It is wonderful how, when a false theory occupies the mind, the plainest statements of Scripture go for nothing, and what is positively false and opposed to its direct teaching is put in place of the truth. No better instance of this kind of thing could be found than the following extract from Mr. Smith gives us, "When some certain form of Sin, known to your own soul, is presented to you, although you tarp from it, is there not a response down deep in the soul, that contradicts the verdict you have given? and which says of the evil thing, in unmistakable tones, Dove it! ' A h! there is the fatal thing-you love it after all. Now what a man loves, in a certain sense that man himself is in character. His affections show the central powers of his being." Now can anything be more totally contrary to the teaching of the Spirit of God in the seventh of Romans, which gives us the very picture of the state of soul out of which Mr. Smith writes that persons, through his teachings, may be delivered? What the apostle states is that a Christian does hate sin at the very bottom of his heart, even while under its power, and that his 'distress proceeds from the consciousness of doing, in spite of himself, what he does hate. " For that which I do, I allow not, for what I would, that I do not, but what I- hate, that do I." His statement is the clear opposite of Mr. Smith's. Then, that what a man loves he is in character, is just what the apostle denies. He says, "For what I would, (what I love) that I do not." His character is just tire opposite of what he loves, and that's the trouble. And lastly, that " his affections show the central powers of his being," is just what the seventh of Romans, we might al-. Most say, is written to prove is not the case. His affections are all right, he loves holiness and hates sin, but is utterly without power to act according to his affections. That is to say, his affections are the very reverse of being the " power of his being." "I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law Of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." At the center, where his affections are, he is weak, and captive under a power that is in his members, and clearly they are not his affections. It really is wonderful how any one claiming to take Scripture as his guide could make, in one short sentence, three statements so plainly false and contrary to what it teaches. We give Mr. Smith credit for being quite sincere in what he teaches, but believe that the very thing he has taken upon himself to teach others, is just the thing that in his own soul he is unsound upon. The statement we are considering.
and indeed his whole book; plainly shows that he does not distinguish between the flesh and the new man, nor between the new man and the 'power of the Holy Ghost acting on the new man. With him, strength is found in the affections, and if the affections are set straight all will go well. The fact of being born again, and of two natures opposed to one another in the same person, the strength of the one and utter weakness of the other, learned while under law, ending in deliverance from the power of the one, through our Lord Jesus Christ, seem to have no place in the mind. But let us leave this question, and pass on to another where our author asks us " to be honest " and fairly look at the Scripture he is speaking of. We are to beware and not turn its edge, as he himself had often done, to his shame and loss, by the " poor tricks of the intellect." He is dealing with the 6th of Romans, in this instance, and our not serving sin. " When," he asks, " are we not to serve sin? Plainly now. From what 'is this deduced? From the fact of the body of sin being destroyed (' rendered inert, or ineffective, as in suspended life,' might be the more exact translation); when destroyed? Plainly, previously to our not serving sin. When was the old man crucified with Christ? Evidently,- previously to the destruction of the body of sin." What Mr. Smith wants us to be honest and see, is that three distinct acts, one succeeding the other, take place in the believer, by which he gets to the position where he is enabled not to serve sin. That is to say. he puts in place of the work of Christ for us on the cross, to which in figure, by baptism, the believer has been brought, as the expression of his standing before God, a supposed three-fold work of the Holy Ghost in us, by which liberty from the power of sins is attained. By this means, the whole force of the apostle's argument is lost. What the apostle -does teach is that, according to his profession in baptism, every Christian has been crucified with Christ, and is therefore to practically reckon himself dead to sin. In the same way, in Galatians, he says, " They that are Christ's have -crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." It is the Christian standing before God in 'virtue of the cross, he is speaking of. Paul says; "I have been crucified with Christ." Not crucified by the work of the Holy Ghost in him, as Mr. Smith would teach us. He was crucified when Christ was crucified. He came to the knowledge of it when he was converted, or at leak when the Holy Ghost revealed it to him, and his aim was to make his state answer to his actual standing. Certainly we are not to serve sin; and why? because we have been crucified with Christ, and we have been crucified with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed.
The apostle's doctrine puts the firm, ground of the cross of Christ beneath the foot of faith, as that upon which the " walk in newness of life" is to proceed. Mr. Smith's Puts the shifting sands of experience, by a totally false interpretation of the 6th of Romans. Paul's " way of holiness " is very, very different from that of Mr. Smith's, and we don't hesitate to say, that we very much doubt the quality of " the newness of life " that flows from the latter. The doctrine of the standing of the believer in the 6th of Romans does become experience in the 7th of Romans, which is really the setting forth of how the teaching of the 6th of Romans becomes realized experimentally in the soul, so that deliverance from the power of sin is truly experienced, and this is just what Mr. Smith does not see.
We shall close our remarks by noticing just one more instance of the sad misuse of Scripture by Mr. Smith in the book we are considering and this the saddest of all, because it deals with what is of the deepest and most precious moment to the saint. It is that in which he attempts to unfold the doctrine of the atonement from the epistle of Hebrews. We feel the more as to it, because our author tells us he " waited for some weeks in special prayer for enlightenment and guidance on so solemn a subject," and yet it is just here that he goes so terribly astray, and gives the plainest evidence of the working of the human mind outside the guidance of the Spirit.
" Inward purity of heart," and " present salvation from sinning," is the doctrine that Mr. Smith is seeking to establish. It is a purified heart he is in quest of when he turns to the epistle of Hebrews, and he perverts the teaching of the whole epistle in support of the theory he has in his mind on this subject. Now, though we are exhorted to "follow after holiness," the inward sanctification of the Spirit, and the operation of the Spirit in the soul, renewing and cleansing the affections, which is what Mr. Smith is solely occupied with, is exactly that of which the epistle does not treat. Sanctification in Hebrews is by the will of God through " the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The believer is once and forever sanctified and fitted for the presence of God, as a worshipper, by the blood of Jesus, and the " worshippers once purged " " have no more conscience of sins." The blood is applied once, and only once. We will now listen to what Mr. Smith has to say on the subject.
"In the epistle to the Hebrews, which deals so specially with the scriptural aspect of our Lord's work, we find the various forms of the word " sanctify " more often than in all the other epistles combined_ It was that Jesus, might sanctify the people with His own blood,' that He suffered without the gate.' For if the blood of bulls and of goats,' the epistle argues, 'and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ,'" &c. Sec. Other texts are quoted to the same point, and he continues, "It is because this sanctification, to which we hear testimony, is through tire blood of Jesus, that we feel confidence in casting ourselves upon Christ to receive its accomplishment."
All this has reference to the inward cleansing of the soul as the following passage shows. "'The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth from all sin,' was probably more constantly on my lips than any single passage of Scripture for ten years before I saw that its application was not primarily to canceling the record of sin, but to the inward cleansing of the souls of those who walk in the light as He is in the light.'" After more to the same purpose he continues, "A walk in the true light always leads to the blood of cleansing. Thus we find that if we walk in the light as He is in the light, God and ourselves have fellowship one with another, and then we realize that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us inwardly from all sin." The adding to Scripture, and the confusion, not to say perversion, that this last sentence gives evidence of, we need not, we think, point out to our readers. All we want them to see is, how all the blessed import of the true doctrine of the epistle of Hebrews is lost to the souls of those who adopt Mr. Smith's interpretations of it. "Boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus," as the blessed privilege of the simplest believer in Jesus, is entirely shut out by such doctrine, and those only who have, according to Mr. Smith's theory, been inwardly and practically cleansed by the blood can avail themselves of that blessed open door.
We think we have given instances enough to show that we do well to warn our readers against the book we have been speaking of.
( Concluded from page. 77.)