DOCTRINE AND VITAL EXPERIENCE

It is not for us, as professed followers of the Prince of peace, to intermingle in the strife and turmoil of political events, nor does it become us, as believers in the sovereignty of God and subjects of a kingdom that cannot be moved, to tremble at every rustling leaf or be flurried by every breath of popular agitation as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind (Isa. 7:2); but it is impossible at any time, and especially at the present period, were it even necessary or desirable, wholly to seclude ourselves from looking out upon the troubled face of affairs, as hermits shut themselves up in their cells and monks in their monasteries, professedly, if not actually, blind and deaf to all sights and sounds, such as are now agitating the length and breadth of the land.…

Times of tribulation in the world, and especially when the judgments of God are abroad in the earth, speak loudly to believing hearts. We see in the Old Testament how the prophets called aloud to the people of God before the Lord sent the sword, or famine, or pestilence, through the land. “The Lord’s voice crieth unto the city; hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.” (Micah 6:9) It is not well, then, for us to be heedless of the coming storm, or wrap up ourselves in vain security. Trouble is at hand; the cloud is in the horizon, at present, perhaps, no bigger than a man’s hand, but who can tell how soon it may cover the sky and burst in such a storm as our shores have never yet witnessed? If, as a nation, we are left to confide in our warlike preparations, to the neglect of the Lord, He may leave us to reap the folly of our own devices; but if His people through the land are enabled to call upon His holy name, and trust in Him and not in an arm of flesh, He will in due time appear for our help and deliverance. But the cloud will most probably get darker and darker, and the danger more and more imminent, before the Lord’s people will cry to Him with all their hearts, and trust in Him as alone able to deliver.

We turn to the Church, the general aspect of which, we must say, is but dark and gloomy too. The perils may not be so obvious—as they are usually most dangerous when least seen—but not less real. If, then, in all friendliness, and yet in all faithfulness, we attempt to unfold what we consider as peculiarly dark and gloomy features of the present time in the churches of truth, for with them lies our main concern, and to them do we chiefly speak, we trust that we shall not be hastily or indignantly met by the retort, “Physician, heal thyself”; “Art thou so free from these evils, or perhaps worse, that thou canst afford to reprove us? Self-constituted reprover of the churches, first cast the beam out of thine own eye, before thou attemptest to take the mote out of our eye.” But may not all or any rebuke, reproof, warning, or admonition, from any quarter, be similarly met? If we, and those in our position, are to wait till we are perfectly free from all fault before we may venture to reprove or admonish others, all reproof or admonition must at once and for ever cease. None may point out an evil, expose an error, rebuke a sin, or reprove a transgression, because the party condemned thereby turns from the reproof to fall upon the reprover. The pulpit must be silent because the pew requires perfection above before it will listen to it below. The grossest disorder may prevail in a church, and neither minister nor consistory be suffered to reprove any disorderly members, or carry out church order and discipline because themselves not free from visible faults and failings; nor dare one private Christian admonish or rebuke another, however entangled in a snare, or acting however inconsistently, because there may be infirmities still cleaving to himself. This would indeed be a most fearful state of things, and would afford the clearest indication possible not only of universal corruption but of universal connivance; and the church would resemble a huge jail where one criminal countenances another till all shame is gone. But, laying aside the unwelcome office of a public reprover, may we not view present matters under the following aspect? If a number of persons are, at one and the same time, suffering under any severe complaint or epidemic illness, one patient may surely say to another, “Brother sufferer, we are both very ill. But is there not some cause for this wide-spread illness?”… May we not be able to discover the cause as the first step to the cure? In this spirit, let us then, plainly point out some evils which seem to us to be undermining the health of the churches.

SOCIAL FRIENDSHIP NOT SPIRITUAL UNION

Much that passes for union in a church is merely a natural feeling of friendship and regard as worshippers in the same place, and as from time to time brought together in a kind of social religious intercourse. Real soul union is one of the rarest things in the world. There is much warm shaking of hands and kind enquiries and friendly looks and expressions, and a few words about the sermon or general soul matters, where the Holy Ghost has neither given spiritual life nor cemented spiritual union. When, then, God means to sift a church in His sieve, and search Jerusalem as with candles, He brings to light errors and heresies hitherto concealed ; and this is the first snap which begins to break to pieces the false bond of union. This cutting asunder the staff “Bands” to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. (Zech. 11:4) And the staff is often broken thus. A man of God sounds the trumpet through the camp with a clear sound, and proclaims boldly and plainly the truth in doctrine, experience, or precept, which his own soul has experimentally tasted, felt and handled. He does not do this in a controversial, angry, bitter spirit, as if for the very purpose of stirring up strife and contention, but as a part of the gospel entrusted to him—the burden of the Lord which lies upon his conscience, which he delivers for the glory of God and the profit of His people. The lovers of truth, who have been taught by the same Spirit, and know and felt the power of the same vital realities in their own souls, at once respond to the clear notes of the trumpet, and cleave to the certain sound, for it fills their heart with peace and joy. Being thus blessed, they cannot but speak warmly of the truth, and of the instrument who has proclamed it so faithfully and feelingly. But what response do they meet? The erroneous and the unsound who have been hugging their errors in secret, are offended by the naked truth, as pointed, they think purposely, against their views, and are stirred up to opposition and anger. And now the strife commences; for those who have been blessed under the truth, and know it for themselves by divine teaching and divine testimony, will not, and must not, give way, and sacrifice truth and conscience, and even the Lord Himself, to maintaining a false peace.

LOOSE ANTINOMIAN SPIRIT

There is a prominent evil which has of late forced itself upon our observation, and that is, the loose, Antinomian spirit so widely prevalent in the Calvinistic churches. In order to observe this, compare the loose, careless spirit and walk of many professors of doctrinal truth in our day with the vital, experimental, practical godliness contended for by Bunyan, Owen, Rutherford, Romaine, etc., or, to appeal to a higher standard, with the precepts of the Lord and His apostles, and then see how deeply, as a body, many churches and congregations professing the letter of the truth are sunk into carnality and disobedience. As evil may be manifold in act and yet one in spirit, so this denial of practical godliness, by deed rather than by word, has assumed two distinct forms:

(1) It appears under a resting upon mere doctrinal truth in a vain confidence of interest therein, without any vital experience of its liberating or sanctifying effect, or any fruits made manifest in the walk and life. Books, periodicals, and sermons are coming continually under our eye, sound in the letter of truth, in which there is not the faintest attempt to enforce vital, practical godliness, either in its experience in the heart, or in its influence on the life. The highest doctrine is set forth, in the most decided, unflinching way; free will, so called, is chased over hill and dale; the Arminians and Pharisees are soundly berated as the most weak and foolish of men; and shouts of victory are pealed forth to the triumph of sovereign grace. But there it begins and ends. A little shallow experience may be named; but of fruit inward or outward, a godly life, a Christian walk, not a syllable. Spiritual readers, judge for yourselves. Is fruit generally insisted upon as the mark of union with Christ? Such fruits as self-denial, crucifixion of the flesh with its affections and lusts; laboring to know and do the will of God; repentance and godly sorrow for sin; mourning and sighing over a backsliding heart; a prayerful, meditative spirit, and that sweet spirituality of mind which is life and peace—are not these vital realities positively ignored, and not even named, much less insisted upon? It would almost seem, from the general neglect of enforcing upon believers practical godliness, as if the elect might do anything they liked, and that we are saved not from sin but in sin; delivered, not from the curse of the law to walk in the obedience of the gospel, but almost to do any abomination in which the carnal mind delights. (Jer. 7:10) Doctrinal preaching in many pulpits has become crystallized into a regular form, so that were the preacher to diverge from the established round to insist upon the vital experience of truth in the heart, and the fruits of the Spirit as manifested by a holy, godly walk in the life and conduct, a suspicion would spread from pew to pew that he was wavering in his creed, and was secretly introducing free will and Arminianism. There are very few men who dare be faithful to their own congregations and break through bands which they have themselves forged. Nor can a man be expected to preach his own condemnation. If a minister is not himself living under the influence of the Spirit and seeking to know and feel the power of divine truth in his own heart and life, he cannot and will not insist upon vital, experimental godliness in others; and if the leaders in the church and congregation are sunk into carnality and death, they will cover up their own misdeeds by resenting all practical preaching as a departure from the truth, and will rather hurl back the arrow than allow it to stick in their conscience.

(2) But there is another phase in this loose, Antinomian spirit which is, a resting in the doctrine of man’s thorough helplessness, and in a knowledge of sin, without any deliverance, and scarcely a desire after deliverance from it. How many old professors are there, in almost every congregation where truth is preached, who never rise, and never have risen. beyond a confession of their sinfulness and helplessness. Were this deeply felt and groaned under, were there, in the midst of all this conviction, a spirit of prayer, a sighing and crying for help and deliverance, there would be good ground of hope that there was life at the bottom, and that the Lord would in due time, appear; but when we know that an enlightened judgment and the convictions of natural conscience, with repeated disappointments in the attempts to break the bonds of sin, are amply sufficient to produce this sense of sinfulness and helplessness, we cannot ascribe that to the blessed Spirit which is but another form of Antinomian carelessness. But how little is this evil seen and faithfully met and exposed. On the contrary, what pillows are sewn under armholes, and poor, dead, carnal professors pitied and patted as dear children of God—weak indeed in faith, but precious souls. Is it not a solemn fact that many preachers of doctrinal truth are well satisfied if their hearers are not Arminians, and set down the reception of the truth into the mind as a sure evidence of divine life? Have such teachers ever seriously thought, or ever deeply felt, that a change of creed is not necessarily a change of heart; that there is a form of godliness whilst denying the power; that a man may be called a Christian and rest in the gospel, and make his boast in God; may know His will in the letter, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the word; may be confident that himself is a guide of the blind, a teacher of babes; may have all the form of knowledge and of truth; (Rom. 2:17–20) and yet, with all this confidence, all this knowlegde, and all this profession, be but a servant of sin and Satan? It will be found in that great day that not only “many who are first shall be last and the last first,” but, more solemn truth still, “Many called, but few chosen.”

Did time and space, and perhaps we may add, did the patience of our readers admit, we might mention other prominent evils, such as the general coldness and deadness—the spirit of strife and division—the disposition to harsh judgment and suspicion, and often to slander and distraction— the want of spirituality of mind and conversation; and the pride, covetousness, carnality, and worldly conformity so widely prevalent.

THE KEMEDY

But we do not wish to dwell wholly on the disease, and omit all mention of the only full, glorious, and sufficient remedy. Thanks be to God, he has still in this land a seed to serve him, still a people whom he has formed for himself and who show forth His praise. He has still His hidden ones, who, through much tribulation, are entering the kingdom; still His sighing, mourning people, who love and long for His appearing. He has not left Himself yet without witnesses, for here and there He has His faithful ambassadors, who shun not, as far as they are acquainted with it, to declare all the counsel of God; and we trust He is raising up others to take their place when they are called out of time into eternity. For the consolation of such, and of all who desire to know Jesus and the power of His resurrection, the Lord has said, “My strength is made perfect in weakness.” May we bear in mind that there is no healing for sin but by His precious blood; no shelter for the guilty and self-condemned but His glorious righteousness! no salvation but by His grace; and no sanctification but by His Spirit.

The coming year will, doubtless, bring its trials and afflications, and those perhaps heavier than the past. The clouds that even now hang over the scene may become thicker and darker, as there is every symptom from present appearances; and, in addition to trials of a more public or general kind, we may each have an increasing share of personal or domestic sorrow. Shall we, then, sink under their weight as men without help or hope? Has not the Lord hitherto supported us under our loads and burdens? Has he not promised that “as our day is so our strength shall be?” that “He will deliver us in six troubles, and in seven no evil shall touch us,” if indeed we love and fear His great name?

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