The more truth and the state of Christendom develop themselves, the more it becomes evident that the evangelical world (I cannot say has lost, but) has never had the full truth of the gospel, nor the present power and hope of God's assembly; nor the individual Christian his true present standing and calling before God; that the full development of the state of a redeemed soul with God, as given in the writings of the New Testament and especially in those of Paul and John, is not possessed, not even in theory—generally objected to, never possessed. At the utmost is forgiveness of sins and divine favor enjoyed (seldom that); and all that concerns their new position in Christ ignored; or alas! guarded against as dangerous. Men are placed under the new covenant which does not go beyond remission of sins and the law written in the heart, and even that rarely realized; but the being in Christ, and knowing it by the Holy Ghost, and what it involves now, and in hope, has dropped out of their creed altogether.
I recall what I have often stated long ago. The blessed Lord, as a Savior, is seen in three distinct positions: on the cross, accomplishing redemption; on the Father's throne, the Holy Ghost being sent down consequent upon Christ sitting there as man; and His coming again to receive the saints to Himself into the like glory, and thereupon take His own throne too.
After the long, dark, and indescribably wicked ages of popery, saturated as they were with iniquity which baffles recital, the work of God in the Reformation brought out the first point, though with at least one glaring defect, and all marred by a doctrine of the sacraments remaining over from popery, which vitiated and contradicted the truth they preached. The main points, in which that great deliverance was defective or carried evil and error with it, were these (and they are what are agitating the Christian world now, as in part they have done ever since): justification by faith was preached as we know, but the work of Christ was presented only as meeting and satisfying God's justice (a vital point surely'), but not as the fruit of God's love. I do not say that this never was felt—I do not doubt it was: but the theology of justification left God a judge, and presented Christ as the Savior in whom the love was. It said, The Son of man must be lifted up, but it did not say, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son,’ as the blessed word of God does. This characterizes the work of that day.
The other point was, that people were born of God by baptism. This was the doctrine of all the reformed churches, Lutheran, Reformed, or Presbyterian, Anglicans All held this. The root of popish confusion was here, and it has carried more or less of its leaven with it even where the error is denied.
Baptism is not even a figure of being born, or getting life. We are baptized to Christ's death, and at the utmost are raised in a figure in coming out of the water, though this be connected, in the only place to be cited as speaking of it (Col. 2:12), with faith in the operation of God who raised Christ from the dead. Regeneration is not used in scripture for being born again.
It is just the opposite which characterizes revival preaching now.
Lutheran Cat.: minor, parts iv. first) second, third questions—major, part iv. 1-27. Appendix ad minorem, v. 20.
Anglican: public and private baptism of infants, thanksgiving after baptizing the child, the same, but less clear, in the baptism of those in riper years. So, in the second lineation of catechism.
All the formularies of the Reformed church teach the same doctrine, as does the Scotch Presbyterian article on baptism—
The Presbyterian Confession of Faith. (xxviii. 6) “The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered. Yet notwithstanding by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto according to the counsel of God's own will in His appointed time.”
The difference between these bodies is that Lutheranism and Anglicanism confer the grace on all, Presbyterianism only on the elect, and, if that come when one is forty years old, still it was in baptism. See section 5.
The same doctrine will be found in other local reformed thatches, as Dutch, &c.
It is only used twice: in Matt. 19 where it refers to the coming kingdom of Christ; and in Titus 3, where it refers, I have no doubt, to baptism, and is distinguished from the renewing of the Holy Ghost. I am in no way advocating Baptists' views here.
But with these qualifications (that its origin, and so the nature and character of God in love in it, was left out, and that superstition, ascribing being born again to a rite, not to the word and Spirit, as Scripture clearly does, was continued) that one blessed aspect of Christ's salvation, His dying for our sins, the efficacy of the work of the cross as justifying, came to light at the Reformation, by labors, and faith, and suffering which ought to draw out the heart of every Christian with thankfulness to God, and admiring joy in the grace that was given to these blessed and honored witnesses of the truth. If states laid hold of it to get rid of the incubus of the Pope's authority, this does not alter the reality of the grace and faith of those who brought the truth out. None could be farther than myself from despising these instruments of God in our deliverance from the deadly evil of Romanism. Still, in judging historically of what was taught, we find this great defect in their gospel on the one hand, and on the other the presence of a doctrine as to the sacraments which left the suckers of popery there, if not its stem.
With these qualifications then the value of Christ's work on the cross was brought to light. But the other two truths (the coming of the Holy Ghost and His dwelling in the saints individually, and in the assembly as the house of God, and forming the body of Christ down here; and Christ's coming again to receive the saints to Himself, that they may be with Him glorified where He is, and establish His throne and kingdom over the earth)—these, I say, were entirely left out or denied. These are the great truths which constitute the present character and specific future of the Christian and Christianity, and which God is now bringing out to awaken the saints of God to their true calling and character. I do not speak of them as mere acquirements of knowledge, nor do they form the foundation, as the person of Christ revealing the Father and His work do; but as constituting the true present distinctive character and power of the Christian and Christianity.
Modern evangelical Christianity has advanced one step. It has recognized that a man must be really born again to enter into God's kingdom; and that it is not by a rite but by the Spirit and word of God. But they who, in the original and larger Protestant bodies, have so far acknowledged and professed the truth are paralyzed by being tied to a system which declares the contrary, and in virtue of which they hold their place and ministry. It is not merely the tendency of failure we are all liable to; but they are obliged, in all the original Protestant bodies, in dealing with souls, to declare that to be deadly error which they have systematically accepted as true, and by which they hold their official place, and in some cases constantly put forward as truth. They may forget it more easily, as in Presbyterianism, where it is not constantly used as a formulary. Still such a course tends to demoralize those who are in it, and to break up, in the measure in which they testify the truth, the system to which they belong; and the various bodies are feeling the effect of this course as truth becomes more prominent, popery and infidelity making breaches in systems which have no divine strength.