this is in the power and status before God of His resurrection. Baptism signifies in fact the quitting an old state by death, that of the first Adam, and an entrance into a new, that of the second Adam; risen from the dead. It does signify washing or cleansing, but in no place giving life. We read of being born of water, but it is not said of baptism, and where the possession of a new nature is spoken of in this very passage, it is referred exclusively to the Spirit. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. We have too the expression the laver of regeneration, but regeneration is a change of state and condition, as Matt. 19 shows, not the communication of life. Baptism is of real importance and deep signification in its true place but it is not in pretending that water can give spiritual life. That the Spirit, direct divine agency, alone can do, and we know, when manifested in this world, it is by the word through faith. But as an entrance into a new state, as death to the old, and, figuratively, washing and cleansing from what belonged to the old by death to it, it has its full Scriptural signification. Hence we read: "Arise and wash away thy sins calling on the name of the Lord," not: Arise and receive life. Communication of life it was not. For in the case of adult heathen and Jews, they believed and were baptized that is, they had life first, for he that believeth on the Son bath everlasting life. In a certain aspect, baptism signified more than giving life; that is, the deliverance and salvation of those who had life. The centurion Cornelius had life, was devout, and we see evidently he was renewed in heart. He was to send for Peter, and hear words whereby he would be saved.
The doctrine of a real deliverance and actual salvation has been so lost that many a true Christian, knowing he must be born again, looks for the fruit of it to ascertain his state. But there is an actual deliverance and translation into the kingdom of God's dear Son, which belongs to every renewed soul, but has been acquired by the death and resurrection of Jesus, of which baptism is the sign, death as we have seen to the old (Rom. 6), and rising into the new condition, all trespasses being forgiven (Col. 2). So in external things Israel brought to God in heart and will in Egypt, was delivered out of Egypt at the Red Sea, by the "salvation of Jehovah and baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Hence, Peter says, the antitype whereto now saves us, even baptism.... by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The disposition of Noah through grace gave him a part by faith in deliverance, but he had his deliverance through the flood into a new world. By faith Noah prepared an ark to the saving of his house. That baptism figures, Scripture declares; not the communication of life. We may be said, in a certain sense, to be figuratively born there, as coming out of the womb of death to the old Adam state into a new world (παλιγγενεσια), but not to have life communicated. I admit it is not a sign of what we have already, as is commonly taught; but of getting, through death, into a new position, where we have what entitles us to it. With union it has nothing to do, good or bad. It is not by receiving the Holy Ghost we are born again, nor do we receive the Holy Ghost in baptism. It is not in any way a sign of union. On this, Scripture is as clear as can be. Baptism is baptism into Christ's death, at the utmost rising in coming up from it, when having figuratively passed under death. Union is with a Christ exalted at God's right hand, and only so, and by the Holy Ghost the Comforter, who could not come till Christ was exalted. That is, baptism does not go beyond death, or, at the utmost, resurrection. Union is, with an exalted Christ by the Spirit, where He is on high. The first proposition, I have already shown from Rom. 6 and Col. 2. The reader has only to refer to these chapters. As many as have been baptized unto Christ have been baptized to his death. As a figure we are not baptized as a sign or seal that we are already dead and risen again; we are baptized to death, buried there, wash away our sins there; as a figure it saves us, because we therein pass, by death, out of the old scene and Adam state, and so into the new or risen Christ state. But secondly, in no sense has baptism anything to do with union. We have seen, and Scripture is express, that it is by one Spirit we are baptized into one body, and that is always distinguished from baptism; and the Lord's Supper, not baptism, is the symbol of the unity of the body, though it may figure what implies it as a consequence.
But it does not itself even figure, in any way, introduction into Christ's body. In this Baptists are as wrong as Anglicans. We have seen that baptism signifies death, but having a part in Christ's death, and, hence, death that delivered from an old state and all transgressions connected with it. As Noah was freed by the flood entirely from the old world, which was now gone and had perished in the flood, and emerged out of the ark into a new world; yet that flood was judgment through which he was saved in the ark, so we are delivered by Christ through death and judgment, which He underwent for us, for it would have been our everlasting ruin—out of the old state and brought into a new condition, into which He is risen, if indeed we have a part in Him. Of this, baptism is the figure. We are baptized to Christ's death, and we are to reckon ourselves dead, the judgment having been borne by Christ, it is death to sin, the world, and all that belongs to the old man. We have put off the old man and put on the new, and this is the profession by baptism of every Christian. Where it is said, "few that is eight souls were saved by water," it is not simply saved, not εσωθησαν, but διεσωθησαν, saved through danger or catastrophe, they were saved through the flood,—not by it, though it was salvation as deliverance from an old and introduction into a new world; but it is saved, through a destroying judgment, through what would have been, but for the ark, and was, for others, destruction. Baptism is the antitype (such is the word figure) to this; it passes us through death, not literally of course, as is evident. But in as much as Christ, into whose death we are baptized, is risen, it is deliverance from an old and introduction into a new, even Christ's risen state: really, if we take outward standing here, figuratively if we speak of the condition of the soul before God. But it is death, not communication of life, which it figures in itself. It is the flood of which it is the antitype, death into which we are brought by it. But even, were it the communication of life, this is not union. By the reception of life we become children of God. Christ is, in this aspect, the firstborn among many brethren, not head of the body, and the saints members of His body, that body of which He, exalted above every name, is the head. It is by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, and of that the Lord's Supper is the symbol, not baptism. Baptism is death, and leads to resurrection figuratively through grace, but does not go beyond the latter, does not point farther than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But in order to form the body, Christ must be exalted as the head. This is, in every way, evident from Scripture. The head, i.e. Christ exalted, must have been there to unite the body to.
But in detail,—in the first place as the body is formed by the baptism of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 12) it could not be till Pentecost, for that was, we are expressly told, that baptism (Acts 1:55For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. (Acts 1:5)); but that Comforter could not come till Christ went away, then He would send him, and we may add that Christ had not received the Holy Ghost to confer on his members as sent down from heaven until He went up (Acts 2). Further, there was no head to unite the body to, till He went up on high. We are members of His body, we are of His flesh and of His bones, but that it is of Christ exalted the end of Eph. 1 makes as plain as language can make it. To make the incarnation the ground of it is a gross and heretical blunder. Without the incarnation, of course it could not have been, for it is to Christ as the glorified man we are united. But there was no union with Christ incarnate. I will say more of this further on, for it is a very vital point and a capital and fatal false doctrine of Anglican Catholics and even Irvingites: For the present, I confine myself to the fact of union. Till redemption was accomplished, there could be none. A union of the Son of God with sinful, corrupt man is an utter and mischievous error. We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. It is not said He of ours. His real humanity, flesh and blood, is a fundamental doctrine, but that is not union. Union is by the Holy Ghost. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. But, further, as to the outward dispensation of unity, union before the cross was impossible, because it was by that the middle wall of partition was broken down, in order to make of twain (Jew and Gentile) one new man, making peace, and present both in one body to the Father (Eph. 2). Thus, whether we consider the position of Christ as head of the body, or the power that forms us into one body, or the, time and order of its administration on earth, it is clear that Christ's death and Christ's ascension, and the coming of the Holy Ghost, were all essential to union, to the existence of the church His body. With the last two, baptism has even figuratively nothing to do. Another very grievous error connected with this, is the notion that the giving of the Holy Ghost is the same as being born again, or necessary to it. This error is common to Evangelicals and Anglicans. In the first place, as to prescribed order, it was received after baptism (Acts 2). But as to doctrine, no person receives the Holy Ghost till after he has been born again, and has even yet further grace given to him. In John 7 we read, "This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him should receive." Now, if they believed, they were born again. " In whom after ye believed (Eph. 1) ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise." Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? (Acts 19). He that establisheth us together with you in Christ, and who hath anointed us, is God, who also bath sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts (2 Cor. 1). And Gal. 4. is very express: "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts." The disciples were believers and clean through the word when the Holy Ghost came upon them. I might add proofs if needed. But it is evident that God cannot seal an unbeliever. He quickens or gives life to the unbeliever through faith by the word. He seals the believer. That, as to prescribed order, it is after baptism, is evident. Repent and be baptized every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2). So Paul, whereunto then were ye baptized? and then after they were baptized, Paul laid his hands on them, and they received the gift of the Holy Ghost. So in Samaria the Holy Ghost was fallen on none of them, only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. The exceptional case of Cornelius is an additional proof of the distinction. The Jew demurred to receiving the Gentile. God showed He would, and the apostle could not forbid water. The outward reception here below, since God had put His seal upon him. This is the apostle's own account. But the seal of the Spirit even here was by itself, though first, and was not at or by baptism. The forming of the body, and its union with the head, even with a glorified Christ, is by the Holy Ghost, by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven consequent upon that exaltation. It is in no sense or case by baptism, nor is baptism even a figure of it. The bread in the Lord's Supper is used as a figure of the unity produced down here by it. (1 Cor. 10:1717For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:17)).
Next, as to ministry. Scripture does not own man's choice of ministers, any more than voluntary associations called churches. The Anglican Catholic holds it to be a constituted order derived successionally from the apostles by ordination. Christians in general have gone more or less decidedly into the same system modified after their own thoughts; only the Anglican holds it to be an exclusive channel of grace in the episcopate and priesthood. He says it must be directly from Christ. How a successional system is directly from Christ it would be hard to tell. I understand a person saying God endows a person appointed by man, or even by the Lord, or endows him indirectly through a man. Both are found in Scripture. Christ appointed apostles; they were endowed on the day of Pentecost. And the apostles conferred the Holy Ghost by laying on of hands, on, not the ministry, though the Holy Ghost, might operate by them in ministry, but on, the whole company of the faithful, as, at Samaria, Peter and John did. But ministry was free to all and special gift directly from the Holy Ghost, and under the authority, and I may add, gift of Christ. This I shall now show. This directness characterized the ministry of Paul, here, I admit, in its highest or apostolic character, " not of man," he says, " nor BY man." Those who called themselves Jews then, insisted on derivation of ministry from the apostles. Paul gloried in its not being so, but it was not confined to him. Let us see historically. All that were scattered abroad (on the occasion of Stephen's death, that is, all except the apostles) went everywhere preaching the word (Acts 8:44Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word. (Acts 8:4)). I suppose the whole Church was not ordained, and in Acts 11:2121And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord. (Acts 11:21) in Antioch, we read of them, "and the hand of the Lord was with them; and a great number believed and turned to the Lord." Stephen, using the office of a deacon well, purchases to himself a good degree, and great boldness in Christ Jesus. So Philip. So in 2 and 3 John, Gains is commended for receiving those who went out, and a lady is directed to inquire, not for letters of orders, but what doctrine they brought. Diotrephes refused them. According to our modern Anglicans he did well. As to doctrine, the Lord in the parable of the talents makes the question of faithfulness in ministry turn on trading with a gift from small or great without other authorization than receiving it. That was faithfulness. Peter tells us: "as every one has received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God " (1 Peter 4:10,11). That is, as those who speak on God's behalf, that God may be glorified, as in ministry (service), of the ability which God giveth. The apostle teaching how to discern what was of the Holy Ghost in 1 Cor. 12, tells us, there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit,... then goes through a long list, wisdom, knowledge, prophecy, etc., "all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will." These are different members in the body which have need one of another, and these various gifts are not local or an office in a particular church—but God has set in the Church apostles, prophets, teachers. All have not these different gifts, but all who have are responsible for their exercise, for trading with their talent, and they are in the Church, not an office, I repeat, in a church. Hence Apollos, if he taught at Ephesus, taught at Corinth if he went there. They were gifts in the Church, members in the body. Hence the apostle, resisting the first beginning of sects, says, "all things are yours. Paul, Apollos Cephas," etc., all are yours; the gifts belong to the Church at large. So, we read, there were in the church which was at Antioch, certain prophets and teachers. We have limits and order set to their exercise, surely. But these show and confirm the general principle. Not more than two, or at the most three, are allowed to speak in the assembly when come together, and women are to keep silence. A strange direction, if only an ordained priest or deacon, aye, or dissenting minister, could open his mouth, and they were the only channels of grace. Such a limit in that case could have no sense at all. But again, in more ordinary and regular ministrations, as may be thought, is their conferring less direct? Christ ascended (we read in Eph. 4) up on high, and gave gifts unto men, and He gave some apostles and prophets, and some pastors and teachers, and some evangelists (eis) for the perfecting of the saints (pros), for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till all are come in the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son. of God, to a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. We read: "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets," so that we may leave them aside, but pastors and teachers and evangelists are directly given as gifts (talents) by Christ ascended on high. This is direct giving according to Scripture, not of man, or by man. And it is added, " From whom;" the head, Christ, "the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body for the edifying of itself in love."Our essayist was wise not to seek to prove his thesis from Scripture. In 1 Cor. 14:29,3129Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge. (1 Corinthians 14:29)
31For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted. (1 Corinthians 14:31), we read "let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge" "for ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be comforted." James, indeed, warns the saints "not to be many masters (teachers) knowing that we shall receive greater condemnation." But why so if they could not unless regularly ordained to it? Such a warning could have no place according to the system which knows only an ordained clergy. I shall be told there were extraordinary gifts. Some of them were, not all. Pastors, teachers, evangelists are not, nor that which every joint supplieth; nor does James' direction apply to such, nor 1 Peter 4, nor 2 and 3 John. But in any case this is nothing to the purpose. The theory I combat is that God originally instituted a system of episcopate and priesthood, the only channels of blessing and grace, a direct ministry which man could not choose. I am told, indeed, Scripture is not to be referred to, to prove it, as it was established before the Scriptures were written, but that they allude to it often. But I find they speak very fully not by allusion, but historically and doctrinally of another system which God did institute and appoint, and which proves, as to the original constitution of God, the Anglican system to be false; false historically, false doctrinally. If he tells me that his system supplanted what God originally instituted, I admit it. That is the truth, it did supplant it. The system they teach is incompatible with that taught in Scripture, either for the world or the Church. Do they mean to allege that, for some wise reason, God set aside His original system and order and power—for it was God, we are told, who worked all in all; Christ who gave from on high pastors, teachers, evangelists, and every one who had received the gift was so to minister the same, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Did God and Christ withdraw all their gifts, ordinary and extra- ordinary from the Church, and substitute the clerical system insisted on by Anglicans? When did he do it? Not in times taught of in Scripture. Or was it man, who, as power died down so to speak, substituted his order for God's? But the external order will be alleged. Bishops and priests. Let us see that positive testimony the word furnishes. It does more than allude to these also. Nor does it recognize the Church's choice even of these church officers, save as regards money and table serving. Then it is insisted on—in Acts 6 the apostles withdraw from table-serving, establishing needed order in the Church—to give themselves not to baptizing or administering the Lord's Supper, one was generally entrusted to others, it is not said to whom—strange case of the exclusive character of grace—and the breaking of bread was daily from house to house, or at home in contrast with the temple. Where were the ordained ministers who communicated the grace? I know not—but the apostles withdrew from tables, to give themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word, a matter so deplorable in the eyes of our modern Catholics. And they have the table-carers, chosen by the people—and these they lay hands on, the only expressly ordained persons in Scripture, and we read, faithfulness in this is a way to higher service. So Paul would not take the money of the saints for Jerusalem unless the churches chose some to travel with him, providing things honest in the sight of men. The word used is (cheirotoneo). Election being made by stretching out the hand, but it has nothing to do with ordination. 2 Cor. 8:1919And not that only, but who was also chosen of the churches to travel with us with this grace, which is administered by us to the glory of the same Lord, and declaration of your ready mind: (2 Corinthians 8:19) shows it beyond controversy, and so indeed does Acts 10:4141Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead. (Acts 10:41). But there were elders chosen, and they were never chosen by the Church, but by Paul and Barnabas; or Titus was sent to establish them. There were overseers; that is, bishops, expressly so called, in Acts 20, nor is any one else so called. And there were several in each locality, they chose (not ordained, the translation is ecclesiastical but false), elders in every city, some labored in the word and doctrine, some, it appears from 1 Tim. 5:1717Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine. (1 Timothy 5:17), did not, but the same epistle shows us it was desirable, but the difference between their office and gift is evident. The gifts were set in the Church and exercised everywhere; the elders, though they might have gifts too, were local officers, city by city or in every church. Titus 1:55For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: (Titus 1:5); Acts 14:2323And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed. (Acts 14:23). And there were not gifts, but offices appointed. They were bishops, I repeat, the only bishops spoken of in the Scriptures, and Christ Himself directly and alone over them. These elders were to shepherd, not their flock, but the flock of God; and were responsible to the Chief Shepherd, who, when He should appear, would recompense them (1 Peter 5:1,41The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: (1 Peter 5:1)
4And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. (1 Peter 5:4)). As we have seen in Acts 20, they are expressly called bishops. Nor has the apostle an idea of any one over them here below, nor of a successor to himself He calls them solemnly together, declares the Holy Ghost had appointed them bishops, tells them he is going away, and they were to watch. Where is the room for the modern bishop here, now he forgot to remind them of Timothy, and their due subjection to his admonitions. He commends them to God, and the word of His grace which is able to build them up. They were to take heed to themselves and all the flock. Where was the bishop? But farther, the apostle was going away and expected never to see them again. Here indeed was the place to " allude" to the episcopate, and the successors of the apostles; but not a hint of such a thing escapes him. It has a strange and ominous silence about it, and, more than that, though he declares that things will go on badly as soon as he was gone, he has not an idea of appointing a vigilant successor to take his place; on the contrary, there will be none; grievous wolves would break in, and even among themselves perverse men would arise. Was there no bishop to consult, no successor in the see to watch? None. They, the elders, Paul's bishops, the only ones he knows, were to watch, and he commends them to God and the word of His grace. He treated his successor very slightingly if he had one. But I shall be told Timothy was the first bishop of the church of the Ephesians. Not Paul's successor then, for Paul was alive. And the apostles as such, and even Bellarmine admits it, had no successors properly, for their charge was universal, not local. The notion of their having successors is indeed absurd. Paul, we have seen, knew nothing of it in Acts 20, the very occasion to speak of it; and so Peter takes pains, that after his decease, all the Jewish Christians should have his teaching in remembrance—has no idea of a successor. Where is the "allusion " to this constitution of God? There is none. (I reserve the question of priesthood as a graver question.) But what then was Timothy? This alleged episcopate must have been either successors to the apostles, as if (which is false) the apostles had a local see, or persons whom the apostles appointed in places they had evangelized and established Christianity in.
But Timothy and Titus were not their successors, for the history we have of them relates to the apostles' lifetime, and the apostles had no local see as such. And we have the account of what they established in the places they had labored in successfully. They established elders in every city, that is, not a bishop, but several elders, or bishops. That is a certain fact, whether in the acts or the epistles to Titus and Timothy, confirmed as it is in that to the Philippians also. Titus and Timothy were especial delegates of the apostle, who were certainly not located in sees, but accompanied the apostle or were sent on special missions by him, his confidential agents. He left Timothy for a time at Ephesus specially about doctrine; but he, after that, desires him to come to him speedily. Titus did not stay in Crete either, in 2 Tim. 4:1010For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. (2 Timothy 4:10), we read of his being gone to Dalmatia. The apostle, or his delegates by his direction, did establish bishops or elders in each city; that is, they did not establish an episcopate in the modern sense of the word, but something else which contradicts it: and if episcopacy is a necessary and exclusive channel of grace, the true primitive Church had no channels of grace at all, and those who followed had no grace to communicate. There were officers, but they were of another kind. Nor is there a hint of communicating grace in the matter. That the Church fell early into a system of episcopacy is perfectly true, and Jerome tells us how and why, as we have seen, namely, to prevent the jealous ambition and disputes of the elders. But the Church's decay was contemporaneous; all sought their own already, the apostle tells us, not the things of Jesus Christ they were in the last times already, John assures us, in his day, and Peter, that the time was come for judgment to begin at the house of God. Episcopacy accompanied this, a human arrangement to meet decaying spirituality. Then some began to say-my Lord delayeth His coming, and began to beat the men servants and maid servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken, so that in some 140 years from the apostles' days, Cyprian assures us that one of the most terrible persecutions was only too light as a chastisement from God. The bishops, so called, were running about as commercial travelers, to make money. In a little more than another century the emperors had to make laws to prevent the avarice of priests around dying beds, which were not called for (as Jerome complains) with buffoons or actors, or any heathen priests. For ministry, there was no ordination by man. It was direct. The apostles laid their hands on those who served tables; laymen, so called, laid their hands on an apostle. But no one can show, in Scripture, ordination for ministry. Whoever had a gift, for the world, or for the Church, was bound to exercise it, order being maintained in the Church by scriptural rules. I defy any one to point out ordination for ministry in Scripture, or to sustain it by scriptural authority. Elders and deacons, or servants there were. I dare say hands were laid on them as it was the universal custom, but it is only said of the table servers in Acts 6. Timothy is told not to lay hands suddenly on any one, and I dare say he did on elders or bishops, but God has taken care it never should be stated in Scripture. As to conferring a gift, it was by the laying on of the apostles' hands exclusively.
The question of priesthood and another important one remain. The setting up of a distinct priesthood is the denial of Christianity. A distinct priesthood is a body who can go to God for me, because I cannot so approach God myself. To say there is such a body in Christianity is to deny it. The essence of Christianity is, that we can directly approach God, even the Father, ourselves. We are (1 Peter 2) a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices by Jesus Christ: He has made us kings and priests to God and His Father (Rev. 1). That is our Christian place; to say that others are priests to approach for us, is to deny our place. We cannot hold this too fast that whoever sets up a priesthood other than that of all saints, entering in spirit into heaven, denies (it may be ignorantly, no doubt,) Christianity itself. What does Scripture tell us of priesthood now? First: in the epistle to the Hebrews, we read that if Christ himself were on earth He could not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law, who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things. Now this is exactly what is urged for Christian priesthood by the Ritualists. They say indeed that they are not merely (ἱιποδενγματα) copies, shadows, figures (p. 308) of the worship in heaven, but the priest is the " present vicarious representative of the one true, real, and ever-living priest,” (now for a time corporeally absent), acting "in His name." Or,-
" It is the one Mediator, acting in heaven directly, as we may say, and immediately by Himself; acting on earth indirectly and mediately by His minister as His visible instrument, who, forasmuch as in that most solemn of all His duties, He represents the priestly functions of His heavenly Master, is Himself, for that reason, and for that reason only, called a 'priest"' (p. 309).
And so "the Christian Eucharist.... is called 'a sacrifice,'" and ‘that whereon it is celebrated an altar.' " (p. 310).
Now it is clear, Christ on earth, at the time the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, could not have been a priest. There were priests who ministered to the example and shadows. But if Christ could not be a priest on earth, His ministers were. Is it not strange that this whole service is left out where the subject is treated of. Does any honest man (yes, I repeat, honest man,) believe that when this was written, and it was said Christ could not be a priest on earth, there was a Christian priesthood who served as the mediate and indirect instrument, offering sacrifices on earth, a vicarious representative of the great High Priest in heaven. The apostle tells us that such a high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens; that on earth he could not be a priest seeing there were those that served in the example and shadow of heavenly things. Yet at this very time, we are to believe, there was on earth what was expressly constituted of God to carry the priesthood on on earth riot as a copy, but as "gloriously real" (p. 308). Further, can an honest man believe what the epistle teaches; that repetition of sacrifices was a proof that sin was not taken away but remembered, but that Christ having, by one offering perfected forever them that are sanctified, there was no more sacrifice for sin nor remembrance of sins, and that the worshippers, once purged, should have no more conscience of sins, left it equally true that there was a sacrifice, a memorial sacrifice, gloriously real. And note, it is not merely intercession in virtue of the sacrifice as alleged; that would be scriptural enough, He ever liveth to make intercession for us. It is breaking His body, it is His blood shed. It is offering a sacrifice, which is not intercession. That is founded on a sacrifice, and appeals to its efficacy, but this is the memorial sacrifice itself. I shall enter more fully and directly into this in another paper, I now refer to it in connection with priesthood. The declaration that priesthood is in heaven, and Christ could not be a priest on earth, and that there was no more sacrifice for sin—means that there is a priesthood on earth, who are priests only because they offer a sacrifice. Strange that the New Testament writers should never say a word of this priesthood. But they do speak of priesthood, and in a way which excludes this ordained distinctive one. We are all a holy priesthood, all made a kingdom of priests, and to offer up spiritual sacrifices. Peter too, it seems, had forgotten or never heard of this "gloriously real" priesthood, and puts us altogether as priests. But it affects, as I have said, our place as Christians. Where there was a distinctive priesthood on earth, the vail was not rent, the people could not come beyond the altar, nor were the priests to go within the vail, the Holy Ghost this signifying (Heb. 9:88The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing: (Hebrews 9:8)) that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest. In contrast with this, the one offering which has perfected forever them that are sanctified having been offered, the vail is rent and we all have our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, boldness to enter into the holiest by a new and living way which He has consecrated for us through the vail, that is to say, His flesh, and we are to draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith:—where is the place for a mediating priest here, when I draw near myself into the holiest in full assurance of heart? I am a priest and enter myself where the great High Priest is, over the house of God, the family of God upon earth. There is a great High Priest and a whole body of priests under Him. That is, the whole notion of any other priests between me and God, is thus sedulously excluded. I enter into the holiest where the great High Priest is, and this is founded on the sedulously elaborated declaration that there is, and can be, no more offering for sin, that a memorial offering is a memorial, or remembrance of sins, and there is a diligent application of this to the conscience, that once purged we have no more conscience of sins, that Christ has sat down, is not standing, because there is no more offering, neither by Him nor by any, and with the so urgent and so just reason given by the Spirit, that it must be real, and that if there was, Christ must have often suffered from the foundation of the world, that the reality of suffering was necessary to the reality of His sacrifice; without it there was none accomplished. Christ is not offering Himself now, and on this, that He is not doing so now, the apostle insists. Those high priests were standing," offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins." What a picture of ritualistic priests. But this man, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down at the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies were made His footstool, for by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Offering for His friends, He has finished once for all, He is seated, and that expecting till His enemies are made His footstool: That Christ is offering Himself now is a heinous anti-Christian falsehood. He appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and as it is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and to them that look for Him he shall appear the second time without sin (χωρις ἁμαρτιας) apart from sin to salvation. He is in the presence of God according to the efficacy of that sacrifice, and intercedes for us; but it was when He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the majesty in the heavens. But, save to deceive souls, there is not as much value in any pretended sacrifice now, as in the letters I am forming here. As a lie of the enemy's, it may be a snare for those who have no knowledge of the efficacy of Christ's one sacrifice, and that, by one offering He bath perfected forever them that are sanctified—for those who have not received that word: who needeth not daily, as these high priests, to offer first for His own sins, and then for the people's, for this He did once, when He offered up Himself. Christianity, then, teaches us that in virtue of that one sacrifice we, all believers, enter in through the rent vail into the holiest of all, having a Great High Priest over the house of God, in full assurance of faith. We are the priests, and to set up a priesthood to do it, is to deny the efficacy of Christ's work, the believer's place, and the rending of the vail, that access of every believer to God which is the essential distinction of Christianity. A Christian priesthood, save as all saints are priests, is an anti-Christian lie. Christ offering Himself now, is unscriptural and false, a repetition of His sacrifice in any shape or form, or under any semblance, is a denial of the perfect efficacy of His one offering once for all, in which He offered up Himself. Both, the pretended priesthood and the pretended sacrifice, are a subversion of Christianity; one of the believer's place, the other of Christ's one offering. An offering of Himself implies the cross, implies suffering; He cannot suffer and die now.
Another point, calling for notice, as subversive of Christianity in ritualistic doctrine, is the Church being founded on incarnation, of which the sacraments are an extension. It is false upon the face of it, even on the ground they put themselves upon, that of the sacraments. Baptism and the Supper of the Lord both signify death, have no sense or meaning without it. If these form and nourish the Church, the Church begins by the death of Christ, not by His previous life, and feeds on Him also as having died. All of us that are baptized unto Christ are baptized to His death. Nothing can be more distinct than this. It is not to a living Christ that we are brought by baptism, which they allege forms the Church and unites to Christ; it is to His death we are baptized, the very profession of a Christian can have no place, no existence, till Christ is dead. And, indeed, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone, if it die it brings forth much fruit. A living Christ remained alone; lifted up, He drew all men to Him; He died to gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you." And Paul, who alone teaches the doctrine of the Church, declares, if he had known Christ after the flesh, he knew Him no more. One of these passages is only stronger than the other, and when the incarnate Savior is so blessedly spoken of as the bread that came down from heaven to give life unto the world, then He especially presses on them—" except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you;" and to this, as we are aware, the second sacrament refers. Of course for that He must be incarnate, nor is there for the accepted soul a more blessed subject than God manifest in the flesh, the divine person and path of Jesus; but it is not the less true, that in order to our having that life we must eat His flesh and drink His blood, that is, He must die, and we must so know Him, by living faith, to have life, to know Him really at all.
But in truth union with Christ has no place at all till He is ascended also; "God set him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.... and gave him to be head over all things to the church." Till He ascended as man on high, consequent on accomplished redemption, He could not send, had not to that effect received the Holy Ghost by which His members are united to Him. They are united to the Head in heaven by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. The epistle to the Ephesians is clear as to this, as indeed is all Scripture. We are to be the Church, quickened together with Him, and raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Him. That He had not received the Holy Ghost for this purpose previously, is clear from Acts 2" He being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear." Union before redemption is apostacy from the truth, and the denial of the need of redemption as the basis of the Church's place. It is an unredeemed man united to one who has not yet accomplished redemption, a sinner in his sins, and in flesh, with the holy Son of God. And what Christ shed forth after redemption was accomplished, was what formed the Church, nor did any church exist till then, for by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, (1 Cor. 12) and that that was the baptism of the Holy Ghost, the Lord shows us, saying, "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence" (Acts 1:55For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. (Acts 1:5)), for which consequently they were told to wait at Jerusalem. Hence too in the distinctive offices given to Christ in John 1, we have, first: " The Lamb of God who taketh away (not the sins, as our Ritualists, with so many, falsely quote it) the sin of the world." and then that the Holy Ghost could not come until Jesus was glorified is beyond all controversy. The Holy Ghost was not yet [given], we read, John 7, because Jesus was not yet glorified. "If I go not away," says Christ, "the Comforter will not come; but if I go away I will send him unto you." The whole distinctiveness of the Christian, the Church and Christianity itself, is the presence of that Comforter. It constitutes the living power by which the Christian is what he is, and the Church is what she is, unity, the ministry, individual consciousness of sonship. Everything that constitutes the Christian and the Church lies in the presence of the Holy Ghost. Christianity is, the apostle tells us, as he ministered it, the ministration of righteousness and the ministration of the Spirit, Christ's death was needed for both; and of this the Old Testament types and the New Testament history gives us a most interesting testimony. The high priest was anointed by Himself without blood; the priests after being, as well as the high priest washed with water, were sprinkled with blood and then anointed with oil. So, on the man Christ, perfect in Himself and perfectly acceptable to God, the Holy Ghost descended as a dove, no blood-shedding, we all know, was needed for Him. God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power. But for us the blood of sprinkling was needed. Christ's precious death came in, redemption, and cleansing, and then the Holy Ghost came down, sent from Him on high, and not till then. Our union is with a Christ whom God has raised from the dead, and given in that state and place to be head over all things to the Church, and that union is by the. Holy Ghost who never came till then. Christians ought not to need to have it proved that redemption is necessary in order to our having a part in Christ. Christ's person is the blessed object of our faith-surely—" The Son quickeneth whom He will," but sinners cannot have a part with Him but through redemption. Even the water of cleansing comes out of His pierced side, but He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. The notion of His being bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, as if that were union, is an Irvingite heresy. We are, as I said before, members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. The union of a sinner with the incarnate Lord before He has died, is a denial of the need of redemption in order to have a part with Him; it is a denial of the need of blood-shedding for cleansing (or else Christ and Belial can be in concord); it is a denial of the need of the Holy Ghost for the forming the unity of the body,—and He alone forms it,—for the Holy Ghost could not come till Jesus had died and was glorified. It is a denial of all upon which Christianity is based, as regards the position of sinners. I understand perfectly well what they allege as to communicating life by baptism from Christ incarnate; but this, besides being false—for it is the Spirit that quickens—is adding another error, for true baptism is baptism unto His. death. But the doctrine I combat here is the essence of the system, I mean extension of the incarnation by sacraments. And where we hear Christ speaking, He has no thought of forming the Church during his lifetime. It is upon the title of Son of the living God he founds it; and where was this demonstrated for sinful man in this world? He was declared (determined) Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead. He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and He was rejected by them; but resurrection publicly proved Him the Son of God with power. A man is not justified by incarnation, but by the death and resurrection of the Incarnate One, and being found in Him when risen. Sin is put away only by the sacrifice of Himself; without shedding of blood is no remission. If union is formed by the sacraments, as an extension of the incarnation, then it is formed without sin being put away, without remission, without that in which the blessed Lord glorified God, and redeemed sinners. It is formed without righteousness for He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. It is formed without the Holy Ghost, without our having access to God, for we have access by one Spirit to the Father, and we are builded together for an habitation of God by the Spirit, and it is certain the Spirit could not be given till Christ was glorified. And it is in vain to say it was by sacraments afterward; for they are only an extension, or, as some have called them, a continuation of the incarnation, Christ's body having been a source of healing and life. But an extension of the incarnation cannot do more than the incarnation itself; a figurative instrument, exalt it as you please, cannot go beyond the personal living power of Christ;—but the incarnation did not and could not put away sin, the incarnation could not bring the gift of the Holy Ghost. Christ declares solemnly, the Comforter could not come unless He went away. Remission of sins could not be obtained by incarnation, nor redemption, for it is by His own blood (in the power of it) He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. Incarnation, or any continuation or extension of it, could not give an eternal inheritance, for it is by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, that they which are called might have the promise of eternal inheritance. Incarnation cannot purge the conscience, for it is the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, which purges our conscience. The whole system,—I do not use these as hard words but in the full scriptural force of them,—is a lying fable subversive of Christianity. It may deceive one who does not know what sin is, (which Christ could not put away but by dying,) because the person of the incarnate Son is the blessed object of faith, the attractive object of our spiritual affections, the sufficing delight of the Father Himself, and given to us to be ours. But redemption and remission with all their consequences in the Church by the presence of the Holy Ghost, are the fruit of Christ's death. If there be anything which possesses the soul of the believer, it is the person of the Son of God. Hence what seems to exalt it will naturally affect the mind. But, used to set aside, or to dim the necessity of the cross, of redemption, it is Satan transforming himself into an angel of light. If Christ's incarnation and the communication of the benefits of it by sacraments are the whole substance of the truth, that on which the Church is founded, and by which man is saved, then the cross loses its value, the sinful state of man is denied, redemption is unnecessary, or an immaterial addition to the main truth. It loses its place in the economy of God. " Therefore doth my Father love me," says the blessed Lord, " because I lay down my life that I might take it again." It was because He was obedient unto death, the death of the cross, that God also has highly exalted Him. It was then He could say now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him, and if God be glorified in Him, God shall glorify Him in Himself and shall straightway glorify Him. There is no remission, no putting away sin but by shedding of blood; by Christ's sacrifice of Himself. The peace and security this gives to the conscience, leads us back to contemplate from within, from, if I may so speak, the divine side, the perfection of the living Son of God, and His perfectness in obedience unto death. The eye is opened on the divine beauty of that human walk, and the unutterable perfection of that death which was not that the Prince of this world had anything in Him, but that the world might know that He loved the Father, and as the Father had given Him commandment, so He did. But a sinner cannot gaze thus on this but through the efficacy of a redemption which has reconciled him to God and given him a part and a place in and with the now glorified Savior who is gone to His Father and our Father, His God and our God; words never used, and. which never could be used till He was risen from the dead, and could tell to His redeemed ones, calling them then first "brethren," what He had obtained for them, declare His Father's name to them, as One into the full light of whose countenance He was re-entered after drinking the cup of wrath for them, and thus, as He declares, and not before, in the midst of the Church sing praise to Him. Oh, what a difference between the position of those that, through redemption, have a part with Him gone up as a man into glory, and the vanity of empty ceremonies! for in such case they are so, though most precious when scripturally used, a pretended extension of incarnation, without any redemption at all.
But the very object proposed to us by Ritualists is false and unscriptural in this salvation by incarnation and its extension by sacraments. They say that the object proposed is reunion with God by incarnation. Reunion with God is simple nonsense. Save in the person of the blessed Lord there is no union of God and man, nor never was, still less a reunion. Adam was not united to God when innocent. He was His offspring, [the son] of God, living by a life breathed into his nostrils by his, divine Creator, but there was no union. The union of man and God is the sole prerogative of the Word made flesh. It is incarnation, and that is true of none but Him. And when the Word was made flesh it was in a divinely ordered and miraculous way, He was conceived by the. Holy Ghost so that that born of the virgin was a holy thing, true flesh and blood surely, but untainted by sin. And this is true now of no other humanity. All are born in sin, and there is no question of any union or reunion with dod, nor is the idea in any way scriptural nor is there union with the Lord in incarnation, He was among them " the holy thing;" but He was alone, God and man in one person, but not united to men, to sinful, corrupt man; but, having miraculously formed sinless manhood in His own person. The union with Godhead was now, for the first time, and only here. Reunion there was none; it was not reestablishing an incarnation which had place in the first Adam, for there was none. Incarnation, or union of man with God, was found in Christ alone. We are united to a glorified Christ by the Holy Ghost. It is the man whom God has raised from the dead, whom, as we have seen, God has given to be head over all things to the Church. The avowed foundation of Ritualism is deadly error and heresy.
Another point may require more development. The visible and invisible Church. We have already seen that Christ declared He would build His Church, and that both Peter and Paul speak of that progressive work, by which the building is carried on, to be completed only in glory. Set up, no doubt, perfect at first, but carried on by the Lord by the addition of living stones, and this without recognizing any human hand in it. Nay, speaking so as to exclude man's work, whatever wood, hay and stubble might be put by man into the manifested building on earth. But there was, also, as we have seen, an external, visible building, called withal "God's building," into the formation of which, day by day, the responsibility of man entered, built with gold and silver, and with wood and hay or stubble, yea defiled, corrupted by man. The great principle of Popery and (of its poor imitation) Anglicanism, is to appropriate all the intrinsic principles of the body formed by the Holy Ghost—such as being members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of Heaven—to those who have been admitted by man into the outward and visible manifestation of the body, or the building upon earth (for these they, with equal ignorance, confound together) and, in order to this, they have attributed to baptism (which is the ordinance by which men are received into the Christian company) what it is not even the figure of, namely, communication of life, and union with Christ. We have seen, and Scripture is express as to it, that baptism is a figure of death, and that the Spirit is the giver of life. Baptism receives a man outwardly, publicly, and actually amongst Christians, where the privileges conferred on these people in this world are found. But it is responsible man's building, not the Lord and His grace adding only living stones, forming members of His body. No doubt, at first, the ostensible body and the real members of Christ were identical, because the Lord added daily to the Church such as should be saved; but, as to the earthly building, the insertion of wood, hay and stubble are doctrinally contemplated, and false brethren, coming in unawares, historically recorded. The sacramental Church was not identical in principle with the body formed by the Holy Ghost, and, in fact, soon ceased to be so, as to its limits.
This the apostle intimates with warning, when he declares that all Israel were baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and drink the same spiritual drink;.... but with many of them God was not well pleased. So a Christian may belong sacramentally to the Church, as Simon did, and have neither part nor lot in the matter, have nothing to do with life in salvation, be still in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity. Not "have sinned away baptismal grace," as they say, but not have any part in grace at all; false brethren, spots in the feasts of charity, while they feast with Christians, yet baptized members of the ostensible, visible body. If I turn from the statement of actual circumstances to the prophetic statements of Scripture, I read that in the last days perilous times will come.... there will be a form of godliness denying the power,—from such, turn away; that is, the ostensible body is wholly corrupt, so that the obedient Christian is to turn away; and in Rom. 11 this responsibility of the professing body is definitely pressed on the conscience, comparison is made with the cutting off of the Jews, and it is added: Upon thee goodness, if thou continue in His goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. To say that the body of Christ will be cut off from Christ, would be simply monstrous; but the external system which supplanted Judaism will; that is, Scripture contemplates an external thing connected with the responsibility of man, as well as the true body of Christ, and the house which the Lord builds—and to appropriate the conferring the possession of the privileges of the one to the forms of the other is to falsify all the teaching of Scripture, as to the body of Christ, and the substance of these privileges, the true force of being born of God and partaking of the divine nature, and union with Christ the head, and to falsify the true character and import of the forms themselves. None are more ignorant of what the Church is than the Anglicans, who talk so much about it.
The body is always real; there can be no false members of it. It is formed by the Holy Ghost and not by sacraments at all, though the Lord's Supper symbolizes its unity. The house is building by Christ, and in this there is no bad building, but it is only growing into a temple. But there is a building in which man builds, in which wood and hay and stubble have been built in, and which will be cut off, where Apostacy sets in, which is become as a great house, in which are vessels to dishonor as well as to honor—vessels from which the obedient Christian has to purge himself. We must not confound what Christ builds and what man has built. Against the former the gates of hell shall not prevail: in the latter we may expect wood, hay and stubble. We may expect to find a great house in which are vessels to dishonor, from which we have to purge ourselves—a form of godliness in the last days, denying the power, from which we have to turn away—and, having found it, know that the Gentile branches have not continued in God's goodness, and that it will be cut off. Solemn testimony to Christians. Is there anything which we ought more to lay to heart; anything more deeply affecting, than the ruin of that which was planted in grace, in glory and in beauty?
I have done with the substance of these important questions. I add some remarks on the fallacies which prejudice or ignorance has introduced into the statement of the questions to be treated of. And the ignorance of these Essayists is very great. Now, only note what is assumed or slipped in without any proof. "The visible Church," it is said, "that is, a divinely instituted body, and an equally divinely instituted, appointed government of the visible body." Now we have seen that, in speaking of the body, Scripture is clear; but connection of a divinely appointed government of the body there is none. Gifts there are, members of the body, and manifested in the visible body; but it is to be remarked that the government of the Church, save as gifts in power—" helps, governments "—is never in any way connected with the body, visible or invisible. Elders were appointed, as we have seen, in each Church; but their office was local, not like the gifts set in the Church. I notice this, because it is the secret of the whole papal edifice, confounding gifts and offices. This made the clergy gradually come in, for open ministry continued a good while in some parts, but the confusion went on till office became the exclusive guarantee for gift. But a divinely appointed government had nothing to do with the body as such. Now, unity is made to depend on, yea, to consist in it.
Of priesthood I have spoken. Of mysteries, and means and channels of grace, we may speak elsewhere; but a divinely appointed priesthood, other than that of all Christians, is a mere lie of the enemy. If not, let it be shown. And here I beg to insert Tertullian's, and still better the Apostle John's, rule, that what was at the first is right. The Scriptures are the earliest historical testimony we have, and divinely given. They tell us what was divinely appointed at the beginning. It is in vain to talk of interpretation here. I believe every one taught of God can use them. It is wicked, Satanic fraud, to deprive the Church of the Scriptures. They were written, save three epistles, to the flock, not to ministers, but by them. But certainly, as a history, they are worth the corrupt and interpolated trash which is palmed on the unlearned as the Fathers’. But Luke, Peter, John, Jude, Paul, James, know no such priesthood. If they do, let it be shown. I say their history of the Church denies it. One taught of the Holy Ghost by the word abhors it, as of the enemy.
Again I find in one essay: "The body itself is a visible community, a kingdom." This is very mischievous confusion. The body of Christ is not His kingdom. It is very convenient to assume it, but there is no ground for it whatever. His body is Himself, His kingdom is what He rules over, apart from Himself, He being King over it. King of the Church is a thing unknown to Scripture. When He takes to Him His power and reigns, it will be over all the world. The field is the world now. The devil's work [the tares] is in the scene of His kingdom now. They are not members of His body. We are His body, His bride—of His flesh and of His bones. His kingdom is not that. He does not nourish and cherish His kingdom, He governs it, not His bride and His body. There is not a more mischievous error on these points than what is assumed here as a thing to be taken for granted. The kingdom may be realized within certain limits, and so far as to limits coincide as Christendom, with the professing church; but the field is the whole world, and the form that the kingdom takes, in fact, is the work of the enemy as much as of the Lord. That is not true of the body, and shows the profound evil of the false doctrine which makes baptism the means of communicating life and introduction by union into the body, for a large part of what is in the kingdom is introduced by Satan, namely, the tares, which are to be burned. Have they had life and union with Christ communicated to them by the sacrament of baptism? And let it not be said here: "Yes, but being the seed of the wicked one, they have lost it again." In the parable, they are introduced by Satan, and the theory of the Anglican Catholic is—that they are introduced by baptism, and union thereby. Can there be a greater or more deplorable confusion?
There are a few general remarks I would make in conclusion, to clear up the whole question. It is not the existence of a visible Church which is denied by the Evangelical world. Everyone knows there is such a thing. That there is a Christendom, which, as a religion in the world, can be contrasted with Heathens, Jews and Mohammedans. But Evangelicals do not see the responsibility of the visible Church, and that there ought to be, as there was, a maintenance of corporate unity as a testimony for the glory of Christ. They do not see that Christians were bound to maintain unity and godliness. They do, consequently, content themselves with individual salvation, the individuals being Members of the invisible body of Christ. But the Anglican Catholics do worse; they attribute all the privileges of the true body of Christ to the outward, baptized professors, and the truth of divine operation in the soul, all moral power, all reality in the religion of Christ, is lost. The soul has nothing to say to God in being saved. Christianity becomes a mummery of ordinances, making righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost—the true moral reconciliation with God in a new nature, by the Holy Ghost, in a conscience purged by the blood of Christ—immaterial to the possession of the privileges of Christianity. It is really gross Antinomiamism, with all its legality. Eternal life, and union with Christ, are acquired without any consciousness of real change in the person: this is simply of Satan. For the kingdom of God is in power, it is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. The true Christian is really reconciled to God, there is a renewing of the Holy Ghost, which is shed on us abundantly. But further, as regards the visible Church itself; the Anglican Catholics, too, have lost the sense of the Church's responsibility. For the outward visible Church is divided; it is more; the parts most esteemed by the Anglican Catholic are grossly corrupted, full of superstition, idolatry, vice and error. Its history has been the history of the worst vices, the worst corruption in the world; not sought out by secret search, but in the open day. We have a Greek Church, a Nestorian Church, a Jacobite Church, a Latin Church, an Anglican Church, who have no communion one with another, and those of the most pretentious are the most corrupt. Has the Church, then, met its responsibility? Has it continued in God's goodness? Has it waited for its Lord from Heaven? Or has it beat the men-servants and maid-servants and eaten and drunk with the drunken? If it has done the latter, its portion is to be cut asunder and to have its portion with the unbelievers, to be cut off. And the attributing the privileges of the body of Christ to this corrupt, external system, slighting its responsibility and insensible to its failure, is the most fatal delusion, hurrying those seduced by it to their final destruction. It is the worst, proudest denial of the responsibility of the visible Church, a seared conscience, which can pretend to security in privileges, as the Jews of old, where God has announced judgment because of the state they are in. If the universal Church is in a normal state, why so much pains to make out its case, to re-unite it, to heal its open public divisions? If it be in a fallen state, are we not to think of its responsibility and see what is the result according to the word of God? What is the effect of a doctrine which leads the visible Church to claim the possession and power to communicate, by ordinances, its highest privileges, without the slightest reference to its fallen state, with a conscience perfectly dead to the evil, which, if God's word be true, is surely bringing on its judgment. Our Essayists, on this very ground of communication of life and union with Christ by ordinances, slight and blame individual earnestness about salvation, individual sorrow for sin, individual peace obtained by grace through faith, Christ having made peace. These are thus described: "A certain consciousness of personal interest in these truths, and a sense of general unworthiness, and further sense of the removal of that unworthiness in the belief and apprehension of these truths, the whole matter of salvation being a personal one.. "
Now this is a very feeble statement of personal conviction of sin and faith; but Scripture does deal with the individual and with conscience. It teaches the doctrine of the Church—we have spoken of it—and of a Church which ought to be visible, holy and one. I have no wish to avoid or enfeeble this part of truth; on the contrary, I desire to press it, as I have done, according to my ability, on Christians; but that withal they should have the deep sense of how we have failed and it is ruined; but it is ignorance, or worse, which would put this in opposition to personal, individual salvation; and the Anglican Catholic system is guilty of this. Save the exhortations of chap. 12, all the epistle to the Romans is individual. In all the epistles of John everything is individual. In Galatians the teaching is individual, and I might add a great deal more; but, besides this, the ruin of the visible Church itself is contemplated, the perilous times of the last days are spoken of, and the judgment of God on its departure, and its apostacy. Not only is salvation individual, but the individual Christian is called upon, at his peril, to judge the state of the Church, to purge himself from vessels to dishonor; to turn away from such and such, from forms of godliness without the power; to depart from all iniquity-where the foundation of God stands sure; but having this seal (not a recognized, visible Church, but) the Lord knoweth them that are His; and when the Lord judges the state of the Church, whoever has ears is called upon to hear what is said to them; the state is one to be judged, not trusted in; the individual's duty is to give heed to what the Lord pronounced upon it. Not only is salvation necessarily individual, but, when the responsible Church is judged, and the Lord, by His testimony, declares that state, the individual Christian is solemnly, and by divine authority, called upon individually to give heed to that testimony, and act according to it. It is at his peril if he neglects the warning injunction, and, if that be the call of God, what shall we say of a system which sets up the authority of that which is to be judged, and closes the ear of the pious against the warning and summons of God to look at the state the Church is in? And let not anyone speak of interpreting Scripture, and its being for the Church; that is, for the clergy to interpret. It was written by the inspired clergy, if people are pleased to call them so, to the Christian people, and for the Christian people. Only three short epistles can be pretended to be written for ministers, and these are now, even so, a part of the common heritage of the Church of God—and as regards the warning of Christ's judging in the midst of the Churches, whoever has ears to hear is called upon peremptorily to give heed to them. The voice of the Lord claims his attention, his individual heed, to His judgment of the state which surrounds the saint in the Church. It is disobedience to the voice of the Lord, addressed distinctively to the individual Christian, and attention to it marks one who has ears to hear, and the judgment of Christ on the state of the Church is that to which he is to give heed. What is judged cannot be a rule and a guide, when we are called to give heed to the judgment, and to guide ourselves by it in our position, in that which is judged. And to make (when thus judged) the judged Church a conclusive and binding rule, is open contempt of the authority of Christ. We are bound to hear Christ, and to act on what we hear, Christ singling out the individual and making him responsible for what is communicated to him, as to Christ's judgment of the Church. I repeat-not to give heed and obey is to slight Christ Himself. And what is substituted for this giving heed to the testimony of God, which claims our attention? What has, been justly called Ecclesiastical Millinery. But, if the Matter be looked at as beneath the surface, it is subjection to ordinances, the denial of being dead and risen with Christ; in which is the force and power of Christianity (Col. 2). A return to the religiousness of the flesh, as if we were alive before God as unredeemed children of Adam. A keeping of days and months and years which, though from Jewish influence, is, the apostle declares, a return to heathenism (Gal. 4:9,109But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? 10Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. (Galatians 4:9‑10)), because as shadows they were instructive before Christ came, who was the substance, but, taken up now, are the rudiments of the world to which we are crucified with Christ; declaring that we have not died to it with Christ, that we are living in the world as children of Adam, subject to its rudiments, not holding the head, certainly not Jews with instructive shadows, but heathens in the flesh, following its religion and abrogated ceremonies. Such are the beggarly and condemned elements which are given to us instead of living union with the head, Christ, by the presence and power of the Spirit of God, and a conscience perfected towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.