tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53311567255545085892024-03-12T22:35:48.795-05:00Contra MundumA well-intentioned and good-spirited Calvinist rant about various doctrinal and practical observations.Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.comBlogger788125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-508021060373434592021-04-08T09:08:00.000-05:002021-04-08T09:08:37.291-05:00Comfort in Chaos 7<a href="https://www.friedensreformedchurch.com/sermons?wix-music-track-id=5730599342964736&wix-music-comp-id=comp-ius8cc8d">Comfort in Chaos 7</a>Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-7974694004217318292019-08-18T05:00:00.000-05:002019-08-18T21:53:37.210-05:00Illegitimate Children of the Covenant<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Hosea 2:4, God says, “I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.” The children in question were Israelite youth who had been born into and were growing up in an apostate church. They were church kids who had grown up in a syncretistic church which had tacked the verbiage of the religion of Jehovah onto the pagan social and religious values of the surrounding heathen nations. This made them illegitimate children of the covenant.</span></div>
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If this doesn't describe the last couple of generations of American evangelical kids, I don't know what does. Many, who have grown up in church, have grown up with the verbiage of Christianity tacked onto the same values as the surrounding secular culture.</div>
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Youth ministry is one of the biggest demonstrations of this bastardization of the worship of God. The unspoken assumption of typical "youth group" ministry is that God exists to make you happy in the enjoyment of whatever it is you happen to be “passionate” about. What do the children of unbelievers value? What are they passionate about? Sports, movies, bands and singers, video games. What do church youth groups busy themselves with? Sports, movies, bands and singers, video games. In the final analysis, the focus is on the dreams, desires, and ambitions of the “worshipers.” It is a utilitarian religion that uses God as a stepping-stone to what we really want.</div>
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This is, in many ways, not very different from the focus of much of the grown-up oriented ministries. The ultimate reality is you and your dreams. God exists to help realize these things. That's the heart of Canaanite paganism (all paganism, in fact). You scratch the back of the gods and they'll scratch yours. Paganism is indirect self-worship. It is the “worship” of a deity whose sole purpose is to give you what you want. Dressing this religion up with words like “Jesus,” “sacrifice,” “commitment,” “fellowship,” “disciple,” etc., doesn’t make it any less pagan. It’s still spiritual whoredom.</div>
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If your kneejerk reaction is to object that sports and music aren’t inherently evil, then you’ve missed the point (and most likely, the boat). No one is suggesting that youth groups become hermitages where the youth hand copy ancient manuscripts and wear hair shirts. But when the youth pastor’s skills include the ability to chug Mountain Dew, recite lines from the latest hit HBO show, kill at chubby bunny, and don’t include being “mighty in the Scriptures,” we’re producing the next generation of children of whoredoms. We shouldn’t be terribly surprised when the leave the faith. They never had it in the first place, nor was it ever presented to them.</div>
</span>Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-8325090678808651392019-08-05T08:00:00.000-05:002019-08-07T08:57:35.563-05:00Darwinism and Mass Shootings<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">No one who adheres to
Evolutionism has any moral grounds for decrying mass shootings. In
fact, they have no moral ground at all. This is because their system cannot
account for a morality that is binding upon all. But leaving that
aside for a moment, their system professes that nature – on its own
– weeds out the weak and undesirable. Ironically the ones who
proclaim this loudest typically have a perverse proclivity to want to
help nature weed out the ones they consider weak and undesirable. At
any rate, the whole system of Darwinism works upon the principle of
“survival of the fittest.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Admittedly, Darwinists seldom live
down to their principles. They champion animal rights causes - animals who are the weak
victims of human survival, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">which is stupid. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If human survival endangers other creatures, why should anyone be bothered by this. It is simply a superior species offing a weak species. The fittest is surviving - which is what is supposed to happen. They should be
celebrating the survival of our species as a demonstration of our
survival. Instead, they wish to instill shame (an emotion completely
out of place in an evolutionary world) in those whose good fortune it
is to be the fittest. They actually do live down to their principles
when it comes to their own species, though. Darwinists are,
without fail, the biggest supporters and proponents of the holocaust
of abortion – the wholesale slaughter of the weakest and more
defenseless of our kind. Adults and children murdered in mass
shootings are far less helpless than these poor unborn babies, but
Darwinists mourn the death of the former, but celebrate the murder of
the latter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The truth of the matter
is, Darwinists should celebrate all murder as an example of nature
doing her thing and ridding the earth of the weak. Why should the
fittest feel guilt and shame for surviving when Nature actually
functions on the principle of the survival of the fittest?
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Evolutionists love to
mock Christians as “unscientific,” but it is they who fail to
live according to their own "scientific" principles. If they truly believe in the
survival of the fittest, then they should celebrate every occurrence
of nature having her way and ridding the earth of endangered species,
or weak individuals who weren't clever enough to develop the
necessary survival skills to avoid getting killed in a mass shooting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Upon what grounds can
they actually decry these things as “evil?” Upon what grounds can
they label anything “evil?” If, as they profess to believe,
humans are merely the organic products of a mindless process of
evolution in a universe that exists by sheer chance, upon what can
any appeal to right or wrong be based? Morality, according to their
view, can be nothing more that the arbitrary viewpoint of one person or group of people unfairly enforcing their view upon others. Unless
there is a personal God who created the universe, there is no
possibility for any kind of morality. Any appeal to right or wrong can be nothing but a power play. And in the case of Darwinists, it always is a power grab.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If humans are mere animals, the biological product of unguided evolution, why do Darwinists insist on holding us to standards higher than animals are held to? Who goes into the African savannas to castigate the lions for murdering sickly zebras? Who reproves chimps for flinging feces at each other? Who calls the sharks onto the carpet for the wholesale slaughter of cute seals? No one, that's who! So why are they so insistent upon decrying violence in the human animal? And don't appeal to consciousness, either, you double-standard hypocrite! By your account of Nature, consciousness is nothing but the chance byproduct of unguided evolutionary processes. So why should you insist on binding anyone's imaginary "conscience" with appeals to consciousness?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, if you hold to
evolution, in any form, please spare us your crocodile tears about
the poor victims of mass shootings. Why aren't you rather celebrating
the fact that Nature, red in tooth and claw, has done her dirty work and
that the fittest have survived? Not only should murder be seen as <i>not
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">wrong in your worldview, it
should be celebrated and encouraged because by it the fittest are surviving and the weak are kept from defiling the species with their
undesirable DNA. </span>
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<br />Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-20610939043291895252019-06-18T06:00:00.000-05:002019-06-27T08:13:11.980-05:00Faithful Ministers Proclaim the Whole Counsel of God<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“It is not uncommon to hear certain persons pouring out the bitterest invectives in pulpit and conversation against others, as enemies to morality, as turning the grace of God into licentiousness, as not only neglecting, but even opposing the obligation of his law. In the meanwhile, if you hear the first, you shall rarely meet with anything but what is quite loose and general, a declamation on the beauty of virtue, and the necessity of holiness, or a very imperfect sketch of the offices due from man to man in the common intercourse of social life. And, if you hear the other, it is probable you may hear many of the hard sayings of the gospel, not only the necessity of doing justice, and loving mercy, with the certain damnation of those who hold unjust gain without restitution; but the necessity of loving God above all created comforts, habitually directing every part of our conduct to his glory, and being sincerely and without reserve, submissive to his providence. You may also, probably, hear the duties of every relation descended to with a particularity, and the neglect or breach of them reproved with a severity, that is nowhere else to be found. Now, I desire to know which of these are the greatest friends to morality. So strong is the deception, that I have known several of the hearers of the most boasted moral preachers, who could not avoid betraying, by their discourse, that they considered the exercises of piety, as no part of morality, and very consistently, indeed, with these principles, treated them with the most absolute neglect.</span></div>
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“I have little hope of the conviction, but would gladly, if possible, stop the mouths of gainsayers on this subject. Is it not usual to mark out the friends of salvation by grace, under the title of extraordinary strict, and eminent professors; generally, indeed, with a view to challenge the sincerity of that profession, and load it with obloquy and reproach? But consider, I pray you, with what propriety you give them the name of professors? what is it that they profess? it is, that they are nothing in themselves and deserve nothing at the hand of God but wrath for their sins; that they have no hope of acceptance, but by the free grace of God through the redemption that is in Christ; that they can do nothing of themselves, that is good, but by the grace of God, are what they are; so that there is no room left for them to glory. Is not this their faith and persuasion? Why are they then called professors? You are the professors, who make your boast of the law, and glory in the excellence and perfection of human virtue. Shew us then your faith by your works; justify your profession by your practice; boasting will bring you little credit. But let us see who have the most sober, honest, holy, heavenly lives; these are certainly actuated by the best principles.</div>
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“But, I must, in part, retract what I have said; for, after all, the servants of Christ are indeed professors. They have taken on the holy profession of the gospel: and, in fact, any instance of irregular conduct in them is more observed, more deeply reproached, and gives greater offence than the very same in persons of a different character. When they depart from their duty, and from strictness of conversation, I give them freely up to the censures of their enemies; they have richly deserved them, and therefore they ought to bear them. In the meantime, let me put those in mind, who, in the midst of their triumph, stigmatise them with the name of professors, that they do them, or rather their profession, more honor than they are aware of; for they show that they themselves are sensible that such principles ought to have produced holiness in the conversation. So far as they reproach the sinner, or the detected hypocrite, they do what is right, and it can scarcely be overdone. But, when they take occasion to bring a reproach on the profession itself, their very success is a condemnation of themselves; for that the gross crimes of their own admirers, are less offensive, is just because their profession is less holy. Nothing would give me greater pain, than to understand that my doctrine were to the taste of midnight rioters, swearers, and Sabbath breakers; and, if any such are found among the admirers of moral preaching, their teachers could not do themselves a greater honor, than by renouncing the connexion.”</div>
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John Witherspoon, Ministerial Fidelity in Declaring the Whole Counsel of God. Works: Volume 2</div>
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Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-29518595828733299762019-05-24T06:00:00.000-05:002019-05-24T06:00:21.020-05:00Thoughts on Divine Aseity<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the Biblical view of
the world, the sovereignty of God out-ranks the laws of nature. God
dwells in eternity outside the created universe. In theological terms
this is known as the aseity of God. This is the attribute of God most
likely to be neglected by Christians. That's why we often think of
life as a series of events primarily concerning ourselves and the
events we don't like we label "trials."
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is an inherently
idolatrous view of creation. Though man was the pinnacle of creation,
he was not the purpose. God's own glory was the purpose of creation.
God decrees and overrules; He never reacts. He works all things
according to the counsel of His will.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Neglect of this doctrine
also explains why we instinctively look for "scientific"
explanations for things Scripture clearly depicts as miracles.
Whether it be the parting of the Red Sea or Joshua's long day, when
we insist that there must be an explanation that accords with the
known laws of physics, we are betraying the same idolatrous view of
creation. God created all things and He upholds all things by the
word of His power. Nothing He does requires a naturalistic
explanation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The so-called war between
science and the Bible really boils down to a question of who has the
legitimate claim to infallibility. Our instinctive trust in science
over Scripture exposes our native hatred for God and our worship of
our own intellect. We'll believe in and trust our own fallen,
sin-perverted minds over God's infallible and inerrant Word. We
worship the creature more than the Creator.</span></div>
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<br />Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-25848260754528326522019-05-23T06:00:00.000-05:002019-05-23T07:41:53.002-05:00An Observation about the Inspiration of the Psalms<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Something that strikes me
when I read the Psalms is how often the words of a Psalm don't match
David's actual emotions and behavior in the historical situation in
which the Psalm was written.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For instance, in Psalm 3,
David rejoices over the defeat of his enemy and how God has smitten
his enemy's jaw and broken his teeth. But in the historical setting,
David actually weeps and mourns the death of his enemy, Absalom - to
the point of nearly losing the loyalty of his army.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Psalm 34 is written when
David tried to hide in Gath by pretending to be crazy. Achish throws
him out saying he has enough lunatics in his own kingdom, he doesn't
need to import any from Israel. But when you read that Psalm, you'll
see that the words don't match David's behavior or emotions in the
least.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These are just two
examples out of many that could be marshaled to make this point.
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is a striking
demonstration of the Inspiration of the Psalms. The content was not
dependent on David and his experiences. The experiences of David, as
a type of Christ, served as a substrate for many of the prophecies in
the Psalms, but this is not the same as saying that they explain
them. The explanation – in other words – the actual source of the
words, was not David, but the Holy Spirit.
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is where you can see
the gross error of preachers who try to psychologize Bible
characters and explain Scripture based on their feelings. It has always seemed to me that this method was an implicit denial of Inspiration
because it looks for a naturalistic explanation for the content of
Scripture. David did not provide the content of the Psalms – God
did. These are the very words of God mediated through David and his
experiences.
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">David was a prophet. The
New Testament asserts this more than once. It was not an uncommon
thing for a prophet's personal life to serve as a didactic tool or
illustration of some theological truth. Think of Ezekiel being
forbidden from mourning the death of his wife, or eating his famous
(perhaps, infamous) bread. Think of Hosea marrying a harlot. Think of
Jeremiah digging a hole in the wall of Jerusalem. These things were
ordered and ordained by God in order to make a larger point to His
people. In the same way, David's life was full of experiences which
served as the substrate for the revelation God has given us in The
books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and the Psalms.</span></div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-68426030133381988542018-09-22T21:04:00.000-05:002018-09-22T21:04:19.194-05:00Thomas Peck on Revivals of Religion<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Unauthorized “means”
used in revivals of religion</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">These are used in various degrees of
offensiveness, often with circumstances of irreverence and indecency. In the
time of Finney, the Pelagian revivalist, they were called "new
measures," and later they have gone by the appropriate name of "revival
machinery." They embrace all those measures, over and above the means
which God himself has appointed, which have been invented by "evangelists"
or "revival preachers" for the purpose of awakening careless sinners,
such as "the anxious seat," the "altar," to which
"mourners" are invited in order to be specially prayed for; the
reading of letters (which, perhaps, have been procured by solicitation) from
young converts or from inquirers; "silent prayer" of the
congregation; the calling on certain classes in the congregation to arise and
separate themselves from the rest; the roaming over the assembly of certain
persons for the purpose of making appeals to individuals and of producing
excitement by mere motion; the calling upon certain descriptions of people in
the audience to sing certain hymns, and the requiring of the rest not to sing;
the demand for unusual postures in parts of the worship, as, for example,
kneeling in singing, etc., etc.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is one feature which is common to all
"revival machinery," and this is, to lead awakened sinners to commit
themselves in order to get them over that indecision and fear of man which have
kept them back, and to render it impossible for them to return with
consistency. The measures used for bringing about this commitment are various.
Some of them were described in the last paragraph. To these may be added the
exacting of a promise "to give themselves to religion at once." These
measures, as has been suggested, while they are intended to commit the actors,
are intended also to awaken the attention of others, and to serve as means of
general impressions. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now some of the objections to this machinery
are the following: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">(a), They lead to a reliance on other means
than truth and, prayer, and on other power than that of God. Sinners are very
apt to place dependence on this act of commitment. "I have taken one step,
and now I hope God will do something for me," "is language which,"
Dr. Griffin says, "I have heard more than once." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">(b), These measures divert the attention of the
sinner from the truth of God as impressed upon his own conscience. Dr. Ichabod
Spencer remarks in his Pastor's Sketches (we quote from memory) that he never
knew anybody to be converted by a funeral sermon, and he accounts for it by the
fact that those who are really afflicted by the death are too much absorbed in
the contemplation of their loss to attend to the truth which is set forth by
the preacher. So in this case, the sinner is not allowed to meditate upon the
truth he has just heard, but his attention is called away by a proposition to
change his seat. So, also, the congregation is invited to cease meditating.
upon the truth and to watch the motions of some who are walking up and down the
aisles, or to be on the tip-toe of expectation to see who are going to rise and
go forward. What has truth to do with these tactics? They are evidently
designed to work on the senses, the imagination and the passions; they are
merely for effect. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">(c), Hence, when often repeated they become
mere forms, like those of Rome. Rome ascribes a magical or a mechanical effect
to her sacramental forms; a like effect is virtually ascribed to this revival
machinery. In both cases the sinner is invited to submit himself to the
manipulations of the minister of religion with the hope of "getting
through," and it is no breach of charity to add that in both cases the
Chris tians who are made are man-made and machine-made. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is another point of resemblance. In the
case neither of the priest nor of the "revivalist" is there any
necessity for spiritual gifts, for a spiritual frame of mind, or for piety, or
anything, indeed, but the power of physical endurance — and brass. We do not
deny that some of these measures have been used by good men, and with an
earnest desire to do good; but there is nothing in their own nature which forbids
their being used with effect by men who have not one spark of genuine piety.
Accordingly, we find that they have been successfully used by wicked men and
hypocrites. The Roman priest performs the ceremonies of the ritual, and the
business is done. The character of the priest has nothing to do with the
efficiency of the ritual. Whether he be a Hophni or a Zadok makes no difference
in the result. The recipient or patient "gets through" alike in
either case. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">(d), This suggests another thought, that these
measures most naturally affiliate with a Pelagian or semi-Pelagian system of
doctrine. The mummeries of Rome have an intimate connection with the
semi-Pelagian position of that body. It is not a question of vital importance
which of the two was first in the order of time, the abuse in practice or the
error in doctrine. If both belong to the same organism it matters not whether
the head or the foot came in first. It is enough for us to know that the head
and the foot are members of the same body, and that if the one be admitted the
other will be apt to follow in due time. No such ordinance as that which the
papists call baptism could have a prominent place in a body which was not at
least semi-Pelagian in doctrine. And so it may be truly said that the machinery
in question is thoroughly semi-Pelagian in its affinities. It was introduced in
modern times by churches of that doctrinal tendency ; it was worked con amore
by the Pelagianizing party in the Presbyterian Church in the years preceding
the schism of 1837, and if not condemned again and put down it will bring on
another semi-Pelagian schism or something worse. It is altogether out of
harmony with the doctrine of our church concerning the agency of the Holy Ghost
in regeneration. One or the other must, in the long run, be given up. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The connection here asserted between
Pelagianism and the use of revival machinery is fully vindicated by the history
of the famous revivalist, Charles G. Finney. In a review of his sermons in the
Princeton Review for 1835 (republished in the Princeton Theological Essays,
second series, pp. 77 ff.), it was shown that he denied the doctrines of total
depravity, of regeneration (in the Calvinistic sense), of the direct agency of
the Holy Ghost upon the soul, etc.; that he held to the notion of the "self
-determining power of the will," and to the related doctrine of sin and
holiness as consisting in volitions only, etc., etc. He asserted the perfect,
unqualified ability of the sinner to regenerate himself. (Pp. 103 ff.) The
great aim and effort of the preacher is to persuade the sinner to convict
himself. Hence the use of extra measures. He says (page 83), "God has
found it necessary to take advantage of the excitability there is in mankind to
produce powerful excitements among them before he can lead them to obey."
"There is a state of things in which it is impossible for God or man to
promote religion but by painful excitement." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">(e), The use of this machinery brings a
multitude of un converted people into the church who would not otherwise come
into it. The appeal is made to mere natural sensibilities and sympathies;
people, especially the young, honestly mistake this natural feeling and mere
impressions on the imagination for religious conviction, or for the sentiments
which result from religious convictions, and without time for testing their
sentiments and for manifesting their real nature and origin, they are hurried
into the church, and assume the irrevocable vow. A few months are sufficient to
reveal the fact of self-deception to a multitude of these "converts";
but they are in the church; they commit, the greater part of them, no
"offence" to warrant their excommunication; and they remain in the
church, while they are of the world. Hence another fruitful source of apostasy
from the faith. By the terms of the supposition, such church members have no
spiritual relish for the distinctive truths of the gospel; in particular, there
is nothing in them which says "amen" to the teachings of God's word
concerning the desperate power and malignity of sin and concerning the almighty
and sovereign power of the Holy Ghost. The real problem of sin has never been
anxiously revolved by them, and they are, consequently unable to appreciate the
Bible soteriology, whether of the Son or of the Spirit. Now, as a spiritual
experience of the power and reality of the truth is the only security for its
preservation; as it is the presence of the invisible church within the body of
the church visible which determines and perpetuates the faith, it is plain that
the church in which the greater part is unconverted is in danger of losing its
faith. The world in the church! this is the great peril. This is doing more to
help the cause of Rome and of infidelity than all the crafty books that are
circulated in their interest. This is the peril against which the church has
been warned from the very beginning; and it is a peril into which the use of
revival machinery is aiding to plunge us. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">(f), There is an argument ad hominem which may
be ad dressed to Presbyterians in our own churches, and which ought to be
conclusive with them against these "measures," even if they are not
convinced that the measures are in themselves wrong, and that is, that they are
a clear addition to the covenant which has been made with one another by the
congregations constituting "the Presbyterian Church in the United
States." This covenant is contained in our standards. We have agreed as to
what "the ordinances in a particular church" shall be (Form of
Government, Chapter II., Section IV., Article V.), and in the Directory for
Worship the features of the worship to be observed in all our congregations are
described. No congregation has the right to introduce any other form of
worship, and at the same time to remain a constituent part of that church to
which these standards belong. It is not improbable that many machinery- using
churches in our communion would be scandalized by the introduction into our
non-machinery-using churches of a liturgy. But why should they? The covenant is
violated, it is true; but the machinery has also broken it. We do not hesitate
to say that, if the covenant has to be broken in one way or the other, we
should consider the breach by liturgy much the less offensive and dangerous of
the two. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">(g), This part of the discussion may be
appropriately closed by a testimony or two of the General Assembly. There are
many testimonies of this sort, as may be seen by consulting Baird's Digest,
Book III, Part 4, which bears the title, "Revivals." We shall content
ourselves with a quotation or summary from the pastoral letter of the Assembly
of 1832, of which the venerable James Hoge was Moderator: "1. In a time of
the revival of religion let it be remembered, that while all proper means are
to be used to deepen and cherish serious impressions and to awaken and alarm
the sinfully secure, an undue excitement should be carefully avoided. If
instead of distinguishing between deep and genuine and salutary convictions of
sin, and the mere effusions of animal passions and nervous sensibility, the
latter are encouraged and stimulated, as leading to a desirable issue, the most
baneful effects are likely to ensue, effects multiform in appearance and
character, but in all, deplorable and pernicious. Therefore, 2. We advise, that
with tender ness, but yet with unshaken firmness, all bodily agitations and
noisy outcries, especially in worshipping assemblies, be discouraged, and as
far as possible prevented. 3. Guard against every species of indecorum in
social worship, such, particularly, as is manifestly apparent when several
individuals pray or exhort or converse at the same time… 6. Let not the settled
order of churches be disturbed. In the absence of pastors or other authorized
ministers of the gospel, let the elders or deacons or other Christians of
standing and experience, rather than young converts, take the lead in the
social exercises of religion. 7. Listen to no self-sent or irregular preachers,
whatever may be their pretensions to knowledge, piety and zeal. 8. Let no
doctrine inconsistent with the Scriptures as explained and summarily taught in
the doctrinal standards of our church be promulgated and favored in any of our
churches. 9. Let not apparent converts be hurried into the churches, and
brought to the Lord's table, without a careful examination; nor, ordinarily,
without a suitable period of probation, by which the reality of their religion
may be better judged of than it can be by any sudden indications, however
plausible. Nothing is more directly calculated to injure the cause of God and
the credit of our holy religion than urging or permitting individuals to make a
public profession of religion as soon as they have experienced some serious
impressions, and natter themselves that they have been renewed in the temper of
their mind. All experience shows that such persons often and speedily dis honor
the profession, and not unfrequently become open apostates, and sometimes
avowed infidels. 10. Finally, let no measures for the promotion of religious
revivals be adopted which are not sanctioned by some example or precept, or
fair and sober inference, drawn from the word of God. ... If such a warrant can
be fairly made out, let the measure be adopted; but otherwise, let it be
promptly abandoned; for it must be remembered that the Bible contains not only
a safe but a complete rule of duty." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The opinions of the most eminent ministers of
the past generation, as given in the appendix to Sprague's Lectures on Revivals,
are in the same line with these testimonies of the Assembly of 1832; but we
must content ourselves with a simple reference to that work. Under these
testimonies and opinions we shelter ourselves from those, if there be any, of
our readers who are disposed to charge us, on the ground of the views we have
expressed, with being hostile to revivals and to vital piety. The same charge
was brought against our fathers, men with whom we would not venture to com pare
ourselves for a single moment as to knowledge or piety. A few words may be
added upon the danger to the peace and character of the church from so-called "evangelists."
Our history is instructive upon this subject. The schism of 1741 was
occasioned, in great part, by the excesses and extravagances of itinerating
ministers who, instead of preaching in destitute neighborhoods, invaded the
pastoral charges of settled ministers, often without their consent, or with a
consent extorted by the clamors of the people. The greatest contempt was shown
for these settled ministers, no matter how long or how faithfully they had
labored, if they had not been what the evangelists were pleased to consider
"successful." They were treated as "blind leaders of the
blind," cold-hearted, unconverted; and their people were not only
encouraged, but exhorted, to forsake their ministrations for those of
warm-hearted, zealous, inspired evangelists. These evangelists were generally
good men; among them such as Whitefield and the Tennents; but this fact made
the results all the more deplorable. (See Hodge's History of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States, Part II., Chapters IV. and V.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Another great evil which resulted from the same
causes was the lowering or attempt to lower the standard of the education of
the ministry, and the encouragement of the laity to usurp the functions of the
ministry. These two things go hand in hand, as we see, now in our own modern
times. If preaching is nothing but exhorting sinners to flee from the wrath to
come, why may not an uneducated, zealous layman do it as well as a trained and
ordained minister? Thus the order of Christ's house was broken down, and but
for the faithful testimony and labors of the noble men who were stigmatized as
"graceless and unconverted" (see the extraordinary sermon of Gilbert
Tennent, in Hodge's History of the Presbyterian Church, Part II., pp. 152 ff),
the Presbyterian Church would have been ruined. Let it be added, with
thanksgiving to God, that some of these good but erring men afterwards con
fessed their error and deplored their uncharitable judgments and speeches.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thomas Peck, Revivals of Religion,
Miscellanies: Volume 1, Pages 215-224</span></div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-12975536081567221942018-06-01T06:00:00.000-05:002018-06-01T06:00:16.968-05:00Spurious Religious Excitements (Part 2)<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by Robert L. Dabney</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These
plain facts and principles condemn nearly every feature of the modern
new measure “revival.” The preaching and other religious
instructions are shaped with a main view to excite the carnal
emotions and the instinctive sympathies, while no due care is taken
to present saving, didactic truth to the understanding thus
temporarily stimulated. As soon as some persons, professed
Christians, or awakened 'mourners,' are infected with any lively
passion, let it be however carnal and fleeting, a spectacular display
is made of it, with confident laudations of it as unquestionably
precious and saving, with the design of exciting the remainder of the
crowd with the sympathetic contagion. Every adjunct of fiery
declamation, animated singing, groans, tears, exclamations, noisy
prayers, is added so as to shake the nerves and add the tumult of a
hysterical animal excitement to the sympathetic wave. Every youth or
impressible girl who is seen to tremble, or grow pale, or shed tears,
is assured that he or she is under the workings of the Holy Spirit,
and is driven by threats of vexing that awful and essential Agent of
salvation to join the spectacular show, and add himself to the
exciting pantomime. Meanwhile, most probably their minds are blank of
every intelligent or conscientious view of the truth; they had been
tittering or whispering a little while before, during the pretended
didactic part of the exercises; they could give no intelligent
account now of their own sudden excitement, and, in fact, it is no
more akin to any spiritual, rational, or sanctifying cause, than the
quiver of the nostrils of a horse at the sound of the bugle and the
fox-hounds. But they join the mourners, and the manipulation
proceeds. Of course, the sympathetic wave, called religious, reaches
them more and more. As I have shown, it is the very nature of
sympathy to assume the character of the emotion with which we
sympathize. Thus this purely natural and instinctive sensibility
takes on the form of religious feeling, because it is sympathy with
religious feeling in others. The subject calls it by religious
names—awakening, conviction, repentance—while in reality it is
only related to them as a man's shadow is to the living man.
Meantime, the preachers talk to them as though the feelings were
certainly genuine and spiritual. With this sympathetic current there
may mingle sundry deep original feelings about the soul, to which, we
have seen, the dead, carnal heart is fully competent by itself. These
are fear, remorse, shame, desire of applause, craving for future,
selfish, welfare, spiritual pride. Here we have the elements of every
spurious grace. The “sorrow of the world that worketh death” is
mistaken for saving repentance. By a natural law of the feelings,
relaxation must follow high tension—the calm must succeed the
storm. This quiet is confounded with “peace in believing." The
selfish prospect of security produces great elation. This is supposed
to be spiritual joy. When the soul is removed from the stimuli of the
revival appliances, it of course sinks into the most painful vacuity,
on which supervene restlessness and doubt. So, most naturally, it
craves to renew the illusions, and has, for a time, a certain longing
for and pleasure in the scenes, the measures, and the agents of its
pleasing intoxication. These are mistaken for love for God's house,
worship and people. Then the befooled soul goes on until it is
betrayed into an erroneous profession of religion, and a dead church
membership. He is now in the position in which the great enemy of
souls would most desire to have him, and where his salvation is more
difficult and improbable than anywhere else.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
most fearful part of these transactions is the unscriptural rashness
of the professed guides of souls. They not only permit and encourage
these perilous confusions of thought, but pass judgment on the
exercises of their supposed converts with a haste and confidence
which angels would shudder to indulge. Here, for instance, is a
hurried, ignorant young person, no real pains having been taken to
instruct his understanding in the nature of sin and redemption, or to
test his apprehension of gospel truths. In his tempestuous excitement
of fear and sympathy, he is told that he is unquestionably under the
influence of God's Spirit. When he has been coaxed, or flattered, or
wearied into some random declaration that he thinks he loves his
Saviour, joyful proclamation is made that here is another soul born
to God, and the brethren are called on to rejoice over him. But no
time has been allowed this supposed convert for self-examination; no
care to discriminate between spiritual and carnal affections, or for
the subsidence of the froth of animal and sympathetic excitements; no
delay is allowed to see the fruits of holy living, the only test
which Christ allows as sufficient for other than the omniscient
judgment. Thus, over-zealous and heedless men, ignorant of the first
principles of psychology, and unconscious of the ruinous effects they
may be producing, sport with the very heart-strings of the spiritual
life, and that in the most critical moments. It were a less criminal
madness for a surgeon's raw apprentice to try experiments with his
master's keen bistoury on the patient's jugular vein.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These
abuses are the less excusable in any minister, because the Scriptures
which he holds in his hands tell him plainly enough without the
lights of philosophy, the wrongness of all these practices. No
inspired apostle ever dared to pass a verdict upon the genuineness of
a case of religious excitement with the rashness seen on these
occasions. Christ has forewarned us that converts can only be known
correctly by their fruits. Paul has sternly enjoined every workman
upon the visible church, whose foundation is Christ, to “take heed
how he buildeth thereupon.” He has told us that the materials
placed by us upon this structure may be genuine converts, as
permanent as gold, silver, and costly stones; or worthless and
pretended converts, comparable to 'wood, hay and stubble;' that our
work is to be all tried by the fire of God's judgments, in which our
perishable additions will be burned up; and if we are ourselves
saved, it will be as though we were saved by fire. The terrible
results of self-deception and the deceitfulness of the heart are
dwelt upon, and men are urged to self-examination.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
ulterior evils of these rash measures are immense. A standard and
type of religious experience are propagated by them in America, as
utterly unscriptural and false as those prevalent in Popish lands. So
long as the subjects are susceptible of the sympathetic passion, they
are taught to consider themselves in a high and certain state of
grace. All just and scriptural marks of a gracious state are
overlooked and even despised. Is their conduct immoral, their temper
bitter and unchristian, their minds utterly dark as to distinctive
gospel truths? This makes no difference; they are still excited and
"happified' in meetings; they sing and shout, and sway to and
fro with religious feelings. Thus these worthless, sympathetic
passions are trusted in as the sure signatures of the Spirit's work. </span></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of
the man who passes through this process of false conversion, our
Saviour's declaration is eminently true: "The last state of that
man is worse than the first." The cases are not few which
backslide early, and are again "converted," until the
process has been repeated several times. These men are usually found
most utterly hardened and profane, and hopelessly impervious to
divine truth. Their souls are utterly seared by spurious fires of
feeling. The state of those who remain undeceived, and in the
communion of the church, is almost as hopeless. "Having a name
to live, they are dead." Their misconception as to their own
state is armor of proof against warning.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
results of these "revivals" are usually announced at once,
with overweening confidence, as works of God's Spirit. A minister
reports to his church paper that he has just shared in a glorious
work at a given place, in which the Holy Ghost was present with
power, and "forty souls were born into the kingdom." Now,
the man of common sense will remember how confidently this same
revivalist made similar reports last year, the year before, and
perhaps many years previously. He was each time equally confident
that it was the Spirit's work. But this man must know that in each
previous case, time has already given stubborn refutation to his
verdict upon the work. Four-fifths of those who, he was certain, were
converted by God, have already gone back to the world, and declare
that they were never converted at all. The means he has just used in
his last revival are precisely the same used in his previous ones.
The false fruits wore at first just the aspect which his last
converts now wear. Is it not altogether probable that they are really
of the same unstable character? But this minister declares positively
that these are God's works. Now, the cool, critical world looks on
and observes these hard facts. It asks, What sort of people are these
special guardians and expounders of Christianity? Are they romantic
fools, who cannot be taught by clear experience, or are they
conscious and intentional liars? The world is quite charitable, and
probably adopts the former solution. And this solution, that the
representatives of Christianity are men hopelessly and childishly
overweening in their delusions, carries this corollary for the most
of worldly men who adopt it: That Christianity itself is an unhealthy
fanaticism, since it makes its chosen teachers such fanatics,
unteachable by solid facts. Thus, the Christian ministry, who ought
to be a class venerable in the eyes of men, are made contemptible.
Civility restrains the expression of this estimate, but it none the
less degrades the ministry in the eyes of intelligent men of the
world, as a class who are excused from the charge of conscious
imposture only on the theory of their being incurably silly and
fanatical.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In
the denominations which most practice the so-called "revival
measures," abundance of facts obtrude themselves which are
conclusive enough to open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the
deaf. Instances may be found, where annual additions have been
reported, such that, if the sums were taken, and only subjected to a
fair deduction for deaths and removals, these churches should number
hundreds, or even a thousand members, and should be in a splendid
state of prosperity. But the same church-reports still set these
churches down as containing fifty or seventy members. Others, which
have been boasting these magnificent processes, are moribund, and
some have been "revived" to death.</span></span></div>
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</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But
the men who work this machinery, notwithstanding the fatal
condemnation of the facts, are not blind! What are the causes of
their perseverance in methods so worthless? One cause is, doubtless,
an honest, but ignorant zeal. In the bustle and heat of this zeal,
they overlook the unpleasant facts, and still go on, "supposing
that they verily do God service." Another subtile and
far-reaching cause is an erroneous, synergistic theology. The man who
believes in the efficient cooperation of the sinner's will with the
divine will, in the initial quickening of his soul, will, of course,
seek to stimulate that human will to the saving acts by all the same
expedients by which men seek to educe in their fellows carnal acts of
will. Why not? Why should not the evangelist practice to evoke that
act cf will from the man on which he believes the saving action of
the Almighty pivots, by the same kind of arts the recruiting sergeant
practices —the martial song, the thrilling fife and palpitating
drum, the spectacular display of previous recruits in their shining
new uniforms—until the young yeoman has "committed"
himself by taking the "queen's shilling"? That volition
settles it that the queen is to make him her soldier. It must be the
youth's decision, but, when once made for a moment, it decides his
state. Thus a synergistic theology fosters these "revival
measures," as they, in turn, incline towards a synergistic
creed. Doubtless, many ministers are unconsciously swayed by the
natural love of excitement. This is the same instinct which leads
school-boys and clowns to run to witness a dog-fight, Spaniards to
the cockfight and the bull-fight, sporting men to the pugilist's
ring, and theatre-goers to the comedy. This natural instinct prompts
many an evangelist, without his being distinctly aware of it, to
prefer the stirring scenes of the spurious revival to the sober,
quiet, laborious work of religious teaching. But it is obvious that
this motive is as unworthy as it is natural.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another
motive which prompts men to persevere in these demonstrably futile
methods is the desire to count large and immediate results. To this
they are spurred by inconsiderate, but honest zeal, and by the
partisan rivalries of their denominations. These unworthy motives
they sanctify to themselves, and thus conceal from their own
consciences the real complexion of them. No word is needed to show
how unwise and unsuitable they are to the Christian minister. Here
should be pointed out the intrinsic weakness of the current system of
employing travelling revivalists in settled churches. No matter how
orthodox the man may be, the very nature of his task lays a certain
urgency and stress upon him, to show, somehow, immediate results
before the close of his meeting. If he does not, the very ground of
his vocation as a "revivalist" is gone. He has been sent
for to do this one thing, to gratify the hopes, zeal and pride of the
good people by, at least, a show of immediate fruits. If he fails in
this, he will not be sent for. This is too strong a temptation for
any mere mortal to endure without yielding. But the prime fact which
decides all true results of gospel means is, that the Holy Ghost
alone is the Agent of effectual calling; and He is sovereign. His
new-creating breath "bloweth where it listeth." His command
to the sower of the word may be expressed in Solomon's words: "In
the morning sow thy seed; and in the evening hold not thy hand; for
thou knowest not which shall prosper, whether this or that." The
best minister on earth may be appointed by God's secret purpose to
the sad mission given to Isaiah, to Jeremiah, and even to their Lord
during his earthly course, "to stretch forth their hands all the
day long to a disobedient and gainsaying people." Hence, this
evangelist has put himself under an almost fatal temptation to resort
to some illicit expedients which will produce, in appearance,
immediate results. How few, even of the orthodox, escape that
temptation!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An
old and shrewd practitioner of these human means of religious
excitements, was once asked by a man of the world, "if it were
possible he could be blind to the futility of most of the pretended
conversions?" The answer was: "Of course not; we are not
fools." "Why then," said the man, "do you employ
these measures?" The preacher answered: "Because a few are
truly converted, and make stable, useful Christians; and the rest
when they find out the shallowness of their experiences, are simply
where they were before." The worldly-wise preacher's statement
involved two capital errors. It assumed that the "revival
measures " were the effective instruments of the conversion of
the genuine few; and that without these expedients they would have
remained out of Christ. This is utterly false. The solid conversion
of those souls took place not by cause of, but in spite of, the human
expedients. The work was the result of sober Christian example, and
previous didactic teaching in gospel truths, and had there been no
"revival measures" these souls would have come out for
Christ, perhaps a little later, but more intelligently and
decisively. The mistake as to the second class, "the stony
ground believers," is far more tragical. They are not left where
they were before; "the last state of these men is worse than the
first." I will not repeat the explanation of the depraving
influences sure to be exerted upon the heart; but I will add one
still more disastrous result. These deceptive processes usually end
in making the subjects infidels. Some who keep their names on the
communion rolls are secret infidels; nearly all who withdraw their
names are open infidels, unless they are too unthinking and ignorant
to reflect and draw inferences. First, every young person who has a
spark of self-respect is mortified at being thrust into a false
position, especially on so high and solemn a subject. Pride is
wounded. He feels that he has been imposed on, and resents it. This
wounded pride, unwilling to take the blame on itself, directs its
anger against the agents of the mortifying cheat. But to despise the
representatives of Christianity is practically very near to despising
Christianity. The most earnest and clear-minded of these temporary
converts has now what appears to him, with a terrible plausibility,
the experimental argument to prove that evangelical religion is a
deception. He says he knows he was honest and sincere in the novel
exercises to which he was subjected, and in a sense he says truly.
The religious teachers themselves assured him, in the name of God,
that they were genuine works of grace. Did they not formally publish
in the religious journals that it was the Holy Spirit's work? If
these appointed teachers do not know, who can? Yet now this
backslider says himself, "I have the stubborn proof of a long
and sad experience, a prayerless and godless life, that there never
was any real spiritual change in me." Who can be more earnest
than he was? It is, then, the logical conclusion, that all supposed
cases of regeneration are deceptive. "Many," he says, "have
had the honesty like myself to come out of the church candidly,
shoulder the mortification of their mistake, and avow the truth."
Those who remain "professors" are to be accounted for in
two ways. The larger part know in their hearts just as well as we do,
that their exercises were always a cheat, but they prefer to live a
lie, rather than make the humiliating avowal, and for these we feel
only contempt. The minority remain honestly self-deceived by reason
of impressible and enthusiastic temperaments. For these, if they are
social and moral, and do not cant, we can feel most kindly, and
respect their amiable delusion. It would be unkind to distrust it.
This reasoning having led them to discredit entirely the work of the
Holy Ghost, leads next to the denial of his personality. The
backslider sinks to the ranks of a gross Socinian, or becomes a Deist
or an Agnostic. Let the history of our virtual infidels be examined
and their early religious life traced; here will be found the source
and cause of their error. "Their name is Legion." He who
inquires of the openly ungodly adults of our land, will be astounded
to find how large a majority of them were once in the church. They
conceal, as well as they can, what they regard as the "disgraceful
episode" in their history. Their attitude is that of silent, but
cold and impregnable skepticism, based, as they think, on the
argument of actual experience. In fact, spurious revivals we honestly
regard as the chief bane of our Protestantism. We believe that they
are the chief cause, under the prime source, original sin, which has
deteriorated the average standard of holy living, principles, and
morality, and the church discipline of our religion, until it has
nearly lost its practical power over the public conscience. Striking
the average of the whole nominal membership of the Protestant
churches, the outside world does not credit us for any higher
standard than we are in the habit of ascribing to the Synagogue, and
to American Popery. How far is the world wrong in its estimate ? That
denomination which shall sternly use its ecclesiastical authority,
under Christ's law, to inhibit these human methods and to compel its
teachers back to the scriptural and only real means, will earn the
credit of being the defender of an endangered gospel.</span></span></div>
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</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One
corollary from this discussion is: How perilous is it to entrust the
care of souls to an ignorant zeal! None but an educated ministry can
be expected, humanly speaking, to resist the seductions of the
"revival measures," or to guard themselves from the
plausible blunders we have analyzed above. And the church which
entrusts the care of souls to lay-evangelists, self-appointed and
irresponsible to the ecclesiastical government appointed by Christ,
betrays its charge and duty.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No
man is fit for the care of souls, except he is deeply imbued with
scriptural piety and grace. He must have a faith firm as a rock, and
humble as strong, with profound submission to the divine will, which
will calm him amidst all delays and all discouragements that God will
bless his own word in his own chosen time. He must have that
self-abnegation which will make him willing to bear the evil repute
of an unfruitful ministry, if the Lord so ordains, and unblenchingly
refuse to resort to any unauthorized means to escape this cross. He
must have the moral courage to withstand that demand of
ill-considered zeal in his brethren, parallel to the ardor purus
civium juvenium in politics. He must have the unflagging diligence
and love for souls which will make him persevere in preaching the
gospel publicly, and from house to house, under the delay of fruit.
Nothing can give these except large measures of grace and prayer.</span></span></div>
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Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-13855633558267845042018-05-29T16:00:00.000-05:002018-05-30T07:59:36.118-05:00Spurious Religious Excitement (Part 1)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This post (and the following) is an article written by Robert L. Dabney on the subject of false religious excitement as it relates to the "Revival movement" of the 19th Century. Although today's version of such movements are not as wide-spread, the attendant evils are. Because of the article's length, I have split in into two parts relatively equal in length.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Robert L. Dabney</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It
is believed all thoughtful Christians are alive to the fact that
religious excitements, which consist of temporary movements of the
emotions devoid of any saving operation of the Truth on the reason
and conscience, are equally frequent and mischievous in America. This
judgment not seldom expresses itself in very queer and inaccurate
forms. Thus: good brethren write to the religious journals grateful
accounts of a work of grace in their charges, and tell the editors
that "they are happy to say, the work has been purely rational
and quiet, and attended by not the slightest excitement." They
forget that the efficacious (not possibly, tempestuous) movement of
the feelings is just as essential a part of a true religious
experience, as the illumination of the intellect by divine truth; for
indeed, there is no such thing as the implantation of practical
principle, or the right decisions of the will, without feeling. In
estimating a work of divine grace as genuine, we should rather ask
ourselves whether the right feelings are excited, and excited by
divine cause. If so, we need not fear the most intense excitement.
This misconception is parallel to the one uttered by public speakers,
when they assure their hearers that, designing to show them the
respect due to rational beings, and to use the honesty suitable to
true patriots, "they shall make no appeal to their feelings, but
address themselves only to their understandings." This is
virtually impossible. On all practical subjects, truth is only
influential as it stimulates some practical feeling. There is no
logical appeal of the rhetorical nature which does not include and
appeal to feeling. Does the orator proclaim, for instance, that
waiving all appeals to passion, he will only address his hearers'
intellects to prove what is for their interest, or "for their honor,"
or "for the good of their country"? What is he really doing
except appealing to the emotions of desire for wealth, or love of
applause, or patriotism?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In
the Southern, Presbyterian Review, 1884, I presented a discussion on
the psychology of the feelings. I wish to recall a few of the
fundamental positions there established. The function of feeling is
as essential to the human spirit, and as ever present, as the
function of cognition. The two are ever combined, as the heat-rays
and the light-rays are intermingled in the sunbeams. But the
consciousness intuitively recognizes the difference of the two
functions, so that it is superfluous to define them. "Feeling is
the temperature of thought." The same kind of feeling may differ
in degree of intensity, as the heat-ray in the brilliant winter
sunbeam differs from that in the fiery glare of the "dog days";
but the thermometer shows there is still caloric in the most wintry
sunbeam, and even in the block of crystal ice. So a human spirit is
never devoid of some degree of that feeling which the truth then
engaging the intelligence tends to excite. No object is or can be
inducement to volition unless it be apprehended by the soul as being
both in the category of the true and of the good. But, that function
of soul by which the object is taken as a good, is desire, an act of
feeling. Whence it follows, that an element of feeling is as
essential to every rational volition as an act of cognition. The
truly different sorts of feelings were distinguished and classified.
But this all important division of them was seen to be into the
passions, and the active feelings; between those impressions upon the
sensibility of the soul, caused from without, and in receiving which
the soul is itself passive, and its spontaneity has no
self-determining power (as pain, panic, sympathy) on the one hand,
and on the other hand those subjective feelings which, while
occasioned from without, are self-determined by the spontaneity from
within and in which the soul is essentially active, (as desire,
benevolence, ambition, etc.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It
may be asked here: Does the writer intend to rest the authority of
his distinction between genuine and spurious religious experiences on
a human psychology? By no means. The Scriptures are the only sure
source of this discrimination. Its declarations, such as that
sanctification is only by revealed truth, its anthropology, its
doctrine of redemption, and its examples of saving conversions, give
the faithful student full guidance as to the conduct of gospel work,
and the separation of the stony-ground hearers from the true. But it
is claimed that the psychology outlined above is the psychology of
the Bible. It is that theory of man's powers everywhere assumed and
postulated in Scripture. It gives that theory of human action on
which all the instances, the narratives, and the precepts of
Scripture ground themselves. Hence these mental laws and facts are of
use, not as the mistress, but as the hand-maid of Scripture, to
explain and illustrate those cautions which the Bible gives us. </span></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One
inference is simple and clear. The excitement of mere sensibilities,
however strong or frequent, can offer no evidence whatever of a
sanctified state. The soul is passive in them; their efficient cause
is objective. An instinctive susceptibility in the soul provides the
only condition requisite for their rise when the outward cause is
applied. Hence the excitement of these sensibilities is no more
evidence of change or rectification in the free agency, than the
shivering of the winter wayfarer's limbs when wet by the storms. Now
the doctrine of Scripture is that man's spontaneity is, in his
natural state, wholly disinclined and made opposite (yet freely) to
godliness, so that he has no ability of will for any spiritual act
pertaining to salvation. But it is promised that, in regeneration,
God's people shall be willing in the day of his power. He so
enlightens their minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renews their
wills, that they are both persuaded and enabled to embrace Jesus
Christ. The very spontaneity is revolutionized. Now the stimulation
of merely passive sensibilities, in which the will has no causal
part, can never be evidence of that saving change. No evidence of it
appears, until the subjective desires and the will exhibit their
change to the new direction. That fear, that selfish joy, that hope,
that sympathy are excited, proves nothing. But when the soul freely
exercises a "hungering and thirsting after righteousness,"
hatred of sin, desire of God's favor, love of his truth, zeal for his
honor, this evinces the sanctifying revolution.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Shall
we conclude then that the excitement of the passive sensibilities by
the pastor is wholly useless? This class of feelings presents the
occasion (not the cause) for the rise of the subjective and
spontaneous emotions. This is all. It is this connection which so
often misleads the mental analyst into a confusion of the two classes
of feelings. The efficient cause may be restrained from acting by the
absence of the necessary occasion; this is true. But it is equally
true, that the occasion, in the absence of the efficient cause, is
powerless to leaving any effect. If the pastor aims to move the
sensibilities merely for the purpose of gaining the attention of the
soul to saving truth, and presents that truth faithfully the moment
his impression is made, he does well. If he makes these sensibilities
an end, instead of a means, he is mischievously abusing his people's
souls.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">People
are ever prone to think that they are feeling religiously because
they have feelings round about religion. Their sensibilities have
been aroused in connection with death and eternity, for instance; so,
as these are religious topics, they suppose they are growing quite
religious. The simplest way to clear away these perilous illusions
is, to ask: What emotions, connected with religious topics as their
occasions, are natural to the carnal man? These may be said to be,
first, the emotions of taste, or the mental-aesthetic; second, the
involuntary moral emotion of self-blame, or remorse; third, the
natural self-interested emotions of fear and hope, and desire of
future security and enjoyment; and fourth, the emotion of instinctive
sympathy. The following conclusions concerning these feelings need
only to be stated, in order to be admitted.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
aesthetic feeling may be as naturally stimulated by the features of
sublimity and beauty of God's natural attributes, and of the
gospel-story, as by a cataract, an ocean, a starlit sky, or a
Shakespearean hero. Now it is most obvious that the movements of
taste, in these latter cases, carry no moral imperative whatever.
They have no more power to reform the will than strains of music or
odors of flowers. Yet how many souls are deluded into supposing that
they love God, duty, and gospel truth, because these aesthetic
sensibilities are stimulated in connection with such topics!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When
the ethical reason pronounces its judgment of wrongfulness upon any
action or principle, this may be attended by the feeling of moral
reprehension. If it is one's own action which must be condemned, the
feeling takes on the more pungent form of remorse. But this feeling
is no function of the. soul's spontaneity. Its rise is purely
involuntary; its natural effect is to be the penal retribution, and
not the restrainer of sin.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How
completely this feeling is disconnected with the correct regulation
or reformation of the will, appears from this: that the
transgressor's will is usually striving with all his might not to
feel the remorse, or to forget it, while conscience makes him feel it
in spite of himself. A Judas felt it most keenly while he rushed to
self-destruction. It is the most prevalent emotion of hell, which
gives us the crowning proof that it has no power to purify the heart.
But many transgressors are persuaded that they exercise repentance
because they feel remorse for conscious sins. Man's native
selfishness is all-sufficient to make him desire the pleasurable, or
natural good, and fear and shun the painful, or natural evil. Those
desires and aversions, with the fears and hopes which expectation
suggests, and the corresponding terrors and joys of anticipation, may
be stimulated by any natural good or evil, more or less remote, the
conception of which occupies the mental attention distinctly. Just as
the thoughtless child dreads the lash that is expected in the next
moment, and the more thoughtful person dreads the lash of next week
or next month, just so naturally a carnal man, who is intellectually
convinced of his immortality and identity, may dread the pains, or
rejoice in the fancied pleasures, of another life. He may fear death,
not only with the unreasoning instinct of the brute, but also with
the rational dread (rational, though purely selfish) of its penal
consequences. Selfishness, with awakened attention and mental
conviction, suffices fully for all this. In all these feelings there
is nothing one whit more characteristic of a new heart, or more
controlling of the evil will, than in the wicked sensualist's dread
of the colic which may follow his excess, or the determined outlaw's
fear of the sheriff. Tet how many deluded souls fancy that, because
they feel these selfish fears or joys in connection with death and
judgment, they are becoming strongly religious. And unfortunately
they are encouraged by multitudes of preachers of the gospel to make
this fatal mistake. Turretin has distinguished the truth here by a
single pair of phrases, as by a beam of sunlight. He says: Whereas
the stony-ground believer embraces Christ solely <i>pro bono jucundo</i>,
the gospel offers him mainly <i>pro bono honesto</i>. True faith
desires and embraces Christ chiefly as a Saviour from sin and
pollution. The false believer embraces him only as a Saviour from
suffering and punishment. Holy Scripture is always careful to
represent Christ in the former light. His "name is Jesus because
he saves his people from their sins." He gives himself to redeem
us from all iniquity, and to purify us unto himself a peculiar
people, zealous of good works. But preachers so prevalently paint the
gospel as God's method of delivering sinners from penal pains and
bestowing the enjoyment of a sensuous paradise, and the guilty
selfishness of hearers is so exclusively exercised about selfish
deliverance, that we apprehend most men are permitted to conceive of
the gospel remedy solely as a bonum jucundum, a provision for simply
procuring their selfish advantage. It is true that, if asked, Is not
the gospel to make you good also? many of them might reply with a
listless "Yes." They have a vague apprehension that their
grasping the bonum jucundum is somehow conditioned on their becoming
better; and they suppose they are willing to accept this
uninteresting formality for the sake of the enjoyment that follows
it, just as the epicure tolerates the tedious grace for the sake of
the dainties which are to come after at the feast. But were one to
tell this gourmand that the grace was the real chief-end of the
feast, and the eating a subordinate incident thereto, he would be
exceedingly amazed and incredulous. Such would also be the feeling of
many subjects of modern revivals, if the Bible conception of
redemption were forced on their minds. Hence, one great reform in our
preaching must be to return to the scriptural presentation of the
gospel in this particular. A grand reform is needed here. This
grovelling, utilitarian conception of redemption must be banished.
Men must be taught that the blessing is only for them "who
hunger and thirst after righteousness," not for those who
selfishly desire to grasp enjoyment only, and to shun pain. They must
be made to see clearly that such a concern does not in the least
differentiate them from reprobate souls in hell, or hardened felons
on earth; not even from the thievish fox caught in a trap.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
fourth and the most deceptive natural feeling of the carnal man is
instinctive sympathy. It will be necessary to state the nature and
conditions of this feeling. First, it belongs to the passive
sensibilities, not to the spontaneous appetencies. It is purely
instinctive, appearing as powerfully in animals as in men. Witness
the excitement of a flock of birds over the cries of a single
comrade, and the stampede of a herd of oxen. Next, it is even in man
an unintelligent feeling in this sense: that if the emotion of
another be merely seen and heard, sympathy is propagated, although
the sympathizer understands nothing of the cause of the feeling he
witnesses. We come upon a child, who is an utter stranger, weeping;
we share the sympathetic saddening before he has had time to tell us
what causes his tears. We enter a room where our friends are drowned
in laughter. Before we have asked the question, 'Friends, what is the
jest?' we find ourselves smiling. We see two strangers afar off
exchanging blows; we feel the excitement stimulating us to run
thither, while ignorant of the quarrel. Sympathy is in its rise
unintelligent and instinctive. The only condition requisite for it,
is the beholding of the feeling in a fellow. Third, this law of
feeling extends to all the emotions natural to man. We so often
connect the word with the emotion of grief, that we overlook its
applicability to other feelings, and we forget even its etymology:
pathos, in Greek philosophy, did not mean grief only, but every
exercise of feeling; so sympathein is to share by spiritual contagion
any pathos we witness in our fellows. We sympathize with merriment,
joy, fear, anger, hope, benevolence, moral approbation, courage,
panic, just as truly as with grief. Fourth, the nature of the emotion
witnessed determines, without any volition of our own, the nature of
the feeling injected into us. Sympathy with joy is a lesser joy. The
glow is that of the secondary rainbow reflecting, but usually in a
weaker degree, precisely the tints of the primary arch.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
reader is now prepared to admit these conclusions: that sympathy may
infect men with a phase of religious emotion, as of any other; that
the sympathetic emotions, though thus related as to their source,
have no spiritual character whatever in themselves—for they are
involuntary, they are unintelligent, they are passive effects on an
instinctive sensibility, giving no expression to the will, and not
regulating it nor regulated by it. The animal feels these sympathies
as really as the man.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
reader should notice that these propositions are asserted only of the
simple sensibility, the immediate reflex of strong feeling witnessed.
It is not denied that the capacity of sympathy is a social trait
implanted by a wise Creator for practical purposes. It is the
instrumental occasion of many useful results. Thus, upon the
excitement of sympathy with grief follow the appetency to succor the
sufferer, and the benevolent volition. The first is the occasion, not
the cause, of the second. On our natural sympathy with the actions we
witness, follows our impulse to imitate. But imitation is the great
lever of education. So sympathy has been called the sacred “orator's
right arm.” Let us understand precisely what it could and cannot do
in gaining lodgment for divine truth in the sinner's soul. This truth
and this alone is the instrument of sanctification. To Presbyterians
the demonstration of this is superfluous. It is impossible for the
truth to work sanctification except as it is intelligently received
into the mind. Light must reach the heart through the understanding,
for the soul only feels healthily according as it sees. To the
inattentive mind the truth being unheard, is as though it were not.
Hence it is of prime importance to awaken the listless attention.
Whatever innocently does this is therefore a useful preliminary
instrument for applying the truth. This, sympathy aids to effect. The
emotion of the orator arouses the slumbering attention of the sinner,
and temporarily wins his ear for the sacred word. Another influence
of awakened sympathy may also be conceded. By one application of the
law of association, the warmth of a feeling existing in the mind is
communicated temporarily to any object coexisting with it in the
mind; though that object be in itself indifferent to that soul. The
stone dropped into the heated furnace is not combustible, is no
source of caloric; but by contact it imbibes some of the heat which
flames there, and remains hot for a little time after it is drawn
out. So the mind warmed with emotion, either original or sympathetic,
is a furnace which gives some of its warmth to truth or concepts
coexisting in it, otherwise cold and indifferent to it. But the
warmth is merely temporary.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
whole use, then, of the sympathetic excitement is to catch the
attention and warm it. But it is the truth thus lodged in the
attention that must do the whole work of sanctification. Here is the
all-important discrimination. Attention, sympathetic warmth, are
merely a preparation for casting in the seed of the Word. The
preacher who satisfies himself with exciting the sympathies, and
neglects to throw in at once the vital truth, is like the husbandman
who digs and rakes the soil, and then idly expects the crop, though
he has put in no living seed. The only result is a more rampant
growth of weeds. How often do we see this mistake committed! The
preacher either displays, in his own person, a high-wrought religious
emotion, or stirs the natural sensibilities by painting in exciting
and pictorial words and gestures, some natural feeling connected by
its occasion with a religious topic, as a touching death or other
bereavement; or he stimulates the selfish fears by painting the
agonies of a lost soul, or the selfish desires and hopes by a
sensuous description of the pleasures of heaven. Then, if sympathetic
feeling is awakened, or the carnal passions of hope, fear and desire
are moved, he acts as though his work were done. He permits and
encourages the hearers to flatter themselves that they are religious,
because they are feeling something round about religion. I repeat: if
this stimulation of carnal and sympathetic feeling is not at once and
wisely used, and used solely as a secondary means of fixing a warmed
attention on didactic truth, which is the sole instrument of
conversion and sanctification, then the preacher has mischievously
abused the souls of his hearers. The first and most obvious mischief
is the encouragement of a fatal deception and self-flattery.
Unrenewed men are tacitly invited to regard themselves as either born
again, or at least in a most encouraging progress towards that
blessing; while in fact they have not felt a single feeling or
principle which may not be the mere natural product of a dead heart.
This delusion has slain its “tens of thousands.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
reader will remember the masterly exposition by Bishop Butler of the
laws of habit as affecting the sensibilities and active powers. Its
truth is too fully admitted to need argument. By this law of habit,
the sensibilities are inevitably dulled by repeated impressions. By
the same law, the appetencies and will are strengthened by voluntary
exercise. Thus, if impressions on the sensibilities are followed by
their legitimate exertion of the active powers, the soul as a whole,
while it grows calmer and less excitable, grows stronger and more
energetic in its activities, and is confirmed in the paths of right
action. But if the sensibilities are stimulated by objects which make
no call, and offer no scope for right action, as by fictitious and
unreal pictures of human passion, the soul is uselessly hackneyed and
worn, and thus depraved. Here we find one of the fundamental
objections to habitual novel reading. The excitement of the
sympathies by warmly colored, but unreal, portraitures of passions,
where there cannot possibly be any corresponding right action by the
reader inasmuch as the agents and sufferers are imaginary, depraves
the sensibilities without any retrieval of the soul's state in the
corresponding cultivation of the active powers. The longer such
reading is continued, the more does the young person become at once
sentimental and unfeeling. The result is a selfish and morbid craving
for excitement, coupled with a callous selfishness, dead to the
claims of real charity and duty. The same objection lies against
theatrical exhibitions, and for the same reason. Now this species of
spurious religious excitement is obnoxious to the same charge. In its
practical results it is fictitious. The merely sensational preacher
is no more than a novelist or a comedian, with this circumstance,
that he connects topics, popularly deemed religious, with his
fictitious arts. He abuses and hackneys the souls of his hearers in
the same general way, rendering them at once sentimental and hard,
selfishly fond of excitement, but callous to conscience and duty.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Once
more; spiritual pride is as natural to man as breathing, or as sin.
Its only corrective is sanctifying grace. Let the suggestion be once
lodged in a heart not really humbled and cleansed by grace, that the
man is reconciled to God, has “become good,” is a favorite of God
and heir of glory—that soul cannot fail to be swept away by the
gales of spiritual pride. Let observation teach us here. Was there
ever a deceived votary of a false religion, of Islam, of Buddhism, of
Brahmanism, of Popery, who was not in reality puffed up by spiritual
pride? It cannot be otherwise with a deceived votary of a Protestant
creed. The circumstance that there is divine truth in this creed,
which has no vital influence on his heart, is no safeguard. The only
preventive of spiritual pride is the contrition which accompanies
saving repentance. Here, also, is the explanation of the fact, that
the hearty votaries of those professedly Christian creeds which have
more of Pelagianism than of gospel in them, are most bigoted and most
hopelessly inaccessible to truth. Their adamantine shield is
spiritual pride, fostered by a spurious hope, and unchastened by
sovereign grace. Of all such self-deceivers our Saviour has decided
that “the publicans and harlots enter into the kingdom before
them.”</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-46812565057555207392018-05-27T06:00:00.000-05:002018-05-27T06:00:09.743-05:00Liberal Bigotry<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Dr. Johnson, during his tour to the Hebrides,
met with a person who like many in the present day was vehemently opposed to
creeds and confessions of faith. His principal objection to them was that they
are inconsistent with mental freedom. The human mind, he said, is confined by
them, and they ought not to be imposed upon it. To this the hard head and
robust common- sense of Johnson made answer, that what the objector called
imposition is only a voluntary declaration of agreement in certain articles of
faith which a church has a right to require, just as any other society can
insist upon certain rules being observed by its members. Nobody is compelled to
belong to the church, as nobody is compelled to enter a society. This, however,
did not satisfy the pertinacious opponent of creeds; and he continued his
objections in the same general strain as before. Johnson then silenced him with
the remark: "Sir, you are a bigot to laxness." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Bigotry is a blind and unreasonable devotion to
an opinion. It may be found in the ranks of infidelity as frequently as in
those of politics or religion. The political and especially the theological
bigot has had a full share of attention and criticism. The latitudinarian bigot
is a species that has been somewhat overlooked, and taking the text we have
quoted from Dr. Johnson, we propose to preach a short sermon upon the subject
of Liberal Bigotry. Our first remark is, that the liberal thinker, as he styles
himself, is a bigot in finding fault with a religious denomination to which he
does not be long, for making an honest and manly statement of what it believes.
The zeal with which he at tacks a society with which he is not identified, because
it holds certain tenets as the condition of membership, is certainly both blind
and unreasonable. By what right does he complain of a body of his fellow-men
because, in the exercise of their own judgment, they have come to the
conclusion that the creed of Calvin or the creed of Arminius is the truth, and
that the doctrine of Socinus or of Swedenborg is error? What reason is there in
demanding of a large society that they surrender their convictions respecting
such subjects as the trinity, the incarnation, the apostasy, and the
redemption, and take in lieu of them the opinions of an individual who styles
himself a liberal thinker? There might be some reason in this objecting to
distinct statements of religious truth, if the objector were himself concerned
in the origin and formation of the society adopting them. If it were still an
open question, and the disputant were entitled to a voice, then his zeal
against creeds would not necessarily be bigoted. But the churches are already
in existence. Neither the latitudinarian nor the downright sceptic had anything
to do with their origin or constitution, and they have no more part or lot in
them than an American democrat has in the monarchy of England. It is the height
of bigotry, therefore, when the unbeliever represents the terms of communion
which religious denominations have established not for him, but for themselves,
as being bigoted and intolerant. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">Our second remark is, that the bigot to laxness
is himself an inquisitor, and a foe to freely-formed opinion. He is uneasy upon
seeing that others have fixed and settled views, and attempts to unsettle them
by attacks upon all definite statements of doctrine. Why is he not content with
the liberty which he himself enjoys of adopting no particular sentiments, and
of maintaining, like the ancient sophists, that there is no absolute truth, and
that one thing is just as valid as another? He is allowed his own dislike and
rejection of a creed, why should he disallow another man's liking for and
adoption of a creed? His complaint over the freely-formed conviction of his
fellow-men that the evangelical system is the truth of God, is in reality a
protest against their right of private judgment, and a demand that they adopt
his opinions upon this point. But this is bigotry. If he would be content with
his criticism and attack upon a particular creed, no fault would be found with
him. But when, after the criticism and attack, he pronounces the advocate of
the creed to be a bigot because he still remains unconvinced by his reasonings
and still retains his belief, he passes the line of free and fair discussion,
and enters the province of intolerance and bigotry. He does not meet with this
treatment from the defender of the faith once delivered to the saints. The
charge of bigotry is not often made by the orthodox against the heterodox, but
always by the heterodox against the orthodox. Perhaps we are the first since
Dr. Johnson to direct attention to the bigotry of laxness. And we do not charge
bigotry upon the latitudinarian merely because he attacks the evangelical
creed, but because he calls those bigots who are not converted by his arguments.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">It is curious to notice how extremes meet. The
latitudinarian will be found to be narrow, when he comes to be examined; and
the dogmatist will be found to be liberal, when his real position is seen. The
former is restless and uneasy upon discovering that his fellow -men in large
masses are holding fixed opinions, and are ready to live and die by them. He
complains and quarrels with them for so doing. The latter is calm and
self-possessed, being satisfied with his freely- formed convictions and his
self-consistent creed, and while he does his best to convert to his own views
those whom he regards as being in error, yet if he finds himself to be
unsuccessful, he enters no querulous complaint and indulges in no bitter intolerance,
because he commits all judgment to God and the final day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">The gentle and fair-minded Addison, in one of
the Spectators (No. 185), directs attention to what he denominates infidel
bigotry. "After having treated of these false zealots in religion, I
cannot," he says, "forbear mentioning a monstrous species of men who
one would not think had any existence in nature, were they not to be met with
in ordinary conversation. I mean the zealots in atheism. Infidelity is
propagated with as much fierceness and contention, wrath and indignation, as
if the safety of mankind depended upon it. There is something so ridiculous and
perverse in this kind of zealots, that one does not know how to set them out in
their proper colors. They are a sort of gamesters who are eternally upon the
fret, though they play for nothing. They are perpetually teasing their friends
to come over to them, though at the same time they allow that neither of them
shall get anything by the bargain. In short, the zeal of spreading atheism is,
if possible, more absurd than atheism itself. I would fain ask one of these
bigoted infidels: Supposing all the great points of atheism, such as the casual
or eternal formation of the world, the materiality of a thinking substance, the
mortality of the soul, the fortuitous organization of the body, the motions and
gravitation of matter, and the like particulars, were laid together and formed
into a kind of creed, according to the opinions of the most celebrated atheists,
I ask, supposing such a creed as this were formed, and imposed upon any one
people in the world, whether it would not require an infinitely greater measure
of faith, than any set of articles which they so violently oppose. Let me therefore
advise this generation of wranglers, for their own and for the public good, to
act at least so consistently with themselves, as not to burn with zeal for
irreligion, and with bigotry for nonsense."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;">The present attack upon the Calvinistic creed
by the so-called "liberal" and "progressive" parties in
Protestantism, is an example of the zeal of bigotry. The particular opponents
of Calvinism of whom we are now speaking are not atheists. They are believers
in a deity and the principles of morality, and some of them accept a vague form
of evangelical doctrine. But the language of Johnson and Addison nevertheless
applies to them. In respect to the five points of Calvinism, and the general
type of doctrine contained in the Westminster standards, they are bigoted partisans.
The zeal which they exhibit in opposition to this intellectual and powerful
theology, is as unintelligent and passionate as anything to be found in any annals
whatever. And what is worse, it is an unscrupulous zeal not seen among the
orthodox. When did the orthodox ever stoop to the method of the "liberal"
theologian? When did Calvinists ever attempt to sap and destroy "progressive"
theology, by the plan recommended by some "progressive" theologians
for sapping and destroying the Calvinistic faith: the plan of remaining in a
denomination after changing one's belief, and trying to subvert the creed of
the denomination? What Calvinists ever advised Calvinists publicly to subscribe
an anti-Calvinistic creed, and then teach and defend Calvinism within an anti-
Calvinistic denomination? What Calvinist ever advised Calvinists to hold office
and take emoluments on anti-Calvinistic foundations? What orthodox body has
ever put to its own use endowments that were given for the spread of
"progressive " theology? The history of religious endowments shows
without an exception, if we are not mistaken, that it is the looser creed that
filches from the stricter, not the stricter from the looser. Whatever else may
be laid to the charge of the advocates of orthodoxy, covert movements, concealed
opinions, and double dealing cannot be. They have never burrowed underground;
and they have never pretended to be what they are not. And they have insisted
that all who join them shall do so in good faith, and hold a common creed. For
this they are charged with narrowness and bigotry! The charge falls upon the
other party.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– W.G.T.
Shedd, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy</span></div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-69505012079811897812018-05-24T06:00:00.000-05:002018-05-24T06:00:08.806-05:00Conjectural Criticism - W.G.T. Shedd
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">There are two views of
the origin of the Bible, 1. That it is the production of a limited
circle of authors mostly contemporaneous with the events, whose names
are mentioned in the work itself, and who were divinely inspired for
the purpose of producing a book having infallible accuracy and
authority. 2. That it is the production of late and unknown editors,
who gathered up oral traditions from unknown and often mythical
sources, and put them in the form in which they now appear. The first
is the Historical view, or that commonly held in ancient, mediaeval,
and modern Christendom. The second is the Fragmentary theory, and is
confined to individuals and schools in modern Christendom. According
to the historical theory, the Pentateuch has Moses for its
responsible and inspired author. According to the fragmentary theory,
with the exception of a few parts which perhaps may be ascribed to
Moses, no man knows who wrote the Pentateuch, any more than where the
sepulchre of Moses is. According to the historical theory, the four
Gospels are the inspired productions of four men, Matthew,
Peter-Mark, Paul-Luke, and John, who received and obeyed their Lord's
commission to prepare his biography for the use of the church in all
time. According to the fragmentary theory, the four Gospels are the
uninspired product of unauthorized persons, later than the apostles,
who gathered up the traditions concerning Christ that were floating
about in the church, and wrought them into their present shape. Such,
briefly stated, is the substantial difference between the two
theories. One ascribes the Bible to known and infallible authors; the
other to unknown and fallible editors.
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">1. The first objection to
the fragmentary theory of the origin of the Scriptures is that it is
late and modern. This, to some persons, is a recommendation. But in
estimating theories, if time is to be taken into account, one that
has all time behind it is preferable to one that has only a fraction.
To be modern and new is a good recommendation for the fashion of a
hat, but not for an opinion in science. The latest intelligence from
the stock market is more valuable than the latest intelligence in
Hebrew. The superficiality characteristic of the present decade is
due to a rage for "the last thing out," and the neglect of
ancient and standard learning. If a person's reading is confined to
works composed in his own time, he will become the victim of a
theorist or a coterie of them. His knowledge will be narrow, while he
supposes it to be omniscient.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The hypothesis that the
Scriptures are a collection and combination by unknown editors is a
modern conjecture. Though occasionally broached in the Ancient
church, it obtained no currency. It dates from Spinoza and Hobbes, in
the seven teenth century, and more particularly in the eighteenth
century from Astruc (1725), who applied it to the Pentateuch, and
Semler (1750), who applied it to the Gospels and the canon generally.
The newness of the theory is an objection to it. For it is highly
improbable that all the investigations of Biblical philologists for
seventeen hundred years, which corroborate the traditional theory of
the origin of the Bible, should suddenly be invalidated by the
alleged discoveries of a few theorists in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Sudden conversions in religion, like that of
St. Paul, are possible, but they suppose an Almighty Author. Such a
sudden revolution in Biblical criticism as the refutation of the
historical theory and the demonstration of the fragmentary, would be
a phenomenon without parallel in literary history.
</span></span></div>
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</div>
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</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">2. A second objection to
the fragmentary theory is, that it is wholly conjectural. Conjecture
has its place in all investigation, but it is a very narrow place. It
must be employed cautiously and sparingly, and only by the most
learned, balanced and judicial minds. That which now goes under the
name of "higher criticism" was formerly known as
"conjectural criticism," when those standard editions of
the Greek and Roman classics were being prepared by the great
scholars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which it would
now be beyond the power of the nineteenth century to produce, because
of its neglect of classical literature and overestimate of physical
science. But when these erudite editors of the classics used the
conjectural method, it was infrequently and timidly. Whoever ventured
to declare a passage to be spurious, or to suggest a new reading that
differed from the manuscripts, or new interpretations that departed
from those of previous scholars, must furnish strong and conclusive
reasons. His <i>ipse dixit</i> would not do. Individual opinions when
contradictory to historical were looked upon with suspicion, even
when there was extraordinary learning and acumen. Bentley was the
most learned classical scholar of his century, and was better
qualified to make use of conjecture in editing the Greek and Latin
classics than any other one of his tim; but Pope, probably with some
of the extravagance and injustice of satire, said of his editions of
Milton and Horace:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> "To Milton lending
sense, and Horace wit,
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> He made them write what
poet never writ."
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">But this fear of
conjectural criticism, and caution in its use, is not characteristic
of those modern schools of Biblical philology which are now employing
it for the purpose of recasting the Scriptures, in order to force
them into the service of anti-supernaturalism and infidelity. In
endeavoring to disprove the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and
the Apostolic authorship of the Gospels, they rely chiefly upon the
inventiveness and ingenuity of their own intellects in constructing
schemes that are unsupported either by documents or testimony. The
utmost rashness and recklessness characterize their work. It would be
startling, and a refutation of the whole procedure, to see a Hebrew
text of the Pentateuch actually edited and published in accordance
with the conjectural criticism of Kuenen and Wellhausen, or a Greek
text of the Gospels in accordance with that of Baur and Strauss.
Critics of this class make hypothesis the substance and staple of
their method, employing it excessively and almost exclusively. The
Hebrew text of the Pentateuch, without regard to the manuscripts and
the history of the text, and with no support from them, is
arbitrarily parcelled out into sections and fractions designated by
letters of the alphabet, and this fragment is assigned to the
"Elohist," and that to the "Jehovist," this to
Moses and that to an unknown editor after the exile, and a fifth to
the time of Josiah, purely upon the individual guess of a man living
three thousand years after Moses. The Greek text of the four Gospels,
without regard to the authority of numerous, and some of them very
ancient manuscripts, and in contradiction to the early testimony of
scholars like Origen and Jerome, and the consensus of Christendom for
fifteen hundred years, is declared to be spurious in all such
Gospels, and also in such Epistles, as the scheme of the critic
requires.
</span></span></div>
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</div>
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</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Such effrontery and
dogmatism in claiming that the <i>ipse dixit</i> of an individual or
a party outweighs the evidence of documents and historical data, and
the learning of all the Christian centuries, would not be endured for
a moment within the province of secular literature. Nor is such
"higher criticism" as this attempted in this department. No
one has endeavored to disconnect the Platonic dialogues from the name
of Plato, and to prove that they are the production of later editors
working over oral discourses of Socrates that were floating in
fragmentary form among the circles of the Academy. No one has
pretended to a knowledge of Greek literature so much superior to that
of the Cudworths and Porsons, the Hermanns and Stallbaums, as to be
able to reverse their judgment and demonstrate the spuriousness and
late origin of large portions of the Phaedo, Symposium, and Laws. No
one has composed a new life of Socrates, evincing that the
traditional account of him is erroneous. The credulity that trusts
such assurance as this is to be found only among students of the
Bible. "The children of this world are in their generation wiser
than the children of light." The only important attempt of this
kind in classical literature, that of Wolf, though made by the most
eminent German philologist of the eighteenth century, was a failure.
He did not succeed in persuading the classical circles that the Iliad
and Odyssey were not the work of Homer, but of a school of
rhapsodists whose oral poems were collected and combined by later
editors.
</span></span></div>
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</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">3. A third objection to
the fragmentary theory of the origin of the Bible is that it is fatal
to its inspiration. If, as a conjectural critic asserts, "the
great body of the Old Testament was written by authors whose names
are lost in oblivion" (Briggs-Inaugural, p. 33), it was written
by uninspired men. Because inspiration, from the nature of the case,
was always bestowed upon a particular known person, and is so
represented. "God spake unto Moses." "The Lord said
unto Samuel." "The word of God came to Nathan." "The
word of the Lord came unto David." "The vision of Isaiah
which he saw concerning Judah." "The word of the Lord came
expressly unto Ezekiel." "God at sundry times spake unto
the fathers by the prophets," and the names of these prophets
were well known to those to whom they spoke. Inspiration is not an
indiscriminate gift of God, like air and water, to anybody and
everybody, in any age and every age. It is an extraordinary and rare
gift to only a few persons, chosen out of the common mass for the
purpose of Divine communications to mankind. The "holy men of
God" who "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost"
were not anonymous authors, like Walter Scott when he was the great
Unknown. They belonged to the Jewish people, and their names are
generally mentioned in the Bible in connection with the fact of their
inspiration and the time of its occurrence. The moment therefore that
inspiration is severed from known individuals, the moment it is
disconnected from the college of prophets and apostles, it becomes
inspiration "in the air," without locality, history, or
evidence. The self consistent advocates of the fragmentary theory,
like Kuenen and Wellhausen, perceive that it is incompatible with
inspiration, and deny inspiration; but some who are less logical, or
more under the restraints of an evangelical connection, try to retain
the inspiration of the Pentateuch while denying that Moses is its
author. The Pentateuch, they say, was composed long after Moses by
some persons no one knows who; but whoever they were they were
inspired. This is the inspiration of imaginary persons like John Doe
and Richard Roe, and not of definite historical persons like Moses
and David, Matthew and John, chosen of God by name and known to men.</span></span></div>
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</div>
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</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The notion that there is
an inspiration outside of the Biblical circle of the prophets and
apostles, existing anywhere and at all times, and that the unknown
collectors and redactors of the Scriptures partook of it, was
invented by the recent latitudinarian party in the Presbyterian
church who adopted the critical principles of Rationalism, but who
from their ecclesiastical connection did not venture to draw the
logical conclusion of all Rationalists and deny inspiration
altogether. The assertion that an utterly unknown person was an
inspired person is absurd on the face of it, and untenable because it
is not only destitute of proof but is absolutely incapable of proof.
No <i>testimony</i> is possible in the case. No one has ever seen an
unknown man work a miracle as evidence of a divine commission; has
heard him speak a prophecy or deliver a divine message while under a
divine afflatus; or can attest that he was the author of a particular
book of Scripture. No proof whatever on such important points as
these can be furnished by eye-witnesses and contemporaries. An
unknown man, virtually, has no con temporaries; for as no one knows
when the man himself lived, so no one knows when his contemporaries
did. The only testimony conceivable in the case is that of the
conjectural critic, living two or three thousand years later, who
merely asserts that the unknown author of the Pentateuch, or Psalms,
or Isaiah, was inspired. This, of course, is not of the nature of
testimony, because the critic "is of yesterday and knows
nothing" of ancient events, and has observed nothing with any of
his senses, in the case.
</span></span></div>
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</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
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</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The absurdity of this
notion is apparent, when it is considered that nothing whatever can
be predicated of an utterly unknown person, any more than of a
non-existent one. Attributes and characteristics of every kind are
impossible in both cases alike. No one would think of asserting that
an utterly unknown man, any more than a non existent man, is black,
or has a large nose, or underwent a surgical operation. Such
particulars as these can neither be affirmed nor denied in these
instances, because nothing at all is known about the person in
question, and consequently nothing can be testified to. But an
inspiration that cannot be proved is worthless. Mankind demand
evidence when the claim to this unique and extraordinary gift of God
to the human mind is made. And in the instance of that limited circle
of prophets and apostles whose names are mentioned in Scripture as
the authors of most of the books, and are copied from Scripture into
the catalogue of the canonical books given in the Westminster
Confession (i. 2), and into all the Christian creeds that contain
articles upon this point, the proof is forth coming. That Moses,
Samuel, David and Isaiah were inspired, rests upon testimony of two
kinds: first, that of Jesus Christ, who authoritatively indorses the
inspiration of the traditional authors of the Old Testament;
secondly, that of contemporaries and those who were nearest to
contemporaries. These latter do not authoritatively indorse like the
Son of God, but only give witness respecting the prophetical and
apostolical authorship. The evidence in this last instance relates
only to canonicity, and is precisely like that for the authorship of
the writings of Plato and Cicero, respecting which there is no
scepticism in the literary world. The evidence in the first instance
is wholly unlike anything in secular literature, and infinitely
higher and more trustworthy, provided that Jesus Christ was not an
impostor, but God incarnate. The assertion of the critic to whom we
have referred, that it is "not of great importance that we
should know the names of those authors chosen by God to mediate his
revelation" (Briggs-Inaugural, p. 33), overlooks the fact that
in revealed religion the credibility of a doctrine depends upon its
source, as well as upon its nature and contents. For example, the
doctrine of the resurrection of the body, judged by its mere
contents, is the same in the Egyptian Book of the Dead (Rawlinson's
Egypt, I. 319) as in 1 Cor. 15:51, 52. Resurrection is resurrection.
But when Egyptian priests assert a resurrection of the body, and St.
Paul asserts it, the ground of belief for the doctrine is wholly
different in the two instances. And the difference is due to the
difference in the author ship. In case of an <i>ipse dixit</i> like
this, it is important to know who <i>ipse</i> is. St. Paul is a known
man, and his inspiration can be proved. The Egyptian priests are
unknown men, and if they were known there is no proof that they were
inspired. Hence the questions of authorship, and genuineness of
authorship, have always been regarded in Christian apologetics as
vital; and the endeavor from the first has been to connect every one
of the books of the Old and New Testaments with some known inspired
prophet or apostle. The sceptical criticism, on the contrary, has
from the first endeavored to disconnect them. That the first endeavor
is difficult in regard to a few of the books, is no reason why the
whole position of Christian apologetics should be surrendered, and
the authorship of the Bible be ascribed to utterly unknown persons,
living no one knows where, and no one knows when.
</span></span></div>
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</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
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</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">A deadly thrust is given
to the doctrine of infallible inspiration, by the denial that "the
Scriptures were written by or under the superintendence of prophets
and apostles." (Briggs-Inaugural, p. 32.) This severs them
entirely from that particular circle of persons who were called of
God by name, and inspired by him to receive and record his
supernatural communications. The Westminster Confession, as well as
the creeds of Christendom generally, teaches that the Scriptures were
composed by or under the superintendence of the prophets of the Old
dispensation, and the apostles of the New, and that these persons,
and these only, were "the holy men of God who spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost." One of the principal endeavors of
Christian apologetics from Eusebius down, has been to present the
proof of this. And there is a general consensus in Christian
apologetics, respecting the authorship of the canonical books
mentioned in the Westminster Confession (i. 2). Its contention is,
that they were composed by the persons to whom from the first they
have been ascribed by both Jewish and Christian tradition. Respecting
the authorship of a few of these books, there is a difference of
opinion among Christian apologetes. But the author ship in these
instances is still kept within the inspired circle of prophets and
apostles, and the endeavor is always made to give the name of the
prophet or apostle. It is assumed that if it could be
incontrovertibly proved that a particular book was not written by or
under the guidance of a prophet or apostle, it is not inspired.
Rationalistic criticism dissents from and combats this consensus of
Christian apologetics. The reason for this constant aim and office of
all the learning of evangelical as opposed to rationalistic criticism
is: first, because the books themselves generally claim to be the
composition of these particular persons to the exclusion of all other
extraneous persons known or unknown; and second, because there were
no other inspired persons but the prophets and apostles. If the Bible
cannot be proved to be written by the prophets and apostles, it
cannot be proved to be inspired at all; because it cannot be proved
that there were ever any human beings whatever, excepting these
prophets and apostles, that were "moved by the Holy Ghost."
The origin of an inspired writing must therefore be brought by
competent testimony within this inspired circle or nowhere. And if it
is thus brought by ancient Jewish testimony in the case of the Old
Testament, and by ancient Christian testimony in the case of the New,
it cannot be said to be the product of an utterly unknown author even
in the instances when the name of the particular prophet or apostle
is debated. For this testimony connects it with a definite circle of
inspired per sons whose nationality, time, and place are known. If,
for illustration, there is sufficient reason for believing, from
Patristic testimony, that the epistle to the Hebrews was composed
under the supervision of St. Paul, the doubt whether the penman was
Luke, Apollos, or Barnabas, does not make it the product of an
"unknown inspired man." The maintenance of this position in
apologetics is vital, and has always been so considered. In
disconnecting, as the conjectural critic does, the Pentateuch from
Moses as its responsible and inspired author, and connecting it with
an unknown editor or editors a thousand years later than Moses, he
has destroyed its inspiration, because, as we have seen, an unknown
man cannot be proved to be one of the "holy men of God who spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." There is no testimony or
tradition, either for him or against him, in regard to this point. In
algebra, the value of the unknown x can be determined, but there is
no assignable value to an unknown inspired man. The denial that the
Pentateuch is what our Lord frequently called it, "the book of
Moses " (Mark 12:26; Luke 24:27; John 7:19, 22, 23), has the
same effect upon its inspired authority and credibility, which the
denial that the four Gospels were composed by the four Evangelists
has upon the inspiration and credibility of the only source the world
has for the life of its divine Redeemer. There were no infallibly
inspired persons upon earth between a.d. 33 and a.d. 100, excepting
the company of the Apostles chosen by Christ to be the founders of
his church, and, if we may so say, his literary executors to write
his life for the church in all time; and if the four Gospels were not
composed by them, or under their superintendence, they are neither
inspired nor infallible. No persons but these were authorized or
qualified to prepare the memoirs of his marvellous origin and
generation, and of his merciful and sorrowful life (Luke 24:49; John
14:26; 15:26; Acts 1:8). Whoever denies this, and enlarges the circle
of New Testament inspiration by asserting that others than the
Apostles were inspired by the Holy Ghost, is bound to prove his
assertion. As the four Evangelists do in the instance of the "Twelve
Apostles," he must mention the names of the persons, the
circumstances under which they were called to this office, and the
supernatural signs of their inspiration (Matt. 10:1-5; Mark 3:14-19;
Luke 6:13-16). The burden of proof is upon the affirmative, not upon
the negative. The inspiration of a Biblical writing, therefore,
stands or falls with its authenticity and genuineness. If its
authorship is forged and spurious; if it is falsely ascribed to the
prophets and apostles, and is not their work; it was not written by
"holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost."
</span></span></div>
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</div>
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</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">W.G.T. Shedd, Orthodoxy
and Heterodoxy (1893)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span>Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-50219995088732892562018-05-16T08:01:00.001-05:002018-05-16T08:01:58.479-05:00Faith, The Sole Saving Act - William G.T. Shedd
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">FAITH THE SOLE SAVING ACT</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">W.G.T. Shedd</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sermons to the Natural Man
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Sermon 20)</span></div>
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</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John 6:28, 29. — Then
said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of
God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that
ye believe ou him whom he hath sent."
</span></div>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In asking their question,
the Jews intended to inquire of Christ what particular things they
must do, before all others, in order to please God. The "works
of God," as they denominate them, were not any and every duty,
but those more special and important acts, by which the creature
might secure the Divine approval and favor. Our Lord under stood
their question in this sense, and in His reply tells them, that the
great and only work for them to do was to exercise faith in Him. They
had employed the plural number in their question; but in His answer
He employs the singular. They had asked, "What shall we do that
we might work the works of God, — as if there were several of them.
His reply is, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him
whom He hath sent." He narrows down the terms of salvation to a
single one; and makes the destiny of the soul to depend upon the
performance of a particular individual act. In this, as in many other
incidental ways, our Lord teaches His own divinity. If He were a mere
creature; if He were only an inspired teacher like David or Paul; how
would He dare, when asked to give in a single word the condition and
means of human salvation, to say that they consist in resting the
soul upon Him? Would David have dared to say: "This is the work
of God, — this is the saving act, — that ye believe in me?"
Would Paul have presumed to say to the anxious inquirer: "Your
soul is safe, if you trust in me?" But Christ makes this
declaration, without any qualification. Yet He was meek and lowly of
heart, and never assumed an honor or a prerogative that did not
belong to Him. It is only upon the supposition that He was "very
God of very God," the Divine Redeemer of the children of men,
that we can justify such an answer to such a question.
</span></div>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The belief is spontaneous
and natural to man, that something must be done in order to
salvation. No man expects to reach heaven by inaction. Even the
indifferent and supine soul expects to rouse it self up at some
future time, and work out its salvation. The most thoughtless and
inactive man, in religious respects, will acknowledge that
thoughtlessness and inactivity if continued will end in perdition.
But he intends at a future day to think, and act, and be saved. So
natural is it, to every man, to believe in salvation by works; so
ready is every one to concede that heaven is reached, and hell is
escaped, only by an earnest effort of some kind; so natural is it to
every man to ask with these Jews, "What shall we do, that we
may work the works of God? "
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But mankind generally,
like the Jews in the days of our Lord, are under a delusion
respecting the nature of the work which must be performed in order to
salvation. And in order to understand this delusion, we must first
examine the common notion upon the subject.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When a man begins to
think of God, and of his own relations to Him, he finds that he owes
Him service and obedience. He has a work to perform, as a subject of
the Divine government; and this work is to obey the Divine law. He
finds himself obligated to love God with all his heart, and his
neighbor as himself, and to discharge all the duties that spring out
of his relations to God and man. He perceives that this is the "work"
given him to do by creation, and that if he does it he will attain
the true end of his existence, and be happy in time and eternity.
When therefore he begins to think of a religious life, his first
spontaneous impulse is to begin the performance of this work which he
has hitherto neglected, and to reinstate himself in the Divine favor
by the ordinary method of keeping the law of God. He perceives that
this is the mode in which the angels preserve themselves holy and
happy; that this is the original mode appointed by God, when He
established the covenant of works; and he does not see why it is not
the method for him. The law expressly affirms that the man that doeth
these things shall live by them; he proposes to take the law just as
it reads, and just as it stands, — to do the deeds of the law, to
perform the works which it enjoins, and to live by the service. This
we say, is the common notion, natural to man, of the species of work
which must be performed in order to eternal life. This was the idea
which filled the mind of the Jews when they put the question of the
text, and received for answer from Christ, "This is the work of
God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." Our Lord does
not draw out the whole truth, in detail. He gives only the positive
part of the answer,' leaving His hearers to infer the negative part
of it. For the whole doctrine of Christ, fully stated, would run
thus: "No work of the kind of which you are thinking can save
you; no obedience of the law, ceremonial or moral, can reinstate you
in right relations to God. I do not summon you to the performance of
any such service as that which you have in mind, in order to your
justification and acceptance before the Divine tribunal. This is the
work of God, — this is the sole and single act which you are to
perform, — namely, that you believe on Him whom He hath sent as a
propitiation for sin. I do not summon you to works of the law, but to
faith in Me the Redeemer. Your first duty is not to attempt to
acquire a righteousness in the old method, by doing something of
yourselves, but to receive a righteousness in the new method, by
trusting in what another has done for you."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I. What is the ground and
reason of such an answer as this? Why is man invited to the method of
faith in another, instead of the method of faith in himself? Why is
not his first spontaneous thought the true one? Why should he not
obtain eternal life by resolutely proceeding to do his duty, and
keeping the law of God? Why can he not be saved by the law of works?
Why is he so summarily shut up to the law of faith?
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We answer: Because it is
too late for him to adopt the method of salvation by works. The law
is indeed explicit in its assertion, that the man that doeth these
things shall live by them; but then it supposes that the man begin at
the beginning. A subject of government cannot disobey a civil statute
for five or ten years, and then put himself in right relations to it
again, by obeying it for the remainder of his life. Can a man who has
been a thief or an adulterer for twenty years, and then practises
honesty and purity for the following thirty years, stand up before
the seventh and eighth commandments and be acquitted by them? It is
too late for any being who has violated a law even in a single
instance, to attempt to be justified by that law. For, the law
demands and supposes that obedience begin at the very beginning of
existence, and continue down uninterruptedly to the end of it. No man
can come in at the middle of a process of obedience, any more than he
can come in at the last end of it, if he proposes to be accepted upon
the ground of obedience. I testify," says St. Paul, "to
every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole
law" (Gal. v. 3). The whole, or none, is the just and inexorable
rule which law lays down in the matter of justification. If any
subject of the Divine government can show a clean record, from the
beginning to the end of his existence, the statute says to him, "
Well done," and gives him the reward which he has earned. And it
gives it to him not as a matter of grace, but of debt. The law never
makes a present of wages. It never pays out wages, until they are
earned, — fairly and fully earned. But when a perfect obedience
from first to last is rendered to its claims, the compensation
follows as matter of debt. The law, in this instance, is itself
brought under obligation. It owes a re ward to the perfectly obedient
subject of law, and it considers itself his debtor until it is paid.
"Now to him that worketh, is the reward not reckoned of grace,
but of debt. If it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise
work is no more work " (Rom. iv. 4; xi. 6) .
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But, on the other hand,
law is equally exact and inflexible, in case the work has not been
performed. It will not give eternal life to a soul that has sinned
ten years, and then perfectly obeyed ten years, — supposing that
there is any such soul. The obedience, as we have remarked, must run
parallel with the entire existence, in order to be a ground of
justification. Infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, old age, and then
the whole immortality that succeeds, must all be unintermittently
sinless and holy, in order to make eternal life a matter of debt.
Justice is as exact and punctilious upon this side, as it is upon the
other. We have seen, that when a perfect obedience has been rendered,
justice will not palm off the wages that are due as if they were some
gracious gift; and on the other hand, when a perfect obedience has
not been rendered, it will not be cajoled into the bestowment of
wages as if they had been earned. There is no principle that is so
intelligent, so upright, and so exact, as justice; and no creature
can expect either to warp it, or to circumvent it.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the light of these
remarks, it is evident that it is too late for a sinner to avail
himself of the method of salvation by works. For, that method
requires that sinless obedience begin at the beginning of his
existence, and never be interrupted. But no man thus begins, and no
man thus continues. "The wick ed are estranged from the womb;
they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies" (Ps.
lviii. 3). Man comes into the world a sinful and alienated creature.
He is by nature a child of wrath (Eph. ii. 3). Instead of beginning
life with holiness, he begins it with sin. His heart at birth is
apostate and corrupt; and his conduct from the very first is contrary
to law. Such is the teaching of Scripture, such is the statement of
the Creeds, and such is the testimony of consciousness, respecting
the character which man brings into the world with him. The very dawn
of human life is cloud ed with depravity; is marked by the carnal
mind which is at enmity with the law of God, and is not subject to
that law, neither indeed can be. How is it possible, then, for man to
attain eternal life by a method that supposes, and requires, that the
very dawn of his being be holy like that of Christ's, and that every
thought, feeling, purpose, and act be conformed to law through the
entire existence? Is it not too late for such a creature as man now
is to adopt the method of salvation by the works of the law?</span></div>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But we will not crowd
you, with the doctrine of native depravity and the sin in Adam. We
have no doubt that it is the scriptural and true doctrine concerning
human nature; and have no fears that it will be contradicted by
either a profound self- knowledge, or a profound metaphysics. But
perhaps you are one who doubts it; and therefore, for the sake of
argument, we will let you set the commencement of sin where you
please. If you tell us that it begins in the second, or the fourth,
or the tenth year of life, it still remains true that it is too late
to employ the method of justification by works. If you concede any
sin at all, at any point whatsoever, in the history of a human soul,
you preclude it from salvation by the deeds of the law, and shut it
up to salvation by grace. Go back as far as you can in your memory,
and you must acknowledge that you find sin as far as you go; and even
if, in the face of Scripture and the symbols of the Church, you
should deny that the sin runs back to birth and apostasy in Adam, it
still remains true that the first years of your conscious existence
were not years of holiness, nor the first acts which you re member,
acts of obedience. Even upon your own theory, you begin with sin, and
therefore you can not be justified by the law.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This, then, is a
conclusive reason and ground for the declaration of our Lord, that
the one great work which every fallen man has to perform, and must
perform, in order to salvation, is faith in another's work, and
confidence in another's righteousness. If man is to be saved by his
own righteousness, that righteousness must begin at the very
beginning of his existence, and go on without interruption. If he is
to be saved by his own good works, there never must be a single
instant in his life when he is not working such works. But beyond all
controversy such is not the fact. It is, therefore, impossible for
him to be justified by trusting in himself; and the only possible
mode that now remains, is to trust in another.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">II. And this brings us to
the second part of our subject. "This is the work of God, that
ye believe on him whom He hath sent." It will be observed that
faith is here denominated a "work." And it is so indeed. It
is a mental act; and an act of the most comprehensive and energetic
species. Faith is an active principle that carries the whole man with
it, and in it, — head and heart, will and affections, body soul and
spirit. There is no act so all- embracing in its reach, and so total
in its momentum, as the act of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In
this sense, it is a "work." It is no supine and torpid
thing; but the most vital and vigorous activity that can be conceived
of. When a sinner, moved by the Holy Ghost the very source of
spiritual life and energy, casts himself in utter helplessness, and
with all his weight, upon his Redeemer for salvation, never is he
more active, and never does he do a greater work.</span></div>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And yet, faith is not a
work in the common signification of the word. In the Pauline
Epistles, it is generally opposed to works, in such a way as to
exclude them. For example: " Where is boasting then? It is
excluded. By what law? of works? Nay, but by the law of faith.
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith, without the
deeds of the law. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of
the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in
Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and
not by the works of the law. Received ye the Spirit, by the works of
the law, or by the hearing of faith" (Romans iii. 27, 28;
Galatians ii. 16, iii. 2). In these and other passages, faith and
works are directly contrary to each other; so that in this
connection, faith is not a "work." Let us examine this
point, a little in detail, for it will throw light upon the subject
under discussion.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the opening of the
discourse, we alluded to the fact that when a man's attention is
directed to the subject of his soul's salvation, his first
spontaneous thought is, that he must of himself render some thing to
God, as an offset for his sins; that he must perform his duty by his
own power and effort, and thereby acquire a personal merit before his
Maker and Judge. The thought of appropriating another person's work,
of making use of what another being has done in his stead, does not
occur to him; or if it does, it is repulsive to him. His thought is,
that it is his own soul that is to be saved, and it is his own work
that must save it. Hence, he begins to perform religious duties in
the ordinary use of his own faculties, and in his own strength, for
the purpose, and with the expectation, of settling the ac count which
he knows is unsettled between himself and his Judge. As yet, there is
no faith in another Being. He is not trusting and resting in another
person; but he is trusting and resting in himself. He is not making
use of the work or services which another has wrought in his behalf,
but he is employing his own powers and faculties, in performing these
his own works, which he owes, and which, if paid in this style, he
thinks will save his soul. This is the spontaneous, and it is the
correct, idea of a "work," — of what St. Paul so often
calls a " work of the law." And it is the exact contrary of
faith.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For, faith never does
anything in this independent and self-reliant manner. It does not
perform a service in its own strength, and then hold it out to God as
something for Him to receive, and for which He must pay back wages in
the form of remitting sin and bestowing happiness. Faith is wholly
occupied with another's work, and another's merit. The believing soul
deserts all its own doings, and betakes itself to what a third person
has wrought for it, and in its stead. When, for illustration, a
sinner discovers that he owes a satisfaction to Eternal Justice for
the sins that are past, if he adopts the method of works, he will
offer up his endeavors to obey the law, as an offset, and a reason
why he should be forgiven. He will say in his heart, if he does not
in his prayer: "I am striving to atone for the past, by doing my
duty in the future; my resolutions, my prayers and alms-giving, all
this hard struggle to be better and to do better, ought certainly to
avail for my pardon." Or, if he has been educated in a
superstitious Church, he will offer up his penances, and
mortifications, and pilgrimages, as a satisfaction to justice, and a
reason why he should be forgiven and made blessed forever in heaven.
That is a very instructive anecdote which St. Simon relates
respecting the last hours of the profligate Louis XIV. "One
day," — he says, — "the king recovering from loss of
consciousness asked his confessor, Pere Tellier, to give him
absolution I for all his sins. Pere Tellier asked him if he suffered
much. 'No,' replied the king, 'that's what troubles me. I should like
to suffer more, for the expiation of my sins.'” Here was a poor
mortal who had spent his days in carnality and transgression of the
pure law of God. He is conscious of guilt, and feels the need of its
atonement. And now, upon the very edge of eternity and brink of doom,
he pro poses to make his own atonement, to be his own redeemer and
save his own soul, by offering up to the eternal nemesis that was
racking his conscience a few hours of finite suffering, instead of
betaking himself to the infinite passion and agony of Calvary. This
is a "work;" and, alas, a "dead work," as St.
Paul so often denominates it. This is the method of justification by
works. But when a man adopts the method of justification by faith,
his course is exactly opposite to all this. Upon discovering that he
owes a satisfaction to Eternal Justice for the sins that are past,
instead of holding up his prayers, or alms-giving, or penances, or
moral efforts, or any work of his own, he holds up the sacrificial
work of Christ. In his prayer to God, he interposes the agony and
death of the Great Substitute between his guilty soul, and the arrows
of justice He knows that the very best of his own works, that even
the most perfect obedience that a creature could render, would be
pierced through and through by the glittering shafts of violated law.
And there fore he takes the "shield of faith." He places
the oblation of the God-man, — not his own work and not his own
suffering, but another's work and an other's suffering, — between
himself and the judicial vengeance of the Most High. And in so doing,
he works no work of his own, and no dead work; but he works the "
work of God; " he believes on Him whom God hath set forth to be
a propitiation for his sins, and not for his only but for the sins of
the whole world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This then is the great
doctrine which our Lord taught the Jews, when they asked Him what
particular thing or things they must do in order to eternal life. The
apostle John, who recorded the answer of Christ in this instance,
repeats the doctrine again in his first Epistle: “Whatsoever we
ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandment, and do those
things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment,
that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ" (1
John iii, 22, 23). The whole duty of sinful man is here summed up,
and concentrated, in the duty to trust in another person than
himself, and in another work than his own. The apostle, like his Lord
before him, employs the singular number: "This is His
commandment," — as if there were no other commandment upon
record. And this corresponds with the answer which Paul and Silas
gave to the despairing jailor: "Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ," — do this one single thing, — "and thou shalt
be saved." And all of these teachings accord with that solemn
declaration of our Lord: "He that believeth on the Son hath
everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see
life; but the wrath of God abideth on, him." In the matter of
salvation, where there is faith in Christ, there is everything; and
where there is not faith in Christ, there is nothing.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. And it is with this
thought that we would close this discourse, and enforce the doctrine
of the text. Do whatever else you may in the matter of religion, you
have done nothing until you have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ,
who God hath sent into the world to be the propitiation for sin.
There are two reasons for this. In the first place, it is the
appointment and declaration of God, that man, if saved at all, must
be saved by faith in the Person and Work of the Mediator. 'Neither is
there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under
heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.' (Acts vi.12). It
of course rests entirely with the Most High God, to determine the
mode and manner in which He will enter into negotiations with His
creatures, and especially with His rebellious creatures. He must make
the terms, and the creature must come to them. Even, therefore, if we
could not see the reasonableness and adaptation of the method, we
should be obligated to accept it. The creature, and particularly the
guilty creature, cannot dictate to his Sovereign and Judge respecting
the terms and conditions by which he is to be received into favor,
and secure eternal life. Men overlook this fact, when they presume as
they do, to sit in judgment upon the method of redemption by the
blood of atonement and to quarrel with it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the first Punic war,
Hannibal laid siege to Saguntum, a rich and strongly-fortified city
on the eastern coast of Spain. It was defended with a desperate
obstinacy by its inhabitants. But the discipline, the energy, and the
persistence of the Carthaginian army, were too much for them; and
just as the city was about to fall, Alorcus, a Spanish chieftain, and
a mutual friend of both of the contending parties, undertook to
mediate between them. He proposed to the Saguntines that they should
surrender, allowing the Carthaginian general to make his own terms.
And the argument he used was this: "Your city is captured, in
any event. Further resistance will only bring down upon you the rage
of an incensed soldiery, and the horrors of a sack. Therefore,
surrender immediately, and take whatever Hannibal shall please to
give. You cannot lose anything by the procedure, and you may gain
something, even though it be little." (Livius: Historia, Lib. xxi.18) Now, although there is no resemblance between the government
of the good and merciful God and the cruel purposes and conduct of a
heathen warrior, and we shrink from bringing the two into any kind of
juxtaposition, still, the advice of the wise Alorcus to the
Saguntines is good advice for every sinful man, in reference to his
relations to Eternal Justice. We are all of us at the mercy of God.
Should He make no terms at all; had He never given His Son to die for
our sins, and never sent His Spirit to exert a subduing influence
upon our hard hearts, but had let guilt and justice take their
inexorable course with us; not a word could be uttered against the
procedure by heaven, earth, or hell. No creature, anywhere can
complain of justice. That is an attribute that cannot even be at
tacked. But the All-Holy is also the All-Merciful. He has made
certain terms, and has offered certain conditions of pardon, without
asking leave of His creatures and without taking them into council,
and were these terms as strict as Draco, instead of being as tender
and pitiful as the tears and blood of Jesus, it would become us
criminals to make no criticisms even in that extreme case, but accept
them precisely as they were offered by the Sovereign and the Arbiter.
We exhort you, therefore, to take these terms of salvation simply as
they are given, asking no questions, and being thankful that there
are any terms at all between the offended majesty of Heaven and the
guilty criminals of earth. Believe on Him whom God hath sent, because
it is the appointment and declaration of God, that if guilty man is
to be saved at all, he must be saved by faith in the Person and Work
of the Mediator. The very dis position to quarrel with this method
implies arrogance in dealing with the Most High. The least
inclination to alter the conditions shows that the creature is
attempting to criticise the Creator, and, what is yet more, that the
criminal has no true perception of his crime, no sense of his exposed
and helpless situation, and presumes to dictate the terms of his own
pardon!</span></div>
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</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. We might therefore
leave the matter here, and there would be a sufficient reason for
exercising the act of faith in Christ. But there is a second and
additional reason which we will also briefly urge upon you. Not only
is it the Divine appointment, that man shall be saved, if saved at
all, by the substituted work of another; but there are needs, there
are crying wants, in the human con science, that can be supplied by
no other method. There is a perfect adaptation between the Redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, and the guilt of sinners. As we have seen,
we could reasonably urge you to believe in Him whom God hath sent,
simply because God has sent Him, and because He has told you that He
will save you through no other name and in no other way, and will
save you in this name and in this way. But we now urge you to the act
of faith in this substituted work of Christ, because it has an
atoning virtue, and can pacify a perturbed and angry conscience; can
wash out the stains of guilt that are grained into it; can extract
the sting of sin which ulcerates and burns there. It is the idea of
expiation and satisfaction that we now single out, and press upon
your notice. Sin must be expiated, — expiated either by the blood
of the criminal, or by the blood of his Substitute. You must either
die for your own sin, or some one who is able and willing must die
for you. This is founded and fixed in the nature of God, and the
nature of man, and the nature of sin. There is an eternal and
necessary connection between crime and penalty. The wages of sin is
death. But, all this inexorable necessity has been completely
provided for, by the sacrificial work of the Son of God. In the
gospel, God satisfies His own justice for the sinner, and now offers
you the full benefit of the satisfaction, if you will humbly and
penitently accept it. "What compassion can equal the words of
God the Father addressed to the sinner condemned to eternal
punishment, and having no means of redeeming himself: 'Take my
Only-Begotten Son, and make Him an offering for thyself;' or the
words of the Son: 'Take Me, and ransom thy soul?' For this is what
both say, when they invite and draw man to faith in the gospel."
(Anselm: Cur Deus Homo? II.20). In urging you, therefore, to trust in
Christ's vicarious sufferings for sin, instead of going down to hell
and suffering for sin in your own person; in entreating you to escape
the stroke of justice upon yourself, by believing in Him who was
smitten in your stead, who "was wounded for your transgressions
and bruised for your iniquities;" in beseeching you to let the
Eternal Son of God be your Substitute in this awful judicial
transaction; we are summoning you to no arbitrary and irrational act.
The peace of God which it will introduce into your conscience, and
the love of God which it will shed abroad through your soul, will be
the most convincing of all proofs that the act of faith in the great
Atonement does no violence to the ideas and principles of the human
constitution. No act that contravenes those intuitions and
convictions which are part and particle of man's moral nature could
possibly produce peace and joy. It would be revolutionary and
anarchical. The soul could not rest an instant. And yet it is the
uniform testimony of all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, that the
act of simple confiding faith in His blood and righteousness is the
most peaceful, the most joyful act they ever performed, — nay, that
it was the first blessed experience they ever felt in this world of
sin, this world of remorse, this world of fears and forebodings
concerning judgment and doom.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is the question, then, of
the Jews, pressing upon your mind? Do you ask, What one particular
single thing shall I do, that I may be safe for time and eternity?
Hear the answer of the Son of God Himself: "This is the work of
God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span>Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-61903903974160104472018-05-11T15:30:00.000-05:002018-05-11T15:30:10.332-05:00R.L. Dabney on Using Fiction to Defend Truth
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The following paragraphs
come from a book review written by R.L. Dabney. The book in question
was entitled “Theodosia Ernest,” - the protagonsist's name. The
book was written by a Baptist minister, who by use of a fictional
story, attempted to defend the doctrine of believer's baptism and
refute the Presbyterian doctrine of infant baptism. Dabney rightly
takes issue with the author's innumerable misrepresentations of
Presbyterian doctrine, practice, and polity. But, in this particular
section, he raises the question of the legitimacy of using fiction as
a method for presenting and defending theological truth. To be sure,
no leading Reformed theologian that I can think of raises this
question.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“The folly and
unfairness of such a mode of inculcating or defending what is
supposed to be religious truth, can scarcely be too strongly
represented. In the first place, a moment's consideration should have
taught the author, that his selecting such a vehicle for his
discussion was really a confession of weakness and defeat. Having
failed to overthrow the sturdy Presbyterian champions in the fields
of true and legitimate discussion, he is compelled to manufacture
fictitious adversaries, in the pretended persons of Pastor Johnson,
Dr. McKought, and elder Jones,who should be stupid and foolish enough
to give this doughty Don Quixote a chance to claim the victory — If
he wished to try conclusions with a veritable Presbyterian champion,
why did he not select a bonafide and live controversialist, in the
person of some N. L. Rice, or Wm. L. McCalla? Ah; it was easier to
gain a seeming victory over a man of straw! And this is not all:
Conscious, as it seems,of the intrinsic weakness of his argument,the
author must needs throw around it the factitious and illegitimate
interest of a love-story. He did not believe, it seems, that his
principles were important and interesting enough, to make Christian
people read an honest and straightforward discussion of them for its
own sake: he must needs sugar the nauseous dose, to make it go down.
And then, one of his foremost champions forsooth, is a young, pretty
and ingenuous girl, who is painted as attractively as the author's
bungling hand knew how; in order to gain the unfair advantage of the
feelings of readers for youth, beauty and sex. Sophistries from the
mouth of a bearded man would be handled as they deserved; but when
they drop from the pretty mouth of a pretty woman, gallantry forbids
our testing them too narrowly! So that the author, afraid to meet
men, and as a man, skulks behind the petticoats of his heroine.
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“And indeed: what is
the intrinsic absurdity of sending Christian people to hunt for truth
(and that sacred truth), in a work of fiction? It is an insult to the
understandings of readers; and a disgrace to the denomination which
is judged to need such a mode of defense. No seeming triumph gained
over an imaginary antagonist can prove anything; for, as the same
author constructed both his adversary's argument and his own, of
course he would make the victory fall on his side. Æsop
tells us, in one of his fables, how the man and the lion were once,
during a truce in their warfare, amicably walking out together to
take the air. They passed a picture where a lion was represented as
bound, and crouching under the cudgel of a man. The man says to his
lion friend: 'You see there the superiority of our race to yours.'
'Nay,' quoth the lion, 'it is because a man was the painter. If a
lion had held the brush, the parties would have been in a rather
different position.' Let the reader make the application.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“It is said indeed,
that Immersionists justify the circulation of the work by saving,
that though there is a fictitious plot to make the book readable, all
is fair, because the arguments put into the mouths of the
Presbyterian characters are the standard arguments which we use when
defending ourselves, and that they are fairly stated. But we beg
leave to dispute both facts. According to all fair forensic rules,
our mere word, repudiating those arguments as fair and full
statements of our side, entitles us to arrest a debate conducted on
such a plan. When plaintiff and defendant come into court, each party
has a sovereign discretion in selecting his own advocate. If the
defendant says that the counsel who has volunteered in his cause is
not the man of his choice; and that, instead of representing him
fairly, he is betraying him, this is enough. It is only necessary for
the defendant to say that he considers this volunteer advocate as
unfaithful; it is not necessary for him to prove him such. He is
entitled to make his own selection of a defender. So, we
Presbyterians now and hereby notify Messrs. Graves, Marks & Co.,
and Messrs. Sheldon, Blakeman & Co., and all Immersionist
preachers, colporteurs, members and proselyters, in these United
States and the British Provinces, and wherever the far famed
Theodosia may be running, that we do not consider, and never have
considered the fair water-nymph (who was a full blooded Immersionist
before she began the investigation) nor the Presbyterian elder, Uncle
Jones, (who was evidently fishy, i. e. indulging partial tendencies
to go under the water, from the beginning,) nor poor, old parson
Johnson, (who confesses he had never examined the subject much,) as
suitable advocates of our cause; that we hereby repudiate them as
such; and that we now lay our formal 'injunction' on the progress of
the discussion in such feeble and treacherous hands. Now, will our
Immersionist neighbors arrest the debate; will they suspend the
circulation of the ex parte and repudiated discussion, until the
justice of our assertion can be tested; as they are forensically
bound to do, in all fairness and honesty? We shall see. But if they are very
anxious to prosecute this great cause of Immersionism versus
Presbyterianism, at once; let them take the arguments of some real,
actual Presbyterians, such as Dr. John H. Rice's Irenicum, Dr. John
M. Mason's Treatise on the Church of God, or Dr. N. L. Rice's Debate
with Campbell; print the whole of the Presbyterian argument in
Presbyterian works, [and not a few disjointed scraps, falsely and
treacherously torn from them] along with the best refutations they
can get; and lay these two pleas before the great jury of the
Religious Public. This, if fairly done, might be fair.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“The real motive and
design of this advocacy of pretended truth by fiction, is this: It
was hoped that the love-tale, the pictorial illustrations, the
influence of sex and youth in the heroines favor, would make a
multitude of ignorant people swallow the book, with its whole dose of
misrepresentations, false issues, and unfounded assertions; who would
never have taste, patience, or capacity, to read any such reply as
Presbyterians could condescend to write. These readers would gulph
down the low novel, but they would be very secure from the danger of
reading a manly, straight-forward discussion of its pretended
arguments and statements, unseasoned with fiction or demagogueism.
The whole enterprise is a calculation on the gullibility of mankind;
and it must be confessed, a calculation which was certain of
realization to a large degree. But then it is also true, that the
very element which ensures this partial success to the book, is the
element also of its unfairness. It is successful because it is so
unfair. So, in crimes of blacker character, the very treachery of the
assault is oftentimes the thing which makes resistance ineffectual.
When an honorable enemy meets us fairly by daylight, and face to
face, we have a chance of successful self-defense, according to that
measure of prowess which God has given us. But if our adversary is
wicked enough to turn assassin, and waylay our path, we are very free
to confess that we are in his power; except so far as a good
Providence interposes, the strength and skill of a Hercules will not
avail.
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“Let it be distinctly
understood then, that we neither hope nor expect to be attentively
and dispassionately read by the persons for whom the shrewd managers
of Theodosia Earnest have set their trap. People who are foolish
enough to go to a work of fiction to learn sacred truth, are not
likely to attend to a scholarly and solid discussion.” - R.L.
Dabney, Fiction, No Defense of Truth</span></span></div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-39020129502750195212018-01-22T06:00:00.000-06:002018-01-22T09:21:24.835-06:00The Nature And Remedy of Sinful Shame
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
THE NATURE AND REMEDY OF
SINFUL SHAME.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Psalm119:6.—“Then
shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy
commandments.” </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
To be able to look up to
God with humble confidence, and to obey his commands with freedom and
fidelity before the world, is, at once, the comfort and the glory of
a Christian. This, however, is an attainment not to be made without a
vigorous conflict—“For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and
the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the
other; so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” The
pleadings of corrupt nature, conspiring with the temptations of the
world, and the suggestions of the great enemy of souls, seduce the
Christian to the omission or violation of duty; and thus deprive him
of the light of the divine countenance, and of firmness and activity
in the divine life. The inspired Psalmist seems to have contemplated
this evil, and to have intended to prescribe its remedy, when he
exclaimed, in the words of the text—“Then shall I not be ashamed,
when I have respect unto all thy commandments.”—In discoursing on
the words, therefore, I will, in reliance on divine assistance,
endeavour
</div>
<ol type="I">
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
To explain the
nature and operations of the sinful shame which the inspired writer
appears so desirous to avoid.
</div>
</li>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Show how a regard to
all God’s commandments will destroy the existence of such shame,
or prevent its embarrassments.
</div>
</li>
</ol>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
After this, a few
practical reflections will conclude the address.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I. First, then, I am to
endeavour to explain the nature and operations of that shame, which
the sacred writer appears so desirous to avoid.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Shame has been
defined—“the passion which is felt when reputation is supposed to
be lost.” This is no doubt the popular import of the term; and yet
it is not, as we shall presently see, the only sense in which it is
used by the sacred writers. I would remark, however, that con
sidering it merely as a principle of the mind, which renders us
sensible to the ill opinion of our fellow men, it is no
inconsiderable guard on our virtue. It is, indeed, true, that this,
in common with every other useful principle of our nature, may, by
being turned into a wrong channel, produce injury instead of benefit.
It too often happens, in fact, that good men, from being unduly
influenced by a regard to the opinion of the worldly or profane, are
brought to be ashamed of their duty; and this is a part of the very
evil against which the text is directed. Still, however, it must be
admitted, that a sense of shame is, in itself, extremely useful, and
when suitably regulated and rightly directed, is a restraint against
vice and an incentive to virtue. A destitution of this principle is
ever considered as marking the extreme of human depravity—We
usually join together the epithets shameless and abandoned. The
extirpation or extinction of the sentiment of shame, therefore, is by
no means to be attempted. Our endeavours are only to be directed
against suffering it to be perverted, and against laying ourselves
open to those wounds which it may justly inflict. Now, with this
view, we are looking for the origin and source of these evils; and I
think we shall find them, by turning our attention from the creature
to the Creator—from man to God.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In the sacred writings,
the word we consider is frequently used to denote those painful
feelings of the mind, which are produced by a conviction of our
offences against the Majesty of Heaven; especially when those
offences partake peculiarly of the nature, or are seen re markably in
the light of baseness, unreasonableness, and ingratitude. Thus, when
the Jews, who had been mercifully restored from the Babylonish
captivity, violated the command of the Most High, by improper
connexions with the idolatrous nations, Ezra thus addresses
Jehovah—“Oh my God! I blush and am ashamed to lift up my face to
thee my God, for our iniquities are increased over our heads, and our
trespass is gone up unto the heavens”—Here shame is used to
denote little else than the operations of conscience; or the
oppression of soul which is produced by the sense of being guilty and
vile in the sight of a holy God: And you will carefully observe, that
the effect of this is, the destruction of all freedom and confidence
in addressing the Father of mercies, and almost of the hope of pardon
and acceptance with him. This, my brethren, is undoubtedly the origin
of the evil which the text contemplates. It takes its rise from this
point, and its baneful influence is extended through a long train of
unhappy consequences. We may trace them thus—
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
All practical religion
has its very foundation in a realizing belief of an all-seeing God,
who, while he is perfectly acquainted with all the secrets of the
soul, and with every action of life, is also of purer eyes than to
behold any iniquity, but with detestation and abhorrence. But the
mind, we say, in which this belief and apprehension exists, is
conscious of dealing treacherously with the Most High; conscious that
its affections are shamefully divided between him and inferior
objects; conscious of not seeking his favour in secret with that holy
earnestness which its value demands; conscious that its penitence for
sin is miserably imperfect; conscious that hidden lusts and
corruptions, not only rise and plead for indulgence, but actually
obtain it; conscious that certain duties have been most criminally
neglected and certain sins allowed; conscious of presumptuous sinning
against light and know ledge; conscious of repeated violations of the
most solemn resolutions and engagements; conscious, in a word, not
merely of remaining pollution, but of inexcusable neglect,
unfaithfulness and insincerity, in duty to God and devotion to his
service. How, I ask, can he whose mind informs him of all this, look
up, with any confidence, to that infinite Being who, he realizes, is
perfectly acquainted with all this baseness? He cannot do it:—shame
and confusion drive him away from the divine throne. He fears to draw
near to God; or if he at tempts it, the service is hasty and
superficial. The mind is afraid of its own reflections, and seeks
temporary and imperfect ease by overlooking or endeavouring to forget
its state. Still, a secret uneasiness continually preys upon it, nor
will ever cease to corrode it, while it remains thus unsettled and
divided.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Follow, now, this victim
of shame before God, into his intercourse among men. Suppose that he
has never openly professed a religious character. Then you see him
most piteously embarrassed, confounded and distressed. Wicked
companions solicit and endeavour to lead him into vice. His
conscience is too much awake to permit him to comply with pleasure,
and yet he is sensible of too much insincerity to allow him to refuse
with firmness. He half refuses and half complies; and thus becomes
the scorn of the licentious, without obtaining the countenance of the
pious. Those who are strictly religious regard his friendship as
uncertain; those who are openly profane consider his con duct as
dastardly; and thus the hesitating wretch is covered with shame
before the world, as well as before his Maker.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Or suppose—and, alas!
that it is not a mere supposition—that the unhappy state of mind we
have described, belongs to one who publicly professes to be a
follower of Christ. How painfully must he feel the inconsistency of
his profession, with the inward temper of his heart? How misgiving
and wavering must be his mind? How unfurnished is he, while destitute
of inward support, for all those conflicts with the world, and all
those reproaches from it, with which he will be sure to meet? With
what face can he reprove others, while secretly he condemns himself?
When called to speak for God, how will his mind misgive him, and his
face crimson with blushes, while his heart in forms him, that he is
espousing a cause in which his own sincerity is doubtful? How will it
often seal his lips in silence, when he ought to speak? When censured
and condemned by the profligate, how will he be wounded by the
recollection that the sentence is partly merited? When his good
works, themselves, are evil spoken of, how will he be dismayed by
seeing the just chastisement of heaven for the improper disposition
with which he performed them? When charged with the black crime of
hypocrisy, how will he be confounded to think that, in the sight of
God, the charge is bottomed on truth? When called to suffer for
conscience sake, or to hazard his life in the discharge of duty, how
will he be appalled and shrink back with fear, while conscience tells
him that he is a backslider from God, if not a settled enemy to him?
When only called to the open avowal of his Christian character, in
the solemn acts of religious worship, how will inward upbraidings
fill him with trembling and embarrassment, and mar the performance,
by a diffidence equally distressing and dishonourable?—Nay, will
not these causes drive him altogether from attempting many duties,
and go near to turn him wholly from his Christian course? Yes, my
brethren, these are the consequences of the shame of which I have
spoken, as they take place in the discharge of religious obligations
in the sight of men. The summary of its history, therefore, is—that
it originates in a sense of guilt, arising from the consciousness of
being unfaithful to God; which first destroys or prevents a filial
intercourse with him, and confidence of his favour; and then, as a
necessary consequence, abashes and confounds its subject, when in the
eye of the world, he assumes a character, or attempts a practice,
which is contrary to the feelings of his heart. This is the evil
contemplated in the text—an evil of unspeakable magnitude, in the
estimation of all who have not wholly lost their regard both to their
duty and their comfort, in the Christian life. Listen, then, to the
remedy prescribed—while I attempt to show -
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
II. How a regard to all
God’s commandments will destroy the existence, or prevent the
embarrassments, of this sinful shame.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In entering on this part
of the subject, it may be of some importance to endeavour to obtain
clear and distinct ideas of what was in tended to be conveyed by the
expression—“having a respect unto all God’s commandments.”
Does it intend a perfect obedience to all the divine laws, or a
sinless observance of them? Certainly not—For the inspired penman
evidently fixed his views on an attainment, which he not only
proposed to labour after, but which he actually hoped to make, in the
present life;—and we have the unequivocal testimony of revelation
“that there is not a just man on earth, who doth good and sinneth
not,” and that “if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and
the truth is not in us.” Neither can it be intended, that any man
will ever yield such an obedience to the divine requisitions as
shall, of itself, be the just ground of his confidence before God; or
so place him on the , footing of merit, as that he may claim the
approbation and favour of heaven, as a matter of right. The
impossibility of this is, indeed, implied in the last remark; for
nothing less than an unsinning respect to the commands of God,
through the whole of our existence, could entitle us to this claim.
The finished work of the Redeemer,—his atoning sacrifice, his
complete and perfect righteousness, and his prevalent intercession,
constitute the only meritorious cause of par don and acceptance with
God, for any of the apostate race of Adam —It is only in Christ
Jesus that God is “reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them;” because “he hath made him to be sin
for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him.” The first freedom, which any soul that has been
suitably convinced of sin obtains, to look up to a holy God with a
measure of filial confidence, is wholly derived from seeing the ample
provision which is made in the plan of salvation, for extending
pardon and eternal life to the sinner, in consistency with the divine
honour; and from a disposition to embrace this plan with
thankfulness, and to trust it in faith. It is, therefore, so far from
being true that the expression warrants any reliance on our own
merits, that it necessarily implies the opposite doctrine: “As it
is written, behold I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of
offence, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed”—Not
to be ashamed, is here predicated, and it is certainly true, only of
those who believe in Christ. It is, moreover, written, “This is his
commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus
Christ,” and therefore we cannot have respect unto all the
commandments of God, while a compliance with this is wanting.
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I detain you with this
statement, my brethren, because it is to be regarded, not merely in
the light of a negative, or as intended to guard against a
misapprehension" of the truth, but because it contains the
essence of the truth itself. It is an undoubted fact, as I am sure
every exercised Christian will testify, that when he has wandered
from God, and is sunk down into despondence under a sense of his
backsliding and unworthiness, the first and only relief that he
obtains is, from a heart melting, and a heart attracting view of the
infinite fulness of his Redeemer, and the freeness of the riches of
his grace. It is this view that encourages him to return; it is this
that brings him back with true brokenness of heart; it is this that
enables him to cherish hope though most undeserving; and it is this
that sweetly constrains him to devote himself more unreservedly to
God than ever he had done before, from a strong sense of gratitude
and obligation. In having such respect, therefore, unto all God’s
commandments as will deliver us from the influence of shame, a lively
exercise of faith in Christ, lies at the bottom of all. It is also
the constraining influence of the love of Christ, which is the source
of that new obedience, which reaches the extent of the requisition—It
produces what has sometimes been called a gracious sincerity, in the
heart of the believer. It awakens in him a strong desire to be
delivered from the dominion of all sin; so that he will not knowingly
and allowedly indulge in any transgression; he will desire that every
lust and corruption may be mortified, and subdued; and will pant
after greater conformity to God. He will be so far from desiring to
rest short of any thing which Christ requires of his people, that he
will press forward, and ardently long after the highest attainment,
and lament that higher attainments are not made. He will, in short,
seek his supreme happiness in communion with God, in the diligent use
of all the appropriate means of holy intercourse with him. Thus the
author of the text, in the 8th verse of the psalm where it is found,
says—“Let my heart be sound in thy statutes, that I be not
ashamed.” It is this soundness of heart—this gracious sincerity
in the sight of God—this impartial regard or respect to every
command of the Most High, without taking one and leaving another—this
careful employment of all the means and methods of avoiding
transgression that answers completely the condition of the assertion
on which I dis course. And let us now see how strictly the assertion
will be verified, in those who comply with the condition.
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I remark then, in the
first place, that a compliance with this condition removes, naturally
and radically, the cause of all the guilty shame, and embarrassment
of which I have spoken, by producing a consistent character. Shame is
the natural consequence and proper punishment of guilt. The only
methods of getting rid of the pain which it occasions are, to
extinguish the principle, or to avoid the causes of its excitement.
The former of these methods is actually and frequently pursued by the
abandoned. By plunging into the excesses of vice, and familiarizing
themselves with all its pollutions, they extinguish shame and
conscience together—On the middle character, contemplated in the
former part of this discourse, that character in which there is still
a sensibility to the demands of duty, and where, notwithstanding,
those demands are disregarded or left unsatisfied, it is here that
the principle of shame inflicts, as we have seen, all its
chastisements. But where the demands of duty are satisfied, there the
cause of shame itself is taken away; and though the utmost
sensibility be retained, it creates no uneasiness, because it meets
with no violation. This is the case of those who have that respect
unto all God’s commandments, which we have just considered. Through
the peace speaking blood of Jesus, they have received the full
remission of all their sins. By maintaining a close and humble walk
with God, they preserve an habitual persuasion of this comfortable
truth; or rather they experience a daily and habitual renewal of its
effects. In the exercise of the spirit of adoption, they draw near
with a holy confidence, and cry “Abba, Father”— They have a
blessed assurance, that God will realize to them all the benefits of
the covenant of grace; and esteeming “his favour as life, and his
loving kindness as better than life,” they rejoice in him “with a
joy which is exceeding great and full of glory.” In one word, they
verify in their own experience the declaration of the Apostle, where
he says—“Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we
confidence toward God: and whatsoever we ask we receive of him,
because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are
pleasing in his sight”—And thus when that which we have seen to
be the very fountain of shame, namely, a want of confidence in God,
is dried up in the heart of a Christian, it can send forth none of
its bitter streams to poison his pleasure, or to wither his strength,
in the public discharge of his duty. “His heart is fixed, trusting
in God.” His heart is in all that he says, and in all that he does;
and therefore he becomes—as we are told the righteous shall
become—“bold as a lion.” Is it incumbent on him to reprove the
vicious and profane? he can do it without embarrassment, for he only
speaks against that which his soul abhors. Is an occasion offered to
speak for God? his mouth speaketh from the abundance of his heart,
and therefore he speaks freely, pertinently, and composedly; and he
is ever ready to speak, when a fit opportunity occurs. Is he branded
as a hypocrite? he is sensible that his all-seeing Judge knows the
charge to be groundless, and therefore it disturbs him not he pities
and forgives his accuser. Is he called to avow his Christian
character? he does it freely and cheerfully, for it is the character
in which he most of all glories. Is he subjected to reproach for the
cause of Christ? he even glories that “he is counted worthy to
suffer shame for his name,” remembering that “if any man suffer
as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but to glorify God in this
behalf.” Or if he is called to give up life itself, in an adherence
to his duty, he can do it cheer fully, even though it were amidst the
scoffs of a deriding world; for he knows that the honour which cometh
from God, and of which he is sure, is infinitely greater than that
which cometh from man only.
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Brethren, the history of
the church is a continual confirmation of these truths. Supported by
the principles I have explained, three unprotected young men could
face an assembled nation, could face a burning fiery furnace, could
face the mightiest monarch on earth, and say—“Be it known unto
thee, O king! that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden
image which thou hast set up.” Supported by these principles, two
ignorant and unlearned fishermen, dragged from prison, and from
chains before the Jewish Sanhedrin, could say—“Be it known unto
you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus
Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead,
doth this man stand here before you whole.” Supported by these
principles, a host of martyrs, in later ages, have courted a
scaffold, or been consumed at the stake. And, without recurring to
such striking instances, it is the support of these principles which
enables every Christian, who leads a life of real nearness to God, to
adorn the doctrine of his Saviour in all things—The blessed
assurance which he habitually maintains that his God is his friend,
makes him fearless of the world—It raises him far above its
influence, and puts, without his seeking it, a dignity into his
conduct and his very presence, which nothing else can confer.</div>
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2. By having respect to
all God’s commandments, we acquire the advantage which arises from
a decided character, and are thus delivered from many temptations to
those sinful compliances which are the cause of shame. The person who
cherishes the inward sentiments, and maintains the outward deportment
which has been explained, will unavoidably assume, in the eye of the
world, an appearance and character which will distinguish him as one
who is not governed by its maxims, and who does not follow its
fashions. It will no longer be doubtful to whom he belongs—Those
who are conformed to this world, will see and feel that he is guided
by other principles than those which influence them, and pursues a
totally different system of living and of happiness, from that which
they have adopted. Hence they will not so licit an intimacy with him;
for intimacies exist only between parties of a similar taste. When
thrown together by the calls of business, or in the intercourse of
life, (for this character by no means requires austerity or
abstractedness,) it will not be expected that the decided friend of
piety will relish or take part in questionable liberties. His
presence will even prove a restraint on others; or to say the least,
his character will be a protection to himself, from solicitations to
unlawful practices. That character will also be both a guard on
himself against doing or saying any thing that might wound his
conscience, and will afford him an advantage in speaking or acting
against every thing improper. The desire of appearing consistent,
will be a natural call on him to defend what he professes to esteem,
and the expectation that he will act this part, will enable him to do
it with freedom and with advantage. And thus will temptations to
those sinful compliances which are the cause of shame, be greatly
diminished, and the principles of religion be guarded, even by the
care of reputation.</div>
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This decided character
for piety, will moreover, render its possessor extremely dear to all
who are Christians indeed; and from this cause he will gain an
immense advantage. The influence of social inter course, on all our
opinions and practice, is ever great; and it is not less in regard to
religion, than in reference to any other subject. Christians inform
each other by their conversation, encourage and animate each other by
their exhortations, assist each other by a comparison of their
exercises, embolden each other by a recital of their hopes, and help
and strengthen each other by their prayers. He who is joined to this
happy society, is continually imbibing more of the spirit which
distinguishes and animates it, and is therefore less in danger of
acting unworthily of his Christian character, and of wounding his own
peace.
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3. A respect unto all
God’s commandments, will deliver us from the influence of sinful
shame, inasmuch as it will exceedingly lower the world, and every
created object, in our estimation and regard. This idea has been a
little anticipated, but it is of so much importance, that it deserves
to be brought distinctly into view. When men are conscious of guilt,
it has been admitted that they ought to blush and be con founded—But
whence proceeds that fear of man which bringeth a snare? why are men
timid and abashed in the discharge of duty? in doing that which their
consciences dictate and approve? In some individuals, this, no doubt,
must be in part resolved into constitutional make, or natural
infirmity. But after every just allowance, much will still remain to
be attributed to the high estimation in which we hold the opinions of
our fellow men, even when they come in competition with duty and
conscience. If it were with us, as it was with the apostle, “a
small thing to be judged of man’s judgment,” we should be wholly
delivered from this inconvenience, as far as it arises from
principle; and should go far to get the victory over it, even as a
natural infirmity. Now, a life of nearness to God, will assuredly
give us this estimation of all human opinions, so far as they
militate with our Christian obligations. The fear of man whose breath
is in his nostrils, will be absorbed in the fear of him “who is
able to destroy both body and soul in hell.” The mind which takes
clear and frequent views of an infinite God, and a boundless
eternity; which places them often be fore it, brings them into ideal
presence, and dwells as it were sur rounded by them; such a mind will
look down on the world with a holy indifference. Its censure or its
applause, its smiles or its frowns, will be regarded as matters of
small estimation:
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“His hand the good man
fastens on the skies,
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Then bids earth turn, nor
feels the idle whirl.”
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He feels that his heart
and his treasure are in heaven; his thoughts, his hopes, his desires,
are principally there. Not setting a high estimation on earthly
possessions or human applause, he is not much agitated with anxiety
when he contemplates them, nor when they are denied him. This appears
to have been eminently the temper of the Psalmist, when he said—“Whom
have I in heaven but thee, and there is none on earth that I desire
beside thee.” This was the temper of the great apostle of the
Gentiles, when he said—“I am crucified to the world and the world
to me—Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have
suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I
may win Christ.” This, in fine, is the temper which every one will,
in a good degree, possess, whose conversation is in heaven; and
possessing this, he will, as a natural consequence, rise above a
sinful and ensnaring fear of man, and be able, with comfort and
composure, to support and adorn his Christian profession.
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Thus, it appears that a
respect to all God’s commandments, by giving us a consistent
character-producing confidence in God; by rendering that character
decided, in the view of the world; and by lessening our estimation
for the things of time and the opinions of men; will deliver us from
shame and embarrassment in the discharge of every duty.
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In how strong a light, my
brethren, does this subject place the folly of those, who are
balancing in their minds between the demands of religion and the
allurements of the world; and endeavouring to reconcile a regard to
both? We see that, in fact, they obtain satisfaction from
neither—they are the most unhappy persons upon earth. If I speak to
any of this description; to any who are doubting and hesitating about
coming forward to an open avowal of a Christian character; to any who
are half inclined to this, but are held back by a fear of the world;
I would entreat them to lay aside their hostility to their own
happiness, by a resolute discharge of duty. Believe it, your efforts
to reconcile the service of God and the friendship of the world, will
be forever vain, and you will be forever tormented while you attempt
it. If you will be for God, you must be for him wholly and
unreservedly; without seeking to accommodate his service to the
opinions and feelings of unsanctified men. Your interest, no less
than your duty, en joins this—“Wherefore come out from among
them, and be ye separate saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean
thing, and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye
shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”
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In a still stronger light
does this subject place both the folly and impiety of professing
Christians, who are stealing away to the forbidden pleasures of sin;
as if religion were not able to afford them happiness. Be it known
that the very reason why it does not afford you happiness, if I speak
to such, is because you are not devoted to it; because you mingle it
so much with the world, that you debase its nature; because you only
retain enough of it to wound your consciences, and to cover you with
shame and confusion, but have not enough to enable you to take hold
of its divine supports, and to taste its heavenly consolations. Cease
then to pierce yourselves through with many sorrows—Return unto the
Lord, and cleave unto him with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and you shall find that it is not a vain thing to serve him.
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On the whole, let us all
be exhorted to endeavour to walk more with God—We cannot wander
from his presence, without unspeakable in jury to ourselves. In his
presence only is the light of life—While we remain here, we bring
down a portion of heaven to earth. Let us, therefore, set it as our
mark to obey all God’s commandments, without choice or exception.
Let us pray unceasingly for the aids of his Holy Spirit, that we may
be enabled to do so; and let us guard against every thing that might
have a tendency to interrupt our intercourse with our Father in
heaven. Amen.</div>
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From: Practical Sermons,
Extracted From “The Christian Advocate”</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-38040773011398172802018-01-18T06:00:00.000-06:002018-01-18T06:00:07.629-06:00Pierre Allix on the Psalms
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<span style="font-style: normal;">Pierre
Allix (1641-1717) was a French Protestant pastor and author. The
revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 compelled him to take
refuge in London. There he set up a church in Jewin street,
Aldersgate. He was the most celebrated Huguenot preacher of the 1680s
in England. In 1690 Allix was created Doctor of Divinity by Emmanuel
College, Cambridge, and was given the treasurership and a canonry in
salisbury Cathedral by Bishop Gilbert Burnet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><br />The
work is composed of two parts: First Allix presents an essay
describing the correct method of interpreting the Psalms. The second
part is the whole book of Psalms itself, supplied with short
explanatory notes before each one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><br />The
introductory essay by Allix, explaining the proper method of
interpreting the Psalms, is an outstanding work. He argues
conclusively, that the idea of “double meaning” is foolish.
Neither Christ, nor His apostles ever understood the Psalms to have a
double meaning (applied to David or Solomon, and also to Christ). </span>
</div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><br />Allix
write: “Nothing is more ordinary among the interpreters of the
scripture, than to explain the Oracles of the Old Testament in the
first place according to the Letter, and afterwards according to the
spirit. They carefully refer to David, for instance, or to solomon,
what they think belongs to them in the Psalms, and then what they
find is non-applicable to David or to solomon, they pretend it has a
regard to the Messias. The ground these Divines go upon-is, that the
Holy Ghost in the New Testament has referred to our Lord Jesus Chris
divers Prophesies, which seem to have been pronounced under the Old
Testament with respect to David and to Solomon, and which indeed seem
to befit them in some measure, though they have not an exact
fulfilling in those Princes, but only in the Person of the Messias.
“They assert therefore, that no inconvenience will follow from
referring to the Type what belongs to it, and to the Antitype what
concerns it; nay, they look upon this duplicity of sense in the same
Prophecy, as worthy of the spirit of God, being an instance of the
care he has taken to give his ancient People Types of the time to
come...“I affirm that method to be absolutely unknown to the holy
Writers; it is an human fancy, grounded only upon the invention of
the Interpreters. And indeed, as it is not agreeable to natural
Principles for God to grant a Revelation treating and speaking of two
different Subjects and of two different Persons in the same speech,
and with the same words, so one could never have guessed the Spirit
of God did intend his Predictions should be so understood, without
his particular Revelation that they had two senses this respected two
Persons very different from each other in all the circumstances of
place, time, and actions.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><br />Allix
goes on to show how Peter, for instance, when citing Psalm 16, argues
that it would be absurd to interpret it of David. Also, the Apostles
refer more than once to David as “a prophet,” signifying that
what he wrote could not possibly be about himself. It was the normal
practice of Christ and His apostles to refer all of the Psalms to
Christ – and to assert – in no uncertain terms - that they spoke
of Him. </span>
</div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><br />The
early church did the same thing. This is seen in Justin Martyr's
Dialogue with Trypho, in Tertullian's Treatise Against the Jews, and
Cyprian's books to Quirinius. Allix says, in essence, <br />“You
can't go wrong interpreting the Psalms the way that the Apostles did
– mainly because they did so under the inspiration of the same Holy
Spirit who put the original words in the mouth of David.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><br />The
power of the predictive nature of the Psalms is blunted, Allix
maintains, by this double method of interpreting them. So he says,
“And truly, supposing that method of interpreting Scripture by a
double sense to be true, they could never have been able to persuade
anybody from the old Prophecies. Go and tell an Heathen or a Jew that
there are Prophecies in the Old Testament that speak of two persons;
viz. of David and of the Messias; at the same time, without any
difference in the Stile, but distinguished only by this
characteristic: that what has been fulfilled in David in a lower
sense, was to he fulfilled in the Person of the Messias in a much
higher and more magnificent sense, and I am sure he will appear not
at all satisfied. with the Proposition...So long as Divine Revelation
is brought in to declare a fact which is at a distance, and which
cannot be known and which cannot be known otherwise, the efficacy of
the Prophecy is much weakened by supposing that the Holy Ghost has
expressed himself concerning two Facts, one present, and the other
more remote, in the same terms, this thing would naturally confound
the sense of the Prophecy, and seems to want a new revelation for the
distinguishing of its senses.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;"><br />There
are some valuable insights in the prefatory notes for each Psalm, but
the real gold is the introductory essay on interpreting the whole
book. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;">The book can be accessed <a href="https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Pierre_Allix_The_Book_of_Psalms_with_the_Argument?id=JOxUAAAAcAAJ">here</a>. </span>
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</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-77856964520021183002018-01-13T06:00:00.000-06:002018-01-13T06:00:00.211-06:00H.P. Liddon on the Timeless Nature of Scripture<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Some instruction, no
doubt, is to be gathered from the literature of every people; the
products of the human mind, in all its phases, and in circumstances
the most unpromising, have generally something to tell us. But, on
the other hand, there is a great deal in the wisest uninspired
literatures that cannot properly be described as permanently or
universally instructive; much in that of ancient Greece; much in that
of our own country. And therefore, when an Apostle says of a great
collection of books of various characters, and on various subjects
—embodying the legislation, history, poetry, morals, of a small
Eastern people —that whatsoever was contained in them had been set
down for the instruction of men of another and a wider faith, living
in a later age, and, by implication, for the instruction of all human
beings, —this is certainly, when we think of it, an astonishing
assertion. Clearly, if the Apostle is to be believed, these books
cannot be like any other similar collection of national laws,
records, poems, proverbs; there must be in them some quality or
qualities which warrant this lofty estimate. </div>
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<br /></div>
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“Then we may observe
that, as books rise in the scale of excellence, whatever their
authorship or outward form, they tend towards exhibiting a permanence
and universality of interest; they rise above the local and personal
accidents of their production, and discover qualities which address
themselves to the mind and heart of the human race. </div>
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<br /></div>
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This is, as we all know,
the case to a great extent with Shakespeare. The ascendancy of his
genius is entirely independent of the circumstances of his life, of
which we know scarcely anything, and of the dramatic form into which
he threw his ideas. He has been read, re-read, commented on,
discussed, by nine generations of Englishmen; his phrases have passed
into the language, so that we constantly quote him without knowing
it; his authority as an analyst and exponent of human nature has
steadily grown with the advancing years. Nay, despite the eminently
English form of his writings, German critics have claimed him as, by
reason of the wealth of his thought, a virtual fellow-countryman; and
even the peoples of the Latin races, who would have greater
difficulty in understanding him, have not been slow to offer him the
homage of their sympathy and admiration. </div>
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<br /></div>
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“And yet, by what an
interval is Shakespeare parted from the books of the Hebrew
Scriptures His grand dramatic creations, we feel, after all are only
the workmanship of a shrewd human observer, with the limitations of a
human point of view, and with that restricted moral authority which
is all that the highest human genius can claim. But here is a Book
which provides for human nature as a whole and which makes this
provision with an insight and comprehensiveness that does not belong
to the capacity of the most gifted men. Could any merely human
authors have stood the test which the Old Testament has stood? Think
what it has been to the Jewish people throughout the tragic
vicissitudes of their wonderful history. Think what it has been to
Christendom. For nineteen centuries it has formed the larger part of
the religious handbook of the Christian Church; it has shaped
Christian hopes; it has largely governed Christian legislation; it
has supplied the language for Christian prayer and praise. The
noblest and saintliest souls in Christendom have one after another
fed their souls on it, or even on fragments of it; taking a verse,
and shutting the spiritual ear to everything else, and in virtue of
the concentrated intensity with which they have thus sought, for
days, and weeks, and months, and years, to penetrate the inmost
secrets of this or that fragment of its consecrated language, rising
to heroic heights of effort and endurance. Throughout the Christian
centuries the Old Testament has been worked like a mine, which is as
far from being exhausted today as in the Apostolic age. Well might
the old Hebrew poet cry, 'I am as glad of Thy Word as one that
findeth great spoils.' 'The Law of the Lord is an undefiled Law,
converting the soul the testimony of the Lord is sure, and giveth
wisdom unto the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, and
rejoice the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, and giveth
light unto the eyes. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than
much fine gold: sweeter also than honey, and the honeycomb.'</div>
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<br /></div>
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“Even those parts of
the Old Testament which seem least promising at first sight have some
instruction to give us, if we will only look out for it. Those
genealogies which occur in historical books sometimes remind us of
the awful responsibility which attaches to the trans mission, with
the gift of physical life, of a type of character, which we have
ourselves formed or modified, to another, perhaps a distant
generation or sometimes they suggest the care with which all that
bore on the human ancestry of our Lord was preserved in the records
of the people of revelation. Those accounts, too, of fierce war and
indiscriminate slaughter, such as the extermination of the
Canaanites, pourtray the vigour and thoroughness with which we should
endeavour to extirpate sins that may long have settled in our hearts.
Those minute ritual directions of the Law, which might at first sight
read like the rubrics of a system that had for ever passed away,
should, as they might, bring before us first one and then another
aspect of that to which they pointed the redeeming work of our Lord
Jesus Christ.”
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
H.P. Liddon, The Worth of
the Old Testament, A sermon preached Second Sunday of Advent (December 8, 1889)</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-35121489595504979822017-12-15T05:30:00.000-06:002017-12-15T05:30:15.137-06:00John 6 Is Not About The Sacrament Of The Lord's Supper
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By corporal manducation,
we understand the eating of bread and wine, which Jesus Christ
honoured with the title of bis body and blood, because they are the
sacrament and commemoration of them. But our opponents pretend
actually to eat the body of Jesus Christ with the mouth, and to
transmit it into the stomach; and to support this very gross and
Capernaitical manducation, they allege the sixth chapter, where Jesus
says that he is the bread come down from heaven, and promises to give
them his flesh to eat.
</div>
<ol style="text-align: justify;" type="I">
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
To believe that, we
must purposely shut our eyes and contradict the Son of God, — for
the whole discourse is ad dressed to the Jews of Capernaum, to whom
he promises to give his flesh to eat. If by these words he promised
to give them the Eucharist, he deceived them, for he never
administered nor presented to them the Holy Supper.</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
That even appears by
the time at which Jesus Christ pronounced this discourse. The Holy
Supper was not then instituted, nor till about two years after. How
could our Lord's disciples know that he spoke to them of the
Eucharist which had yet no existence, and which had never yet been
mentioned any where throughout this discourse?
</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Does our Lord make
the slightest mention of the table, or of the cup, or of the supper,
or of the breaking of bread, or of the distribution of bread among
many? In short, there are none of those actions wherein the ad
ministration of sacrament consists.
</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It is to be
remarked, that Jesus Christ often speaks in the present tense. He
does not say, "I shall be the bread of life, — I shall be the
bread come down from heaven;" but "I am the bread come
down from heaven, — I am the bread of life; and he who eats my
flesh hath eternal life." He was, therefore, the bread of life
before the Holy Supper was instituted; and this bread could be
eaten, and was the nourishment of the soul, at the time when the
Holy Supper was not yet in existence.
</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Now, that by eating
and drinking the Lord means believing and confiding in himself, and
thereby being made alive and sustained, he himself shews, saying,
(verse 35,) "I am the bread of life; he who comes unto me shall
never hunger; and whosoever believes in me shall never thirst."
Who does not see that in this passage believe is put for drink,
since thirst is quenched by believing; and as by the word come he
speaks of a spiritual coming, so by the word drink he means a
spiritual mode of drinking?</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
And when the Lord
says, (verse 47,) "He that believeth on me hath eternal life, —
I am the bread of life," who does not see that this bread is
received by believing? For Jesus Christ shews how he is the bread of
life, viz. that they who believe on him have eternal life.
</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Even the words on
which our adversaries found the most, are those which are most
adverse to them. The Lord says, (verse 53,) "Except ye eat the
flesh, and drink the blood of the Son of Man, ye have no life in
you." — Here it is evident that he speaks of a manducation
necessary to salvation, and without which no one can be saved. He
does not, therefore, speak of a corporal and oral manducation of the
Sacrament, seeing that without it so many are saved. To say that
this manducation is not necessary in the fact, but in wish and
desire, is to approach to our belief, and to reduce the necessity to
a spiritual manducation. Besides, to say that no one is saved
without desiring to partake of the Lord's Supper, is to exclude John
the Baptist and the malefactor who was crucified with our Lord, from
salvation, neither of whom partook of it either by act or wish. And
we might bring the example of many Pagans and idolaters who, by
hearing the words of martyrs, were suddenly converted, and were
executed the same hour, without ever having heard of this Sacrament,
and consequently without having formed any wish to partake of it.
Many suffered martyrdom without even being baptised, and therefore
were far from being prepared to partake of the Eucharist.
</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The same thing
likewise appears by what Jesus Christ adds in verse 54: "Whoso
eateth my flesh hath eternal life." He does not speak of the
manducation of the Sacrament, for many who eat of it have not
eternal life. The usual evasion is, that Jesus Christ speaks of such
as eat of this flesh worthily; from which it appears how clearly the
truth is on our side. For, according to our be lief, the words of
the Lord are true without any addition. — But our opponents, to
extricate themselves, add their glosses, which proceed from their
own invention, and not from the word of God. We may indeed eat of
the bread unworthily, as Paul says, (I Cor. xi.) "whosoever
shall eat this bread unworthily." But it is impossible to eat
of the flesh of the Lord unworthily, since, as. we have shewn, to
eat is to believe. We can no more believe in Jesus Christ unworthily
than than we can love God unworthily, seeing that our worthiness
consists in believing in Jesus Christ, and in loving God. This is
what Cardinal Cajetan remarks on John vi. saying, "Jesus Christ
does not say, whoso eats my flesh and drinks my blood worthily, but
whoso eats and drinks; that we might know that he speaks of an
eating and a drinking that has no need of modification," &c.
It, therefore, clearly appears, that this discourse ought not to be
understood literally; and that the Lord does not speak of eating and
drinking the Sacrament, but of believing, and of being spiritually
nourished by faith in his death.
</div>
</li>
<li>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The Lord adds, in v.
56: "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in
me, and I in him." These words are decisive of the controversy.
For they would be false if they were understood of the manducation
of the Sacrament, it being a thing certain that hypocrites and the
profane, who participate in the Sacrament, do not dwell in Christ,
nor Christ in them. They receive the Sacrament into their stomach,
and there it is soon destroyed by digestion. But to dwell in Christ
is to be united to him by the constant, lasting, and reciprocal
union, between him and believers. — For Cornelius Jansenius very
justly remarks, that "he who eats my flesh, and drinks my
blood, dwells in me, and I in Him; that is to say, he is intimately
united to me, and I to him." And then he proves it by other
passages: "He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God
in him." 1 John iv. 16. And again: "He that keepeth his
commandments, dwelleth in him, and he in him; and hereby we know
that he abideth in us, by the Spirit he hath given us." Chap.
iii. 24. Thence he infers that the Lord speaks in John vi.
concerning a manner of eating peculiar to those who have faith
working by love, and not of a corporal manducation, in which the
wicked are partakers.</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
If, to have Christ
dwelling in us, it be necessary to eat him with our mouths; for the
same reason, it will be necessary that he should eat us, that we may
dwell in him.
</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
To direct our minds
from carnal thoughts, Jesus adds, v. 63; "It is the Spirit that
quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing." Since by Spirit he
means his Spirit, by which we are regenerated, so also by flesh he
means his human body. But it, he assures us, profits nothing —
viz. by being taken in the way in which the Capernaites imagined.
What would it profit a man to have Christ's head and feet in his
stomach: or whether he swallowed it entire or by morsels? The
absurdity is in each way equally great.
</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Jesus adds: "The
words that I speak unto you are spirit and are life;" that is
to say, life-giving and spiritual. They are quickening only to those
who understand them spiritually, and who fancy no corporal or carnal
manducation. This doctrine was maintained by Augustine, in his
twenty-seventh Treatise Upon John. He asks: "What are we to
understand by these words, they are spirit and life?" He
replies: "It is necessary to understand them spiritually. Hast
thou understood them spiritually? They are spirit and life to thee.
Hast thou understood them carnally? In this manner, also, they are
spirit and life, but not unto thee."
</div>
</li>
<li>At this the
Capernaites and some of his disciples were offended, and said, It is
a hard saying. Then he answered, "What if ye shall see the Son
of Man ascend up where he was before?" Augustine favours us
with an explanation of these words, also, in the Treatise just
quoted: "What does he mean in these words? He there solves the
question that perplexed them. They thought he would give them his
body; but he said unto them he would certainly ascend entire into
heaven. When ye see the Son of Man ascending into heaven, where he
was before, then, at least, you will surely see that he does not
give you bis body as ye thought, — then, at least, ye will
understand that his grace is not consumed by morsels."</li>
</ol>
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</div>
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</div>
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- Pierre Du Moulin,
Anatomy of the Mass, Chapter 37</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-26085275692284733692017-12-13T16:30:00.000-06:002017-12-15T10:09:05.671-06:00Roman Catholicism is novel, and was invented for the benefit of the Pope and the Clergy.<div align="JUSTIFY">
It is not with a very good grace that our opponents,
after having disfigured and entirely changed the Christian religion,
venture to accuse us of novelty. For, in truth, the Romish religion
is a garment patched up with new pieces, — a heap of doctrines,
invented and amassed from age to age, forged upon the anvil of
avarice and ambition. We are ready to submit to all sorts of
punishment, if, in five hundred years after Christ, and we could
descend lower, it be proved that there was a single man who had a
religion in the least resembling the religion of the Romish Church,
such as it is at the present time. Can a single Church be found in antiquity,
which deprived the people of the cup in communion? Did the Ancient
Church forbid the people to read the Holy Scriptures? Did she believe
in purgatory? Did any one then speak of Romish indulgences, and of
the treasure of the Church, in which the Pope stows the superabundant
satisfactions and penal works of saints and monks, and distributes
them to others by his indulgences? Were images of God and the
Trinity, in stone or in painting, then made? Were the images of
saints worshipped? Were penitents seen whipping themselves in public,
not only for their own sins, but also for the sins of others? Did the
bishops of Asia, Egypt, or Africa, swear fidelity to the bishop of
Rome, or accept letters of inves titure from him? Was the public
service performed in a language which the people did not understand?
Was the bishop of Rome then called God? Did he claim worship? Did he
canonize saints? Did be pluck souls out of purgatory? Did he grant
pardons for two or three thousand years? Did he depose kings, or
vaunt of having the power to give and take away kingdoms? Had he the
power to dispense with oaths and vows, and of dissolving marriages
legitimately contracted, under pretence of the monastic profession?
Did any then talk of chaplets, rosaries, blessed grains, Agnus Dei,
&c.? I say the same of the titles, Queen of Heaven and Mistress
of the World, given to the Virgin Mary; and of the various charges
given to the saints, to one over a country, to another over a
sickness, to another over a disease, to another over this or that
trade. The power which the priests arrogate to themselves of
pardoning sins in their quality of judges is likewise new, and is
part of the iniquity of the later ages. In like manner, there is not
a vestige to be found throughout antiquity, of private Masses, where
there are no communicants and no hearers, said at the instance of
those who pay for them. — The book, entitled the Tax of the
Apostolic Chancery, shews at what price absolutions may be obtained
for murder, parricide, incest, perjury. So many groats or ducats for
having killed a father, and so many for maternal incest. A Romish
Jesuit, named Sylvester Petra Saneta, lately wrote a book against me,
from which I learn one thing I did not know before. He mentions, in
chap. xiii. that during the time of Advent and Lent, the Pope does
not permit any one in Rome to pass a whole night in a brothel, which
would be a violation of the sanctity of Lent. On this account, during
these days of devotion, it is permitted only to pass the day and part
of the night with bawds. Are such laws to be found in the Ancient
Church? In short, this religion is wholly of a late date — it is a
confused collection of doctrines and laws, which were never heard of
in ancient times, and were invented expressly for the pro fit and
extension of the Papal Empire, — for the establishment of a
monarchy, which had no existence in the first ages of the Church, —
and for retaining the people in ignorance, lest the mystery of
iniquity should be discovered. — The Pope and the Clergy find
indulgences, private masses and prayers for trespasses, to be
exceedingly lucrative. By means of auricular confession, the priests
obtain knowledge of family secrets, and hold the conscience in
bondage. They do not grant absolutions for nothing. The
supererogatory works and satisfactions of monks replenish the
spiritual treasury, of which the Pope keeps the key, and distributes
them to the people by his indulgences, so lucrative to him , self and
clergy. By granting absolutions, the priests make themselves judges
of souls and judges in the cause of God. By reserving the communion
cup to themselves and to kings, they make themselves the companions
of kings, and assume a rank above the people. By the celibacy of
bishops and other clergy, the Pope prevents the dissipation of the
ecclesiastical treasures, and their being applied to the support and
enriching of their children. </div>
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<br /></div>
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By painting God the Father in the apparel of the
Pope, the opinion is instilled into the people that God is like the
Pope, and has a vast intimacy with him, since he has borrowed his
robes. By the canonization of saints the Pope causes his valets to be
worshipped by the people, and gives them the title of saints in
recompense for their services.— By the sacrament of penance, the
Pope and the priests usurp the power of imposing upon sinners
pecuniary fines and corporal punishments, even to the flogging of
kings. By performing the service in the Latin language, the people
are retained in ignorance; by having it imposed upon them, they are
taught that they are within the pale of the papal empire. The Roman
language is bestowed on them for the purpose of subduing them to the
Roman religion.— The power of the Pope to dethrone kings, makes him
king of kings, and erects for him an empire, where he is elevated
above all the grandeur of the world. The images, called the books of
the ignorant, accustom men to neglect the Scriptures, which are
utterly unknown in those countries where the inquisition reigns. By
transubstantiation, the priests can make Jesus Christ, and keep him
under their control. The Pope, by ordaining holy days during the
week, regulates the civil police, causes the shops to be shut, and
the sittings of the Courts of Justice and King's Council to be
suspended. When merchants shut their shops, the clergy open theirs;
and then it is that the people obtain pardons, visit relics, and
sprinkle themselves with holy water, which is always at hand. The
Pope, by the distinction of meats and fast-days, regulates the
markets and stomachs, kitchens and tables, of kings and people. The
more numerous the prohibitions are, the more frequently are
applications made to Pope and Prelates for dispensations. The Pope
decreed marriage to be a Sacrament, that he might take the cognizance
of it away from judges and magistrates: for Sacraments are under the
exclusive jurisdiction of the Church.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
The Pope, by dispensations for the degrees of
consanguinity within which marriages are forbidden in the word of
God, obliges the children of Princes, (for such dispensations are
granted to none but the great,) born of such marriages, to defend his
authority, that their own legitimacy may be maintained. From Annats
and Archiepiscopal cloaks, the Pope derives incredible gain. For a
mantle of this kind he draws sixty thousand ducats. The Pope, by the
power he has assumed of being able to change the commandments, of
God, and of absolving from oaths and vows made to God, exalts himself
above God. For he who can absolve men from fidelity and obedience to
God, must be greater than God. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
The invocation of saints, the worship of relics, and
the miracles said to have been wrought by them, serve to build many
churches and monasteries, which powerfully support the domination of
the Pope; in short, all the crafty devices in the world has been
employed to this end. Never was an empire raised with so much
artifice. The doctrine which teaches us that Jesus Christ, by his
death, delivers us from the guilt and punishment of sins committed
before baptism, but that we must bear the punishment of the sins
commit ted after baptism, either in this life or in purgatory, takes
from the merits of Christ to make room for vile traffic, and to give
credit to indulgences, and masses for the dead: every thing, in
short, is turned to profit—even death itself is tributary to the
Romish clergy.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
Pierre Du Moulin, Anatomy of the Mass, Chapter 22</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-3575604524032100632017-10-06T06:00:00.000-05:002017-10-06T06:00:19.671-05:00How the Church Benefits From Pædobaptism
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The practice of baptizing
the children of God's people, is of essential service to the
interests of religion.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
1. It is a sensible and
positive proof of two of the prominent doctrines of revelation, —
the depravity of infants, and their need of grace. It is the natural
tendency of things in this world, for men to deny and disbelieve the
moral corruption of human nature altogether; and, especially, to
maintain the spotless innocence of newborn infants. That such errors
as these would undermine the very foundation of the gospel, is
certain. The denial of human depravity necessarily terminates in the
denial of divine mediation; and the denial of the depravity of
infants, is but the first step to the maintenance of adult innocence.
The history of the church, too, bears ample testimony to the fact,
that all such abatements of total human corruption, has finally
terminated in the most dangerous heresies. Now, in the baptism of
infants, the sinfulness of their natures, and their need of divine
grace, are strikingly exhibited, and put beyond the power of
contradiction.
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<br />
</div>
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2. This practice also
impresses on the minds of all, the great importance of the salvation
of children. From mistaken views of the innocence of children, or
from their inferiority in society, there is a very great tendency to
neglect their souls altogether. Thus both the minister and his people
are apt, in contemplating the larger forms of human existence around
them, to overlook those smaller ones, every where diffused through
their families and churches. We preach for adults — we pray for
adults, but forget the children. We spend our lives, for the most
part, in attempting to straighten the old and sturdy oaks of the
forest, while we bestow but little attention upon the saplings and
twigs by their side. But wherever the duty of baptizing children has
been well understood, and uniformly practised, there their salvation
has always been a matter of corresponding interest and effort.
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</div>
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3. The administration of
this ordinance to infants, also strengthens the faith and increases
the fidelity of parents. The salvation of his child, is that which
should burden a parent's heart much more than any thing besides. His
relationship to his child, his affection for him, his influence over
him, all, should make him seek this object above every other. Now, in
the baptism of his child, such parent has his duty defined, his work
laid out before him, and the offer of divine help for its execution
afforded. The parent may be regarded as properly enough entering into
the following soliloquy: 'If my child were not depraved, why baptize
him? If he needed not regeneration, why apply to him its sign? If
grace were not offered him, why am I commanded to bring him to a
gospel ordinance? And if God will not bless my efforts, why enter
into covenant with me in behalf of my offspring?' Surely, no parent
can possibly attend to this important duty, without feeling, in his
own soul, his faith confirmed and his desires elevated.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
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4. Again. The baptism of
the young, promotes the interests of the church, by securing for them
a proper religious training. It secures this training in two ways:
first, by the propinquity of baptized children to the church; and
secondly, by the obligations this ordinance imposes. This end is
effected by the propinquity of such children to the professing
church. We have already shown, that they stand on the very threshold
of the spiritual temple. They occupy a kind of nursery, in the very
porch of the Christian community. This being the case, they are
neither foreigners nor strangers; but the very seed and offspring of
the kingdom of Christ. Their situation yields to them the very best
advantages they could possibly have, for the attainment of Christian
knowledge. They are like young Samuel, whom his mother dedicated to
the Lord, and had raised in the very tabernacle itself.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
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All the doctrines and
hopes of religion, its institutions and blessings, are all theirs by
birthright. Over them piety sheds her constant and hallowed
influence. Faith, with all her witnesses for the truth, is
continually pleading with their hearts. The voice of the Redeemer,
saying, 'Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not,
for of such is the kingdom of heaven,' is continually rolling on
their ears. For them, Hope is planting on the fair canopy of heaven
an immortal star; and Charity, loveliest of the graces, is lightening
in their tender countenances, the smiles of eternal joy, and
spreading before them all the attractions of a life of holiness and
peace. Thus circumstanced, how almost inevitable is the surrender of
their youthful hearts to God.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
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But this practice also
secures the religious training of the young, by the obligations it
imposes. Obedience to divine commands is absolutely enjoined upon
both those who administer and those who receive this ordinance. '
This is my covenant,' said God to Abraham, 'which ye shall keep.' And
said Christ to his apostles, 'teach them to observe whatsoever I have
commanded you.' There is an obligation, therefore, imposed upon the
church, as well as upon the parent, to inculcate upon the young
disciple the lessons of Christianity. There is also an obligation
resting upon the child to receive and practise such instructions. Now
it is evident, that, under such circumstances as these, the religious
training of the child would be as effectually secured, as in the
nature of things it could be in this life.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
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5. This practice also
elevates the standard of piety in a church. This it does in at least
three ways. First, by promoting the religion of the family. It
awakens a deeper interest in the bosom of parents about the salvation
of their offspring. It causes them to expect more, to undertake more.
The consequence of this will be greater attainments of personal piety
among parents themselves — more prayerfulness — more self-denial
— more frequent fastings, and greater uniformity and consistency of
deportment. And as he, who is most busy at home is most apt to be
industrious abroad, so the domestic labors and piety of the parent,
will but prepare him for entering into more extensive fields of
usefulness and duty. But this end is also attained, by uniting and
harmonizing the entire efforts of the whole church, in promoting the
salvation of her children. From this field of enterprise no believer
in Pædobaptism can feel himself excused: — the obligation is an
universal one, the duty is common. The necessary consequence of this
will be, the originating of all those schemes and plans, by which the
minds of children may be reached and well indoctrinated in the truths
of the gospel. Parents will teach at home — the Pastor and Elders
will visit and catechise — Infant and Sabbath Schools will be
gotten up and supported — ordinary schools and academics will be
established on Christian principles — and every possible instrument
wielded, in order to secure an object so grand and so obligatory.
Now, in the carrying forward of such a work as this, consists the
very vitality of religion in a church. A stagnant religion can have
no existence. Piety is active and benevolent in her very nature. The
more, therefore, that a church is usefully employed, the more
vigorous will be the exercises of grace among her members. Nor will
the good work terminate with the immediate children of the church.
Christians would become, under such circumstances, 'nursing fathers
and mothers' to the offspring of unbelieving parents. They would be
ready to feel for wretchedness, wherever it existed; and thus to
diffuse their prayers, their sympathies, and their alms, over the
whole world. The other way in which this practice would accomplish
the end contemplated is, by furnishing candidates for admission into
the church with the most eminent qualifications. Being born and
raised in the very nursery of piety, and enjoying the very best
opportunities for the improvement of the mind, and the cultivation of
the heart, the children of the church would not only be early
introduced into full membership, but would come in with advantages
for a pious life, which no others could possibly enjoy.
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6. This practice also
renders the preaching of the gospel more efficient. One of the
greatest evils with which the ministry has to contend is, the
encountering of that opposition which arises from the ignorance,
stupidity, prejudices, errors, and profligacy, which result from the
neglect of domestic training. To enlighten a mind long enshrouded in
the grossest ignorance, to awaken a conscience long seared in
stupidity and sin, to bend a will long accustomed to its own control,
to purify affections polluted with the grossest indulgences, to
unfetter a soul manacled and chained in impiety, thus to transform
the very image of Satan into that of Christ, is a work as
discouraging as it is difficult. The filling of the house of God with
such hearers as these, is but to render preaching a most hopeless
task. It is like sending for the physician when the patient is in the
very agony of death. It is to expect reformation, when the principle
to be reformed is itself almost entirely annihilated by a course of
abandoned profligacy. It is but to tempt God, and require miracles.
In this case, the ministry becomes almost an insupportable burden,
and is likely to be attended with little or no success. On the
contrary, where parents have been faithful in the discharge of their
duty, and where, by his early baptism, the youth has been placed
under the inspection and control of the church, the work of pulpit
instruction becomes both easy and pleasant. In such cases, the
conscience is tender, the heart impressible, and the disposition
tractable. Long accustomed to venerate his spiritual teacher, the
young man esteems him as a father and loves him as a friend. He
values his counsels and receives his instructions. His place in the
church is agreeable and easy; and every thing connected with religion
has, to the view of his mind, a lovely aspect, and exerts upon him a
softening influence. The triumphs of the gospel, under such
circumstances, must always be great and glorious. The work of saving
men is much more than half accomplished in the family. Thus, while
the pulpit upholds and sustains the piety of the family, in its turn
the latter upholds and sustains that of the pulpit.
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7. Another advantage
which this practice renders the church is, that it offers the
greatest possible inducement to unbelievers to embrace religion. The
command to them is like that to Noah, 'Come thou and all thy house
into the ark.' The same covenant that embraces the parent, is also
extended to the children; the same seal by which grace is offered and
confirmed to him, is likewise applied to his offspring. When,
therefore, an ungodly father sees, on the one hand, the great injury
he is rendering his family, through his impenitence and unbelief; and
on the other, the great advantage he may be to them by becoming truly
pious; how irresistible are the reasons that thus operate upon his
mind? And how powerful must be those appeals, from the sacred desk,
to such parents, which represent them as placed in the fearful
alternatives, of either bearing their children along with them to
hell; or lifting them up by their faith to the abodes of blessedness!
What parent's heart can be steeled to such entreaties and motives as
these?</div>
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Samuel Jones Cassels,
Lectures on P<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">æ</span>dobaptism
(1834), Lecture 12: The Reception of Children into Church-Membership</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-17773071328727569772017-09-20T06:00:00.000-05:002019-02-05T12:25:33.649-06:00Review of John Foxe's "Acts and Monuments"<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've just crossed the
finish-line on my trek through the monumental “Acts and Monuments”
of John Foxe, known popularly as Foxe's Book of Martyrs. The original
work runs a full 7,058 pages and consists of 8 volumes. The popular
300-page paperback edition you will find in the Christian bookstore
is a “Reader's Digest” version of a “Reader's Digest” version
of a “Reader's Digest” version. Archbishop Grindal, who supplied
Foxe with many of the official records he cites, and who financially
supported Foxe during his exile in Strasbourg, once referred to the
work as Foxe's “book or martyrs,” and the name has stuck.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This will not be a book
review in the traditional sense, because reviewing a work of over
7,000 pages would be impossibly long, and would make the work seem
undesirable. It is a massive work. Writing it must have been an
herculean feat, but reading it is not. I did not breeze through it,
but many portions are so engaging that 100-150 pages seem to fly by.
This will be more of a review by impression.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the most important
thoughts I've had while reading this work is expressed by George
Townsend in his introductory dissertation: “If Foxe's Acts and
Monuments had not been written, and this is the best criterion of its
merits, no book in the English language can be mentioned, which could
supply its place. Whoever will but impartially and candidly consider
the mass of the materials collected, and remember that this work was
the first attempt to give to the common reader a history of the
church of Christ, as well as a narrative of the evil consequences of
the one false principle, that the soul of the Christian is to be
governed by authority that is fallible, on the supposition that such
authority is infallible, unchangeable and divine,—must, I think,
acknowledge, that the work of John Foxe is one of the most useful,
most important, and most valuable books we still possess. It has
never been superseded.”</span></div>
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<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As Townsend points out,
the value of the work is multi-faceted. First, there is the sheer
vastness of the accumulated knowledge and materials. Foxe, through a
multitude of influential connections, had access to countless records
and documents which no other historian could have gotten their hands
on – at least at the time of his writing. Secondly, his work proved
that the ministers of the Church are to be our useful directors, not
infallible teachers. Thirdly, an individual Christian might be in the right,
while the great body of the Church's leaders may be in the wrong.
Hence each individual must deem himself responsible to God alone.
Fourthly, Foxe's work taught the supremacy of Scripture for governing
the conscience. Fifthly, we are shown that every system of laws must
be founded upon the conviction of their usefulness and truth, or they
cannot be made permanent even by the most unrelenting persecutions,
of the most formidable power.</span></div>
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<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the most
interesting features of Foxe's work is his eschatology. The best
description I have read of his view, is “
Amillennial historicist.” The more I have thought about it, the more
convincing his view is.
</span></div>
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<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In setting the stage for
what I am about to say, let me point out that all Christians are
agreed (at least in theory) that the prevalence or sparseness of a
subject in Scripture, is an indicator of its relative importance.
Anything revealed by God is important, but in the hierarchy of
doctrine, frequency and prevalence determines rank. Having said that,
isn't ironic that every eschatological position held in Christendom
is defined by its relation to the Millennium – something mentioned
a grand total of two times in the space of a couple verses, and that
in the most difficult book to interpret? Based on what we have
already said, it would seem to be a more balanced approach to view
the Millennium as something - while real - less central, less
definitive, less overall important, to our view of eschatology.
Foxe's view does just this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In sum, Foxe believes the
Millennium was a specific 1000 year period in the Church's history,
and that this period is now past. It is not the grid upon which all
redemption history is written. Like hundreds of other events in the
life of God's people foretold in Scripture, it came to pass exactly
as foretold, and thus verifies the truth of God's Word.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Foxe reads Revelation 8
telling of a period of 294 years of vicious persecution against the
Church. This coincides exactly with the cessation of state-sanctioned
persecution at Constantine's conversion. This is the beginning of the
Millennium, according to Foxe. For a literal 1000 years, there was no
state-sanctioned, state-sponsored wholesale persecution of the
Church. The 1000 year period ends in the early 1300's when
persecution, which included prison and execution begins, with the
sanction of church and state, against men who proclaimed the Gospel
truths which were buried under the accumulated doctrinal pollutions
of the Middle Ages. This marks the period spoken of in Revelation 20
that Satan is let loose to persecute the Church again as he did in
the first 300 years of Church history. This period is extremely
intense because Satan knows his time is short. What we often forget
is how incredibly intense the persecution of Christians was in the
decades after 1517. We seem to imagine that Luther nailed up his 95
Theses, and Boom! everything was changed. The fact is, that in many
European nations (Foxe focuses mostly on England), the Reformation
was a slow, grinding process, with many false starts, and nearly
endless opposition.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps I should let Foxe
speak in his own words:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Concerning the interpretation of which
times, I see the common opinion of many to be deceived by ignorance
of histories, and the state of things done in the church; they
supposing that the chaining loosing up of Satan for a thousand years,
spoken of in the Revelation, was meant from the birth of Christ our
Lord. Wherein I grant that spiritually the strength and dominion of
Satan, in accusing and condemning us for sin, was cast down at the
passion and by the passion of Christ our Saviour, and locked up, not
only for a thousand years, but for ever and ever. Albeit, as touching
the malicious hatred and fury of that serpent against the outward
bodies of Christ's poor saints (which is the heel of Christ), to
afflict and torment the church outwardly; that I judge to be meant in
the Revelation of St. John, not to be restrained till the ceasing of
those terrible persecutions of the primitive church, at the time when
it pleased God to pity the sorrowful affliction of his poor flock,
being so long under persecution, the space of three hundred years,
and so to assuage their griefs and torments; which is meant by the
binding up of Satan, worker of all those mischiefs: understanding
thereby, that forasmuch as the devil, the prince of this world, had
now, by the death of Christ the Son of God, lost all his power and
interest against the soul of man, he should turn his furious rage and
malice, which he had to Christ, against the people of Christ, which
is meant by the heel of the seed [Gen. iii.], in tormenting their
outward bodies; which yet should not be forever, but for a
determinate time, when it should please the Lord to bridle the
malice, and snaffle the power, of the old serpent, and give rest unto
his church for the term of a thousand years; which time being
expired, the said serpent should be suffered loose again for a
certain or a small time. [Apoc. xx.]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.98in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And
thus to expound this prophetical place of Scripture, I am led Three
by three reasons:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The
first is, for that the binding up of Satan, and closing him in first
the bottomless pit by the angel, importeth as much as that he was at
liberty, raging and doing mischief before. And, certes, those so
terrible and so horrible persecutions of the primitive time
universally through the whole world, during the space of three
hundred years of the church, do declare no less. Wherein it is to be
thought and supposed that Satan, all that time, was not fastened and
closed up. </span>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.98in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The
second reason moving me to think that the closing up of Satan was
after the ten persecutions of the primitive church, is taken out of
the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse; where we read, that after the
woman, meaning the church, had travailed forth her man-child, the old
dragon, the devil, the same time being cast down from heaven, drawing
the third part of the stars with him, stood before the woman with
great anger, and persecuted her (that is, the church of God) with a
whole flood of water (that is, with abundance of all kinds of
torments), and from thence went, moreover, to fight against the
residue of her seed, and stood upon the sands of the sea; whereby it
appeareth that he was not as yet locked up. </span>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.98in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
third reason I collect out of the Apocalypse, chapter xiii., where it
is written of the beast, signifying the imperial monarchy of Rome,
that he had power to make war forty and two months; by which months
is meant, no doubt, the time that the dragon and the persecuting
emperors should have in afflicting the saints of the primitive
church. The computation of which forty-two months (counting Forty-two
every month for a Sabbath of years; that is, for seven years, after
the order of Scripture), riseth to the sum (counting from the passion
of the Lord Christ) of three hundred years, lacking six; at which
time Maxentius, the last persecutor in Rome, fighting against
Constantine, was drowned with his soldiers, like as Pharaoh,
persecuting the children of Israel, was drowned in the Red Sea. Unto
the which forty-two months, or Sabbaths of years, if ye add the other
six years wherein Licinius persecuted in the East, ye shall find just
three hundred years, as is specified before in the first book (vol.
i. Page 291). After the which forty and two months were expired,
manifest it is that the fury of Satan, that is, his violent malice
and power over the saints of Christ, was diminished and restrained
universally throughout the whole world. Thus then, the matter
standing evident that Satan, after three hundred years, counting from
the passion of Christ, began to be chained up, at which time the
persecution of the primitive church began to cease, now let us see
how long this binding up of Satan should continue, which was promised
in the Book of the Revelation to be a thousand years; which thousand
years, if ye add to the forty-two months of years, that is, to two
hundred and ninety-four years, they make one thousand two hundred and
ninety-four years after the passion of the Lord. To these, moreover,
add the thirty years of the age of Christ, and it cometh to the year
of our Lord 1324, which was the year of the letting out of Satan,
according to the prophecy in the Apocalypse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The
first persecution of the primitive church, beginning at the thirtieth
year of Christ, was prophesied to continue forty-two months; that is,
till a.d. 294. </span>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The
ceasing of the last persecution of the primitive church by the death
of Licinius, the last persecutor, began in the three hundred and
twenty-fourth year from the nativity of Christ; which was from the
thirtieth year of his age, two hundred and ninety-four years. </span>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The
binding up of Satan after peace given to the church, counting from
the thirty years of Christ, began a.d. 294, and lasted a thousand
years, that is, counting from the thirtieth year of Christ, to the
year 1294. </span>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">About
which year, pope Boniface VIII was pope, and made the sixth book of
the Decretals, confirmed the orders of friars, and privileged them
with great freedoms; as appeareth by his constitution, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><i>Super
Cathedram</i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> a.d. 1294... </span>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These
things thus premised for the loosing out of Satan, according to the
prophecy of the Apocalypse, now let us enter (Christ willing) upon
the declaration of these latter times which followed after the
letting out of Satan into the world; describing the wondrous
perturbations and cruel tyranny stirred up by him against Christ's
church, and also the valiant resistance of the church of Christ
against him and Antichrist, as in these our books here under
following may appear, the argument of which consisteth in two parts:
first, to treat of the raging fury of Satan now loosed, and of
Antichrist, against the saints of Christ fighting and travailing for
the maintenance of truth, and the reformation of the church.
Secondly, to declare the decay and ruin of the said Antichrist,
through the power of the word of God; being at length, either in a
great part of the world overthrown, or, at least, universally in the
whole world detected. - John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, Book V (Volume
2 of 8), pages 724-727 of the 1843 edition</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">This framework and exposition of
prophecy surfaces again and again in Foxe's work. It is the defining
characteristic of the work. The little paperback edition will <i>not </i>convey this. Foxe is not merely recounting history and
giving Protestants a “Remember the Alamo,” he is interpreting
history through his interpretation of Scripture. The
matter-of-factness with which Foxe treats biblical prophecies and
historical fulfillments, leaves one with the impression that Foxe's
view was the standard view of most of his contemporaries. Every
single one of Foxe's critics, whether the papists of his own day, or
those of subsequent centuries, have focused their attention on pretended reliability issues of Foxe's primary sources, or whether
Foxe was accurately presenting the facts. No one, I repeat, no one –
has ever tackled his eschatology. To me, this speaks volumes. When one
is faced with a mountain of inconvenient evidence, from a purely pragmatic stance, sometimes ignoring
its existence is more effective than taking it on point by point. </span>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As
far as Foxe's reliability as a historian goes, Townsend writes, “His
frequent appeals to eye-witnesses of the things he relates, the
manner in which the declarations he received from the persecuted of
their examinations and sufferings, are affirmed by him, not to be
credited for their own words only, even though in one remarkable case
the narrative of their sorrows was written with their own blood, and
not with ink. All these things prove to us that Foxe is worthy of our
confidence, and that his 'veracity and fidelity' cannot be assailed
with either truth or honour. Disgrace has followed every attempt to
destroy its value.” Subsequent historical investigations have
further strengthened Townsend's assessment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I will never forget the
impact the little paperback "Book of Martyrs" had on me
when I read it as a young teen. I was inspired, appalled, edified,
and frightened all at the same time. For days I remember living with a gloomy cloud over my head - a cloud of fear that I could never possibly endure what so many men, women, and children before me endured. As time passed, I began to realize that most of them would've felt the same way, and that it was the same grace of God which enabled them to witness to God's truth in their deaths that enabled me to witness to God's truth in my life. But that impact is nothing compared to
the impressions that this complete edition makes and leaves. I know millions of readers love the little paperback, but in
all honesty, it is a travesty of the original. Far too much ended up
on the cutting-room floor. And what gets left out is precisely what
gives impact to what got left in.
</span></div>
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<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For example: The little
paperback version tells how Nicholas Ridley was tied to a stake and
burned alive for his faith. What the little paperback <i>doesn't</i>
give you is the full context of Ridley's trial. “Acts and
Monuments” includes dozens of pages of court transcripts. It provides letters between the key players giving the reader a background and framework to the story that the little paperback will never convey. You can
read the verbatim back and forth between Ridley and “bloody”
Bonner. You can read Mary's ecclesiastics twist his words on purpose
and order court recorders falsify his answers. You can read how he
was publicly humiliated in the courtroom. Men forcibly restrained him
and dressed him up as a popish priest while a man behind him read out
the ceremony of the mass in Latin, pretending that he (Ridley) was
saying it, thus “making” Ridley commit the transubstantiation he
repudiated. The humiliation goes on and on for days. Ridley bears up
under it and continues to appeal to Scripture against Gardiner and
Bonner. If you only read the account of Ridley, you would be inclined
to think that a greater travesty of justice has never been committed.
But Foxe provides nearly the same documentary evidence for another
200 Marian martyrs, not to mention all the martyrs whose lives and
sufferings he presents from the days of the Apostles through the days
of Wycliffe, Hus, and Savanarola. Ironically, the concentrated emphasis on torture and death in the little paperback actually lessens its impact. The real personhood of both the sufferers and the persecutors gets lost. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Besides all this, Foxe's
honesty will not let you reduce his work to a hagiography. Along with
hundreds of accounts of the brave sufferings of countless martyrs and
confessors, he also includes court transcripts and letters of men and
women who could not bear up under the persecution and who lapsed and
recanted. Foxe never scorns these men and women, either. In fact, he
seems to include the stories, often quite elaborate and long, to
emphasize the prodigious power the Romish church had. It took
extraordinary men and women to buck up under the pressure and set the
bar for other martyrs and confessors. Foxe openly acknowledges that
men, in human frailty, may recoil from the prospect of torture and
cave in to the temptation to recant. He is surprisingly understanding
of this phenomenon, yet without condoning it as an expedient to save
one's life.
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This honesty is another
feature that slips through the cracks in the little paperback. That
small edition will beat you over the head with blood and gore. <i>This</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
edition will provide text and context to the sufferings – and will
also tell you about those who ran from the sufferings and recanted.
He will even give you their two or three-page-long letters of
recantation – shameful as they may be. </span>
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In
a very real sense, this work is </span><i>not</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
a “book of martyrs.” It is so much more. It is an indispensable
resource whose absence could not be filled by anything else ever
written.</span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.02in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I
conclude with a couple of thoughts: </span>
</span></div>
<ol>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
is really more of a reference work than a history. When Foxe relates
the life of particular martyr, he frequently includes actual court
transcripts of his trial, condemnation, and sentencing. He also not
infrequently includes letters written to and from the person under
consideration. Many of these letters are to found nowhere else but
in the Acts and Monuments. Foxe has done the Church an inestimable
service in preserving these materials. Foxe was personally known to
many of the martyrs and confessors whose lives and deaths he
chronicles. His connections to the official documents through
Grindal and others, gave him access to records no one else alive at
the time could've gotten their hands on. This is no superficial
history. Foxe lives in primary sources. Many of these sources are
inaccessible to today's readers because the only extant copies are
in special sections of museums, or else they are in Latin or
Anglo-Saxon (Old English). Foxe has provided both original
transcriptions of the original texts and English translations of
these. The sources which are readily available (Bede, Matthew Paris, Henry of Huntingdon, etc) will more than verify the veracity of Foxe's accounts.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">This
work needs to be republished in its full form. This 1843 edition
should be a standard reference work in every pastor's library. It is
a great disservice and insult to the memory of our martyred
Protestant forebears that the full version of this work has been out
of print for so long. And it is an even greater insult to their
memory that many of the modern editions include the deaths of
papists, as if in the end, they belong in the same company as our
sainted Protestant martyrs – whom they killed! </span>
</span></div>
</li>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nothing
can prepare you for encountering the barbarity and despicable
cruelty of Stephen Gardiner and “bloody” Edmund Bonner. Under
the auspices of Queen Mary, these two moral monsters account for 288
executions, not to mention those who were mercilessly whipped, those
who died in prison, those whose bones were exhumed to be desecrated,
and those who lived in a self-imposed exile overseas (one of whom
was Foxe).</span></div>
</li>
</ol>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.02in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Reading
the whole work was truly a monumental task. The sheer amount of
information is overwhelming. The graphic descriptions of the torture
and execution of so many men, women, and children, is heart-rending.
I had a sick feeling deep in my gut through many parts of this work.
Foxe concludes his account of Mary's reign with these words: </span>“Of
queen Mary this truly may be affirmed, and left in story for a
perpetual memorial or epitaph for all kings and queens that shall
succeed her, to be noted—that before her, never was read in story
of any king or queen of England, since the time of king Lucius, under
whom, in time of peace, by hanging, beheading, burning, and
prisoning, so much Christian blood, so many Englishmen's lives, were
spilled within this realm, as under the said queen Mary for the space
of four years was to be seen, and I beseech the Lord never may be
seen here after.”
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.02in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Foxe concludes the work by reminding his readers that he had access to enough information to have made the work considerably longer! His final paragraphs read: </span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And
thus to conclude, good christian reader, this present tractation, not
for lack of matter, but to shorten rather the matter for largeness of
the volume, I here stay for this present time, without further
addition of more discourse, either to overweary thee with longer
tediousness, or overcharge the book with longer prolixity; having
hitherto set forth the acts and proceedings of the whole church of
Christ, namely, of the church of England, although not in such
particular perfection, that nothing hath overpassed us; yet in such
general sufficiency, that I trust, not very much hath escaped us,
necessary to be known, touching the principal affairs, doings and
proceedings of the church and churchmen. Wherein may be seen the
whole state, order, descent, course, and continuance of the same, the
increase and decrease of true religion, the creeping in of
superstition, the horrible troubles of persecution, the wonderful
assistance of the Almighty in maintaining his truth, the glorious
constancy of Christ's martyrs, the rage of the enemies, the
alteration of times, the travails and troubles of the church, from
the first primitive age of Christ's gospel, to the end of queen Mary,
and the beginning of this our gracious queen Elizabeth. During the
time of her happy reign, which hath hitherto continued (through the
gracious protection of the Lord) the space now of twenty-four years,
as my wish is, so I would be glad the good will of the Lord were so,
that no more matter of such lamentable stories may ever be offered
hereafter to write upon. But so it is, I cannot tell how, the elder
the world waxeth, the longer it continueth, the nearer it hasteneth
to its end, the more Satan rageth; giving still new matter of writing
books and volumes: insomuch that if all were recorded and committed
to history, that within the said compass of this queen's reign
hitherto hath happened, in Scotland, Flanders, France, Spain,
Germany, besides this our own country of England and Ireland, with
other countries more, I verily suppose one Eusebius, or Polyhistor,
which Pliny writeth of, would not suffice thereunto. </span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"But of these
incidents and occurrents hereafter more, as it shall please the Lord
to give grace and space. In the mean time, the grace of the Lord
Jesus work with thee, gentle reader, in all thy studious readings.
And while thou hast space, so employ thyself to read, that by reading
thou mayest learn daily to know that which may profit thy soul, may
teach thee experience, may arm thee with patience, and instruct thee
in all spiritual knowledge more and more to thy perpetual comfort and
salvation in Christ Jesus our Lord; to whom be glory in secula
seculorum, Amen.”</span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.02in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Uncomfortable
as reading much of this material was, it must be read, and it must be
kept in the Church's view. We dishonor our Protestant forebears and
the Lord they suffered, bled, and died for, by neglecting and
forgetting their lives and sufferings. We must never forget.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those who may be
interested in reading it, there are a couple of sources.
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still Waters Revival
Books has the set available in pdf format. One can purchase either
the entire 8 volume set, or the individual volumes. It is available <a href="http://www.puritandownloads.com/foxe-john/">here.</a></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, the individual volumes
can be found on Google Books. Below are the links to each volume.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://play.google.com/books/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&id=-A85AQAAMAAJ&pg=GBS.PR3"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Volume 1</span></a></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://play.google.com/books/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&id=bGoPAAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PP1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Volume 2</span></a></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://play.google.com/books/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&id=4GoPAAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PP1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Volume 3</span></a></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://play.google.com/books/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&id=9WcPAAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PP1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Volume 4</span></a></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://play.google.com/books/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&id=wzwJAQAAIAAJ&pg=GBS.PP1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Volume 5</span></a></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://play.google.com/books/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&id=FD0JAQAAIAAJ&pg=GBS.PP1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Volume 6</span></a></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://play.google.com/books/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&id=PnQuAAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PP1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Volume 7</span></a></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://play.google.com/books/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&id=P3EuAAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PP1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Volume 8</span></a></div>
</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-64575343758628886222017-08-28T06:00:00.000-05:002017-08-28T06:00:00.194-05:00Scriptural Testimony to the Trinity
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Old and the New
Testament alike, assures us that in the trustful knowledge of One
God,—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,—is the spiritual
life of man now and for ever. The Lord grant that we may continue to
bring to the study of his word, that humble spirit which prays “That
which I see not teach thou me” (Job 34:32).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">To one who receives
with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save our souls, the
Scriptures already adduced prove beyond contradiction that as the
Father is God, so is Jesus Christ God, and so the Holy Spirit is God.
This truth, however, must be combined with another, which is revealed
with equal clearness and enforced with equal solemnity:—“I am
Jehovah, and there is none else, there is no God beside me” (Isa
45:5). The combination of these truths establishes the doctrine of
the Holy Trinity, for “these Three must together subsist in one
infinite Divine essence, called Jehovah or God; and as this essence
must be indivisible, each of them must possess not a part or portion
of it, but the whole fulness or perfection of the essential Godhead
forming, in an unity of nature, One Eternal Jehovah, and therefore
revealed by a plural noun as the Jehovah Elohim, which comprehends
these Three; but with this solemn qualification, that the Jehovah
Elohim is in truth but one Jehovah, Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost.”</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This supreme mystery
must transcend all the powers of human thought; and the question must
recur again and again, What saith the Scripture? Our imaginations
must be counted as the small dust of the balance. Thus do you
conceive that the very names “the Father the Son” imply a certain
point in duration beyond which the Father inhabited eternity alone?
Your conception cannot countervail the assertion of Scripture, that
the goingsforth of the Saviour have been from everlasting (Micah
5:2); or the words of Christ himself, adopting the formula which
declares the Divine self-existence from eternity to eternity, “I am
the first and the last” (Rev 1:11).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The illustration,
before adduced, of the sun, its beams of light, and its vital heat,
may offer some faint resemblance of this great mystery; for the beams
of light are generated by the central orb; and yet the sun could not
have existed, so far as we know, for a moment without emitting its
radiance, nor the radiance have existed without diffusing its warmth:
so that “one is not before another, but only in order and relation
to one another.” But no creature can adequately image forth the
Creator, who asks, “To whom then will ye liken God? or what
likeness will ye compare unto him?” (Isa 40:18).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Again, do you imagine
that the name of him who is alone Jehovah, cannot comprehend a
Trinity in Unity? Your imagination is as nothing in contradiction of
the words of Christ revealing the one Divine name, as “the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Do you
asseverate the impossibility of three subsistences in one eternal
essence? Remember, I pray you, the words, “Canst thou find out the
Almighty unto perfection?” (Job 11:7). What do we know of the
essence of created things? The pure white light seems indissolubly
one; an unscientific man would, without hesitation, pronounce it
uniform, and would utterly deny any plurality subsisting in its
transparent simplicity. The colours of the rainbow seem evidently
manifold; and the same man might refuse to credit their unity.
Science stoops to analyze light; and we are told that— </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The prismatic
spectrum consists in reality of three spectra of nearly equal length,
each of uniform colour; superposed one upon another; and that the
colours which the actual spectrum exhibits, arise from the mixture of
the uniform colours of these three spectra superposed. The colours of
these three elementary spectra, according to Sir David Brewster, are
red, yellow, and blue. He shows that by a combination of these three,
not only all the colours exhibited in the prismatic spectrum may be
reproduced, but their combination also produces white light. He
contends, therefore, that the white light of the sun consists, not of
seven, but of three constituent lights.”— “Lardner’s Museum”
vol. 7 p. 78. 19</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The unlearned man
then, in his incredulity, would have denied an established fact. The
unity of that pure white light was not so simple as he affirmed. More
constituents than one subsist in its ethereal essence. But has
science now fathomed the mysteries of light? So far from it, we
read—“Light is now proved to consist in the waves of a subtle and
elastic ether, which pervades all space, and serves to communicate
every impulse, from one part of the universe to another, with a speed
almost inconceivable. In this luminous ether, matter seems to emulate
the subtlety of thought. Invisible, and yet the only means by which
all things are made visible; impalpable, and yet nourishing all
material objects into life and beauty; so elastic, that when touched
at one point, swift glances of light tremble through the universe;
and still so subtle that the celestial bodies traverse its depths
freely, and even the most vaporous comet scarcely exhibits a sensible
retardation in its course— there is something in the very nature of
this medium which seems to baffle the powers of human science, and to
say to the pride of human intellect, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but
no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” Here,
indeed, the most brilliant and profound analysts have continually to
guess their way, when they would trace out a few of the simplest laws
resulting from the existence of such an ether, and unfold their
application to the various phenomena of reflected and refracted
light. It is a great deep of mystery. Science grows dizzy on its
verge when it strives to explore the nature of this subtle, immense
imponderable ocean, which bathes all worlds in light, and itself
remains, by its own nature, invisible for ever.”—Birks’
“Treasures of Wisdom”, pp.99-106.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Is such the modest
confession of truth after all the triumphs of human wisdom? Is man
only wading, with tremulous footstep, into the shallow waters of that
unfathomable sea called into existence by the fiat of God, when he
said, “Let there be light, and there was light?” Are we so soon
out of our depth in seeking to understand one of his works? How much
rather may we expect to be humbled as we meditate, and to be baffled
if we think we can comprehend, the glorious Creator himself? Is light
a mystery? How much rather he who dwells in the light that no man can
approach unto! We know him only as he reveals himself.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This self-revelation
involves a yet greater self-concealment There will be the
manifestation of God in the voluntary condescension of his love: and
there will be the necessary seclusion within the clouds of his
unapproachable glory. W hen a finite being seeks to understand
anything of the Infinite, it must always be so. There will be the
fragment of truth which the student has made and is making his own,
and the illimitable expanse beneath, above, and beyond him. Thus in
the field of nature we read, “The works of the Lord are great,
sought out of all them that have pleasure therein” (Psa 111:2).
Here is our knowledge. But “No man,” says Solomon, “can find
out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end” (Eccl
3:11). There is the limit of our knowledge. We are invited to
consider his heavens, to trace his footprints, and to regard the
operations of his hands. And yet after all, “Lo! these are parts of
his ways; how faint a whisper is heard of him! the thunder of his
power who can understand?” (Job 26:14) So, in the majestic course
of his patient. providence we adoringly acknowledge, “Just and true
are thy ways, thou King of saints:”(Rev 15:3) and yet we must
confess, “Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters,
and thy footsteps are not known” (Psa 77:19).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Humble students are
treading an upland path. Their horizon widens every step they take.
The angels of light, standing on a higher eminence, see further than
they. Still there must be a boundary line which limits angelic
intuition: and whatever lies beyond that line must be a mystery to
them, or, if made known to them, made known by revelation. We rebuke
the want of modesty in the unlearned peasant who argues from his
ignorance against the declarations of science: surely those blessed
spirits would rebuke us, if we, through preconceived notions of our
own, refused to credit the simple revelations of God regarding his
own mysterious Being. He reveals himself by his names, his
attributes, and his acts. And, therefore, if, combined with
assertions that God is one, we find three revealed in Scripture to
whom the same names, attributes, and acts are ascribed, the same so
far as a personal distinction allows; if we look vainly for any
fourth Divine one, or any intimation of more than three; if we
connect with this the intimate and necessary union affirmed to exist
betwixt the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit, as when the Lord
Jesus says, “I and my Father are one,” and when Paul says, “The
Spirit searches the depths of God;” if, then, we find that every
Christian is baptized into one Name,—the Name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,—we are led swiftly and irresistibly
up to the doctrine (call it by what name you will) of the Trinity in
Unity.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Hence, at the risk of
apparent repetition, I shall bring together again some few Bible
testimonies to the Deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost;
combining them in one view; and adding a further declaration from
Scripture of our sole dependence on the alone Jehovah; so that you
may see at a glance, that we are compelled by the Christian verity,
“to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power
of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity.”</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I. The Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost are eternal.</span></div>
<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. I am the first,
and I am the last (Isa 44:6). The everlasting God (Rom 16:26).</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2. I am the first and
the last (Rev 1:17). Whose goings forth have been from of old, from
everlasting (Micah 5:2.)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">3. The eternal Spirit
(Heb 9:14). </span></div>
</blockquote>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The One Eternal is our trust. The eternal God is thy
refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms (Deut. 33:27).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">II. The Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost created all things.</span><br />
<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. One God, the
Father, of whom are all things (1 Cor 8:6). The Lord.... it is he
that hath made us (Psa. 100:3).</span><br />2. All things were made by him (the Word, etc. John1:3). By him were all things created, etc. (Col.1:16). <br />3. Who hath measured, etc. who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord? (Isa. 40:12,13). The Spirit of God hath made me (Job 33:4).</blockquote>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The One Almighty is
our trust. Commit the keeping of their souls to him,—as unto a
faithful Creator (1 Peter 4:19).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">III. The Father, the
Son and the Holy Ghost are omnipresent.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. Do not I fill the
heaven and earth? saith the Lord (Jer 23:24).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2. Lo, I am with you
alway (Matt 28:20).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">3. Whither shall I go
from thy Spirit? (Psa 139:7).</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The One omnipresent
God its our trust. He is not far from every one of us; for in him we
live, and move, and have our being (Acts 17:27, 28).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">IV. The Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost are omniscient.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. No one knoweth the
Father, save the Son (Matt. 11:27). Known unto God are all his works,
etc. (Acts 15:18).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2. No one knoweth the
Son, save the Father (Matt 11:27). Lord, thou knowest all things
(John 21:17). </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">3. Who being his
counsellor hath taught him? (Isa 40:13). The Spirit searcheth all
things (l Cor 2:10).</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We worship the One
all-seeing God. All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him
with whom we have to do (Heb 4:13).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">V. The Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost are true, holy, and good</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. He that sent me is
true (John 7:28). Holy Father. Righteous Father (John 17:11, 25). The
Lord is good (Psalm 34:8).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2. I am...the truth
(John 14:6). The Holy One and the just (Acts 3:14). The good Shepherd
(John 10:11).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">3. The Spirit is
truth (1 John 5:6). The Spirit, the Holy One (John 14:26). Thy Spirit
is good (Psa 143:10).</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We adore the One Lord
of infinite goodness. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify
thy name? for thou only art holy (Rev. 15:4).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">VI. The Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost have each a self-regulating will.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. Him that worketh
all things after the counsel of his own will (Eph 1:11).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2. The Son wills to
reveal him (Matt 11:27). Father, I will (John 17:24).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">3. Dividing to every
one severally as he wills (1 Cor 12:11).</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We rest on the will
of him who alone is Jehovah. The will of the Lord be done (Acts
21:14).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">VII. The Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost are the fountain of life.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. With thee is the
fountain of life (Psa 36:9). God hath quickened us (Eph. 2:4,5).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2. In him (the Word)
was life (John 1:4). The Son quickeneth whom he will (John 5:21).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">3. The Spirit is life
(Rom 8:10). Born of the Spirit (John 3:8).</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We depend on one
life-giving God. Love the Lord thy God,...cleave unto him,...for he
is thy life (Deut 30:20).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">VIII. The Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost strengthern, comfort, and sanctify us.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. Thou
strengthenedst me with strength in my soul (Psa 138:3). I will
comfort you (Isa 66:13). Sanctified by God the Father (Jude 1).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2. I can do all
things through Christ which strengtheneth me (Phil 4:13). If any
consolation in Christ (Phil. 2:1). Sanctified in Christ Jesus (1 Cor
1:2).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">3. Strengthened with
might by his Spirit in the inner man (Eph 3:16). The Comforter, the
Holy Ghost (John 14:26). Being sanctified by the Holy Ghost (Rom
15:16).</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We trust in One God
for spiritual power. My God, my strength, in whom I will trust (Psa
18:2).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">IX. The Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost fill the soul with Divine love.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. Every one that
loveth him that begat (1 John 5:1). If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him (1 John 2:15).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2. The love of Christ
constraineth us (2 Cor 5:14). If any man love not the Lord Jesus
Christ (1 Cor 16:22).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">3. I beseech you for
the love of the Spirit (Rom 15:30). Your love in the Spirit (Col
1:8).</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The love of the One
living and true God characterizes the saint. Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart (Deut. 6:5).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">X. The Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost gave the Divine law.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. The law of the
Lord is perfect (Psa 19:7). The word of our God (Isa 11:8). Thus
saith the Lord God (Eze 2:4).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2. The law of Christ
(Gal 6:2). The word of Christ (Col 3:16). These things saith the Son
of God (Rev 2:18).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">3. The law of the
Spirit of life (Rom 8:2). Holy men of God spake as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:21). The Holy Ghost said (Acts 13:2).</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The word of One
Legislator is the believer’s rule. There is one Lawgiver who is
able to save (James 4:12).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">XI. The Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost dwell in the hearts of believers.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. I will dwell in
them (2 Cor 6:16). God is in you of a truth (1 Cor 14:25). Our
fellowship is with the Father (1 John 1:3).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2. Christ may dwell
in your hearts by faith (Eph 3:17). Christ in you, the hope of glory
(Col 1:27). Our fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">3. The Spirit
dwelleth with you, and shall be in you (John 14:17). The communion of
the Holy Ghost (2 Cor 13:14).</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The contrite heart
receives One Divine guest. Thus saith the high and lofty One that
inhabiteth eternity, I dwell with him that is of a contrite and
humble heart (Isa 57:15).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">XII. The Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost are, each by himself, the supreme Jehovah and
God.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. I am Jehovah thy
God (Exo 20:2). Thou, Lord, art most High for evermore (Psa 92:8).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2. Jehovah our God
(Isa 40:3, with Matt 3:3) The Highest (Luke 1:76, with Matt 11:10).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">3. Jehovah God (Ezek
8:1,3). The Highest (Luke 1:35).</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The One supreme Lord
God is our God for ever and ever. Jehovah, our Elohim, One Jehovah
(Deu 6:4).</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">From this brief
comparison, which might be elaborated at far greater length,
Scripture assures us that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
have the same Divine attributes, concur with a mind and will and
heart, personally independent but unitedly harmonious, in the same
Divine acts, and are addressed by the same Divine names. And further,
we learn that our trust is not dispersed or confused by this co-equal
Godhood of the Sacred Three: but that (a way of access being opened
in the gospel through the revelation of the Father in Christ by the
Spirit) we rest on, we worship, and we love One God.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Taken from the book
“The Trinity” by Edward Henry Bickersteth.</span></div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-5551483997913069072017-08-24T06:00:00.000-05:002017-12-11T09:00:10.683-06:00To A Sinner Possible Salvation Is Impossible Salvation <div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">A
possible salvation would be to a sinner an impossible salvation. Mere
salvability would be to him inevitable destruction. It will be
admitted, without argument, that a possible salvation is not, in
itself, an actual salvation. That which may be is not that which is.
Before a possible can become an actual salvation something needs to
be done—a condition must be performed upon which is suspended its
passage from possibility to actuality. The question is, What is this
thing which needs to be done—what is this condition which must be
fulfilled before salvation can become a fact to the sinner? The
Arminian answer is: Repentance and faith on the sinner's part. He
must consent to turn from his iniquities and accept Christ as his
Saviour. The further question presses, By what agency does the sinner
perform this condition—by what power does lie repent, believe, and
so accept salvation? The answer to this question, whatever it may be,
must indicate the agency, the power, which determines the sinner's
repenting, believing and so accepting salvation. It is not enough to
point out an agency, a power, which is, however potent, merely an
auxiliary to the determining cause. It is the determining cause
itself that must be given as the answer to the question. It must be a
factor which renders, by virtue of its own energy, the final
decision—an efficient cause which, by its own inherent causality,
makes a possible salvation an actual and experimental fact. What is
this causal agent which is the sovereign arbiter of human destiny?
The Arminian answer to this last question of the series is, 'The
sinner's will.' It is the sinner's will which, in the last resort,
determines the question whether a possible, shall become an actual,
salvation. This has already been sufficiently evinced in the
foregoing remarks. But what need is there of argument to prove what
any one, even slightly acquainted with Arminian theology, knows that
it maintains? Indeed, it is one of the distinctive and vital features
of that theology, contra-distinguishing it to the Calvinistic. The
Calvinist holds that the efficacious and irresistible grace of God
applies salvation to the sinner; the Arminian, that the grace of God
although communicated to every man is inefficacious and resistible,
and that the sinner's will uses it as merely an assisting influence
in determining the final result of accepting a possible salvation and
so making it actual. Grace does not determine the will; the will
'improves' the grace and determines itself. Grace is the handmaid,
the sinner's will the mistress. Let us suppose that in regard to the
question whether salvation shall be accepted, there is a perfect
equipoise between the motions of grace and the contrary inclinations
of the sinner's will. A very slight added influence will destroy the
equilibrium. Shall it be from grace or from the sinner's will? If
from the former, grace determines the question, and the Calvinistic
doctrine is admitted. But that the Arminian denies. It must then be
from the sinner's will; and however slight and inconsiderable this
added influence of the will may be, it determines the issue. It is
like the feather that alights upon one of two evenly balanced scales
and turns the beam.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Moreover,
this will of the sinner which discharges the momentous office of
determining the question of salvation is his natural will. It cannot
be a gracious will, that is, a will renewed by grace; for if it were,
the sinner would be already in a saved condition. But the very
question is, Will he consent to be saved 2 Now if it be not the will
of a man already in a saved condition, it is the will of a man yet in
an unsaved condition. It is the will of an unbelieving and un
converted man, that is, a natural man, and consequently must be a
natural will. It is this natural will, then, which finally determines
the question whether a possible salvation shall become an actual. It
is its high office to settle the matter of practical salvation. In
this solemn business, as in all others, it has an irrefragable
autonomy. Not even in the critical transition from the kingdom of
Satan into the kingdom of God's dear Son, can it be refused the
exercise of its sacred and inalienable prerogative of contrary
choice. At the supreme moment of the final determination of the soul
“for Christ to live and die,” the determination might be
otherwise. The will may be illuminated, moved, assisted by grace, but
not controlled and determined by it. To the last it has the power of
resisting grace and of successfully resisting it. To it—I use the
language reluctantly—the blessed Spirit of God is represented as
sustaining the attitude of the persuasive orator of grace. He argues,
he pleads, he expostulates, lie warns, he beseeches the sinner's will
in the melting accents of Calvary and alarms it with the thunders of
judgment—but that is all. He cannot without tres passing upon its
sovereignty renew and re-create and determine his will. This is no
misrepresentation, no exaggeration, of the Arminian’s position. It
is what he contends for. It is what he must contend for. It is one of
the hinges on which his system turns. Take it away, and the system
swings loosely and gravitates to an inevitable fall.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Now
this is so palpably opposed to Scripture and the facts of experience,
that Evangelical Arminians endeavor to modify it, so as to relieve it
of the charge of being downright Pelagianism. That the attempt is
hopeless, has already been shown. It is utterly vain to say, that
grace gives ability to the sinner sufficient for the formation of
that final volition which decides the question of personal salvation.
Look at it. Do they mean, by this ability, regenerating grace? If
they do, as regenerating grace unquestionably determines the
sinner's will, they give mp their position and adopt the Calvinistic.
No; they affirm that they do not, because the Calvinistic position is
liable to two insuperable objections: first, that it limits
efficacious grace to the elect, denying it to others; secondly, that
efficacious and determining grace would contradict the laws by which
the human will is governed. It comes back to this, then: that
notwithstanding this imparted ability, the natural will is the factor
which determines the actual relation of the soul to salvation. The
admission of a gracious ability, therefore, does not relieve the
difficulty. It is not an efficacious and determining influence; it is
simply suasion. The natural will may yield to it or resist it. It is
a vincible influence. Now this being the real state of the case,
according to the Arminian scheme, it is perfectly manifest that no
sinner could be saved. There is no need of argument. It is simply
out of the question, that the sinner in the exercise of his natural
will can repent, believe in Christ, and so make a possible salvation
actual. Let it be clearly seen that, in the final settlement of the
question of personal religion, the Arminian doctrine is, that the
will does not decide as determined by the grace of God, but by its
own inherent self-determining power, and the inference, if any
credit is attached to the statements of Scripture, is forced upon us,
that it makes the salvation of the sinner impossible. A salvation,
the appropriation of which is dependent upon the sinner's natural
will, is no salvation; and the Arminian position is that the
appropriation of salvation is dependent upon the natural will of the
sinner. The stupendous paradox is thus shown to be true—that a
merely possible salvation is an impossible salvation.” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">John L.
Girardeau, Calvinism and Evangelical Arminianism Compared, Part I, Section III: Objections From Divine Goodness</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-78100246867043145382017-08-21T06:00:00.000-05:002017-08-21T07:47:17.154-05:00John Foxe on Antichrist Exalting Himself in the Temple of God<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Most of us have heard of Foxe's Book of Martyrs. What many are not aware of is that this is an extremely edited version of his original work, which is entitled</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> The Acts and Monuments of the Church, Containing the History and Sufferings of the Martyrs. The entire work runs over 7,000 pages, contained in 8 volumes. "The Book of Martyrs" that most people are familiar with is a 300+ page paperback that focuses largely on the martyrs of the first 300 years of Church history. Foxe arranges his material around his interpretation of the Millennium of Revelation 20. Perhaps in later posts, I will provide Foxe's detailed exegetical analysis of this passage of Scripture. But for now, suffice it to say that Foxe sees the Millennium as the 1,000 year period in which there was no official, state-sanctioned persecution of the Church. This extends from the Edict of Milan. From this period, there was no state-sanctioned persecution of Christians. During the intervening one thousand years, pagan Rome was destroyed and its power fully transferred to Papal Rome. A thousand years after the cessation of persecution of Christians, Rome, now ruled by the Pope, reinstituted the persecution of Christians when she aimed her fury at Wycliffe. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Central to Foxe's position, is that the papacy is the Antichrist. This view has waned among Protestants, even among supposed Reformed Christians, over the past century and a half, but it was without a doubt a central tenet of the Reformation. In fact, whatever doctrinal differences there may have been among the various "schools" or strands of the Reformation (Zwingli, Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox, etc), there was 100% agreement among them about this: The Papacy, and therefore <i>every currently-reigning Pope <b>is </b>the Antichrist.</i> I am bold enough to say every single Reformer would have made this a test of one's claim to the true Christian faith. Nor is it fair to say that this belief was pure reaction on their part against a persecuting power. Centuries before Wycliffe ever made the charge, sprinkled throughout Church history, other writers, <i>not persecuted</i>, have made the same claim. And all have done so based on careful, precise, exegesis of relevant passages of Scripture. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">When one hears Protestants assert that the Pope is the Antichrist, and that he had historically made extravagant claims for and about himself and his position, it might seem like a stretch or an exaggeration. What follows are the final 18 1/2 pages of Book VI of The Acts and Monuments, which are pages 145-164 of Volume 4 in the 1846 edition. Foxe presents what is essentially a <i>catena</i>, or chain of papal edicts, decrees, epistles, etc., in which the assertion that the Pope exalts himself in the temple of God is proven - straight from the horse's mouth. Clicking on an image will open it to view more clearly. I <i>highly </i>recommend reading all 18 1/2 pages.</span></span></div>
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<br />Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-63113226473593800232017-08-17T06:00:00.000-05:002017-08-17T07:08:30.942-05:00John Foxe on Defeating Islam<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span data-offset-key="f2800-0-0"><span data-text="true">This is what the great martyrologist John Foxe says about Islam, why we should be knowledgeable about it, and the only successful way to combat it.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="dlkt8-0-0"><span data-text="true">“If it were not that I fear to overlay this our volume with heaps of foreign histories, who have professed chiefly to treat of Acts and Monuments here done at home, I would adjoin after these popes known above rehearsed, some discourse also of the Turks’ story; of their rising and cruel persecution of the saints of God, to the great annoyance and peril of Christendom. Yet, notwithstanding, certain causes there be, which necessarily require the knowledge of their order and doings, and of their wicked proceedings, their cruel tyranny and bloody victories, the ruin and subversion of so many christian churches, with the horrible murders and captivity of infinite Christians, to be made plain and manifest, as well to this our country of England, as also to other nations.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2g1lk-0-0"><span data-text="true">“First, For the better explaining of the prophecies of the New Testament, as in St. Paul's Epistle to the Thessalonians, and also in the Revelation of St. John; which scriptures otherwise, without the opening of these histories, cannot so perfectly be understood: of which scriptures, we mind hereafter (Christ granting) orderly, as the course of matter shall lead us, to make rehearsal.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="4pb03-0-0"><span data-text="true">“Another cause is, that we may learn thereby, either with the public church to lament, with our brethren, such a great defection and decay of christian faith, through these wicked Turks; or else may fear thereby our own danger.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="8vpcs-0-0"><span data-text="true">“The third cause, that we may ponder more deeply with ourselves the scourge of God for our sins, and corrupt doctrine; which, in the sequel hereof, more evidently may appear to our eyes, for our better admonition.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="75pt-0-0"><span data-text="true">“Fourthly: The consideration of this horrible persecution of the Turks rising chiefly by our discord and dissension among ourselves, may reduce us again from our domestical wars, in killing and burning one another, to join together in christian patience and concord.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="3k3u6-0-0"><span data-text="true">“Fifthly: But chiefly, these great victories of the Turks, and un- prosperous speed of our men fighting against them, may admonish and teach us, following the example of the old Israelites, how to seek for greater strength to encounter with these enemies of Christ, than hitherto we have done. First, we must consider that the whole power of Satan, the prince of this world, goeth with the Turks; which to resist, no strength of man's army is sufficient, but only the name, spirit, and power of our Lord Jesus the Son of God, going with us without in our battles; as among the old Israelites the ark of God's covenant and promise went with them also fighting against the enemies of God. For so are we taught in the Scripture, that we christian men have no strength but in Christ only. Whether we war against the devil, or against the Turk, it is true that the Scripture saith, ‘Sine me nihil potestis facere,’ that is, ‘Without me you can do nothing.’ Otherwise there is no puissance to stand against the devil, or to conquer the world, ‘nisi fides nostra,’ that is, ‘our faith only,’ to which all the promises of God touching salvation be annexed; beyond which promises we must not go, for the word must be our rule. He that presumeth beyond the promises in the word expressed, goeth not, but wandereth he cannot tell whither: neither must we appoint God how to save the world, but must take that way which he hath appointed. Let us not set our God to school, nor comprehend his Holy Spirit within our skulls. He that made us without our council, did also redeem us as pleased him. If he be merciful, let us be thankful. And if his mercies surmount our capacity, let us therefore not resist but search his Word, and thereunto apply our will; which if we will do, all our contentions will be soon at a point. Let us therefore search the will of our God in his Word, and if he will his salvation to stand free to all nations, why do we make merchandise thereof? If he have graciously offered his waters to us, without money or money-worth, let us not hedge in the plenteous springs of his grace given us. And finally, if God have determined his own Son only to stand alone, let not us presume to admix with his majesty any of our trumpery. He that bringeth St. George or St. Denis, as patrons, to the field, to fight against the Turk, leaveth Christ, no doubt, at home.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="3befl-0-0"><span data-text="true">“Now how we have fought these many years against the Turk, though stories keep silence, yet the success declareth. We fight against a persecutor, being no less persecutors ourselves. We wrestle against a bloody tyrant, and our hands be as full of blood as his. He killeth Christ's people with the sword, and we burn them with fire. He, observing the works of the law, seeketh his justice by the same: the like also do we. But neither doth he, nor do we, seek our justification as we should, that is, by faith only in the Son of God. And what marvel then, our doctrine being as corrupt almost as his, and our conversation worse, if Christ fight not with us, fighting against the Turk? The Turk hath prevailed so mightily, not because Christ is weak, but because Christians be wicked, and their doctrine impure. Our temples with images, our hearts with idolatry are polluted. Our priests stink before God for adultery, being restrained from lawful matrimony. The name of God is in our mouths, but his fear is not in our hearts. We war against the Turk with our works, masses, traditions, and ceremonies: but we fight not against him with Christ, and with the power of his glory; which if we did, the field were won.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="a0po4-0-0"><span data-text="true">“Wherefore, briefly to conclude, saying my judgment in this behalf, what I suppose. This hope I have, and do believe, that when the church of Christ, with the sacraments thereof, shall be so reformed, victory, that Christ alone shall be received to be our justifier, all other religions, merits, traditions, images, patrons, and advocates set apart, the sword of the Christians, with the strength of Christ, shall soon vanquish the Turks' pride and fury. But of this more largely in the process of this story.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2j7du-0-0"><span data-text="true">“The sixth and last cause, why I think the knowledge of the Turks' cause, history requisite to be considered, is this: because that many there be, who, for that they be further from the Turks, and think therefore themselves to be out of danger, take little care and study what happeneth to their other brethren. Wherefore, to the intent to excite their zeal and prayer to Almighty God, in this so lamentable ruin of Christ's church, I thought it requisite, by order of history, to give church this our nation also something to understand, what hath been done in of Christ. Other nations by these cruel Turks, and what detriment hath been, and is like more to happen by them to the church of Christ, except we make our earnest invocation to Almighty God, in the name of his Son, to stop the course of the devil by these Turks, and to stay this defection of Christians falling daily unto them, and to reduce them again to his faith, who are fallen from him: which the Lord Jesus of his grace grant with speed! Amen. <br /><br />John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, Book VI</span></span></div>
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Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5331156725554508589.post-62645405764373656932017-08-14T06:00:00.000-05:002017-08-14T06:00:03.398-05:00Conclusions of the Parliament at Westminster, 1395 AD<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Book of Conclusions or Reformations, exhibited to the Parliament
holden at London, and set up at Paul's door and other places, in the
eighteenth year of the reign of King Richard II, and in the year of our
Lord 1395. </div>
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The first conclusion: — When the church of England
began first to dote in temporalties after her stepmother the great
church of Rome, and the churches were authorised by appropriations;
faith, hope, and charity began in divers places to fly away from our
church, forsomuch as pride, with her dolorous genealogy of mortal sins,
did challenge that place by title of heritage. And this conclusion is
general, and approved by experience, custom, and manner, as ye shall
hereafter hear. </div>
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<br /> The second conclusion: — That our usual priesthood,
which took its original at Rome, and is feigned to be a power higher
than angels, is not that priesthood which Christ ordained unto his
apostles. This conclusion is thus proved, forsomuch as the Romish
priesthood is executed with signs, and rites, and pontifical
benedictions, of little virtue, neither having any ground in holy
Scripture, forsomuch as the bishop's ordinal and the New Testament do
little agree; neither do we see that the Holy Ghost doth give any good
gift on account of any such signs, because He, together with all his
noble gifts, cannot stand with deadly sin in any person. The corollary
of this conclusion is, That it is a lament able mockery unto wise men,
to see the bishops sport with the Holy Ghost in the giving of their
orders; because they give crowns for their characters instead of white
harts; and this is the character [or, mark] of Antichrist, introduced
into holy church to give colour to idleness. <br /> </div>
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The third conclusion: —
That the law of chastity enjoined unto priesthood, which was first
ordained to the prejudice of women, induceth sodomy through out holy
church; but we do excuse us [in the mention of this crime] by the Bible,
whereas the suspect decree doth say that we are not to name it. Both
reason and experience prove this conclusion. Reason thus, forsomuch as
the delicate fare of ecclesiastical men will have either a natural
purgation, or some thing worse. Experience thus, forsomuch as the secret
proof of such men is, that they do delight in women; and, whensoever
thou dost prove a man to be such, mark him well, for he is one of that
number. The corollary of this conclusion is, That private religions,
with the beginners thereof, ought most chiefly to be disannulled, as the
original of that sin: but God of his might doth for privy sin in his
church send open vengeance. </div>
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<br /> The fourth conclusion [that most
harmeth the innocent people] is this: — That the feigned miracle of the
sacrament of bread induceth all men, except it be a few, into idolatry;
forsomuch as they think that the body of Christ, which is never out of
heaven, is by virtue of the priest's words essentially included in the
little bread, the which they do show unto the people. But would to God
they would believe that which the Evangelical Doctor teacheth us in his
Trialogue, 'Quod panis altaris est accidentaliter corpus Christi' [that
is, That the bread of the altar is the body of Christ accidentally]:
forsomuch as we suppose that by that means every faithful man and woman
in the law of God may make the sacrament of that bread without any such
miracle. The corollary of this conclusion is, That albeit the body of
Christ be endowed with eternal joy, the service of Corpus Christi, made
by friar Thomas, is not true, but painted, full of false miracles;
neither is it any marvel, forsomuch as friar Thomas, at that time
holding with the pope, would have made a miracle of a hen's egg; and we
know well, that every lie openly preached, doth turn to the opprobrium
of Him, who is always true and without any defect. <br /> </div>
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The fifth
conclusion is this: — That the exorcisms and benedictions practised over
wine, bread, water, oil, salt, wax, incense, altar-stones, and church-
walls, over vestments, chalices, mitres, crosses, and the staves of
pilgrims, are truly the practices of necromancy rather than of sacred
divinity. This conclusion may be thus proved: because that by such
exorcisms the creatures are honoured to be of higher virtue than in
their own proper nature they are; and we do not see any change in any
creature so exorcised, except by false faith, which is the principle of
the diabolic art. T-he corollary of this is, That if the book of
exorcising [or, conjuring] holy water, which is read in the church, were
altogether faithful and true; we think certainly that the holy water,
used in the church, were the best medicine for all kind of sicknesses
and sores: 'Cujus contrarium indies experimur,' that is, 'The contrary
whereof we daily experience.' <br /> </div>
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The sixth conclusion [which
maintaineth much pride] is, That the union in the same person of king
and bishop, prelate and judge in temporal causes, curate and officer in
worldly office, doth make every kingdom out of good order. This
conclusion is manifest, because the temporalty and the spiritualty are
two parts of the entire holy church; and, therefore, he who addicteth
himself to the one part, let him not intermeddle with the other, 'Quia
nemo potest duobus dominis servire.' It seemeth that "hermaphrodite," or
"ambidexter" were good names for such men of double estates. The
corollary of this conclusion is, That therefore we, as the proctors of
God, do in this case sue unto the parliament, that it may be enacted
that all curates (as well of the higher degrees as of the lower) may be
fully excused, and occupy themselves with their own cure, and with no
other.<br /> </div>
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The seventh conclusion [that we mightily affirm] is, That
special prayers made in our church for the souls of the dead, preferring
any one man by name more than another, is a false foundation of alms,
whereupon all the houses of alms in England are falsely founded. This
conclusion may be proved by two reasons: the one is, that a prayer to be
meritorious and of any value ought to be a work proceeding from mere
charity, and perfect charity excepteth no person, because 'thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself.' Wherefore it appeareth to us, that the
gift of some temporal good, bestowed on priests and houses of alms, is
the principal motive of special prayer; which is not far removed from
simony. The other reason is, that a special prayer, made for men
condemned to eternal punishment, is very displeasing to God; and albeit
it be doubtful, yet it seemeth unto faithful christian people likely,
that the founders of every house of alms, for their mischievous endowing
of the same, for the most part have passed by the broad way. The
corollary is, That prayer of any value, proceeding of perfect charity,
would comprehend generally all such whom God would have saved, and would
give up that common trade in special prayers which is now carried on by
mendicant other hireling priests (who, otherwise, were strong enough to
work and to serve the whole realm) and houses maintaineth the same in
idleness, to the great charge of the realm, because it was proved in a
certain book which the king hath, that a hundred houses of for alms are
sufficient for the whole realm, and thereby, peradventure, greater
increase and profit might come unto the temporalty. <br /> </div>
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The eighth
conclusion [needful to tell to the people beguiled] is, That
pilgrimages, prayers, and oblations made unto blind crosses or roods,
and to deaf images of wood and stone, are very near of kin unto
idolatry, and far removed from alms: and, albeit these fanciful things
be all forbidden and be a book of error unto the common people,
notwithstanding the usual image of the Trinity is most abominable. This
conclusion God himself doth openly manifest, when commanding alms to be
given to the needy man; because he is the image of God, in a more
perfect similitude than wood or stone; for God did not say, Let us make a
block or stone after our image and likeness, but, Let us make a poor
man; forsomuch as the supreme honour, which the clergy call 'Latria,'
pertaineth only to the Godhead, and the inferior honour, which the
clergy call 'Dulia,' pertaineth unto men and angels, and to none other
inferior creature. The corollary is, That the service of the cross,
celebrated twice every year in our church, is full of idolatry: for if
the rood, tree, nails, and spear, ought so profoundly to be honoured,
then were Judas' lips, if any man could get them, a marvellous goodly
relic. But we pray thee, pilgrim, tell us, when thou dost offer to the
bones of the saints which are laid up in any place, whether thou dost
relieve thereby the saint who is in joy, or that alms-house for the poor
which is so well endowed, on account of which they are canonized, the
Lord knoweth how! And to speak more plainly, every faithful Christian
supposeth that the wounds of that noble man, whom they call St. Thomas,
were no matter of martyrdom. <br /> </div>
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The ninth conclusion [that keepeth the
people low] is, That auricular confession, which is said to be so
necessary for a man's salvation, and the feigned power of absolution,
exalt the pride of priests, and give them opportunity of minister other
secret talks, which we will not at this time talk of; forsomuch as both
lords and ladies attest, that for fear of their confessors they dare not
speak the truth: and in time of confession is good opportunity
ministered of wooing, or to play the bawd, or to make other secret
conventions to deadly sins. They themselves say, that they are God's
commissaries to judge of all manner of sin, to pardon and cleanse
whomsoever it shall please them. They say that they have the keys of
heaven and hell, and can excommunicate and bless, bind and loose, at
their will: insomuch that for a small reward, or for twelve pence, they
will sell the blessing of heaven by charter and clause of warranty,
sealed with their common seal. This conclusion is so commonly in use,
that it needeth not any probation. The corollary hereof is, That the
pope of Rome, who is feigned to be the high treasurer of the whole
church, having that same worthy jewel, i.e. instead of the treasure of
the passion of Christ, in his keeping, together with the merits of all
the saints in heaven, whereby he giveth feigned indulgence 'a poena et
culpa,' is a treasurer almost banished out of charity, since he can
deliver all the prisoners who are in purgatory at his pleasure, and make
that they never come thither. But thus every faithful Christian may
well see, that there is much secret falsehood lurking in our church. </div>
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<br />
The tenth conclusion is, That manslaughter, either by war or by any
pretended law of justice, for any temporal cause without a spiritual
revelation, is expressly is lawful, contrary unto the New Testament,
which is a law full of grace and mercy. This conclusion is evidently
proved by examples of the preaching of Christ here on earth, who
specially taught man to love his enemies, and to have compassion upon
them, and not to kill them. The reason is this, that for the most part
when men do fight, after the first stroke charity is broken; and
whosoever dieth without charity, goeth straightway to hell. And beside
that, we well know, that none of the clergy can by Scripture or by any
legitimate means deliver any from the punishment of death for one deadly
sin, and not for another: but the law of mercy, which is the New
Testament, forbiddeth all manner of man slaughter. For in the gospel it
is said to the fathers, 'Thou shalt not kill.' The corollary is, It is a
very robbing of the people, when lords purchase indulgences 'a poena et
culpa' for those who do help their armies to kill christian people in
foreign countries for temporal gain; as also we have seen certain
soldiers running among the heathen people, to get themselves a name by
the slaughter of men. Much rather do they deserve evil thanks at the
hands of the King of Peace, forsomuch as it was by humility and patience
that our faith was propagated; but fighters and murderers Christ Jesus
doth hate and menace, saying, "He that striketh with the sword, shall
perish with the sword." <br /> </div>
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The eleventh conclusion is [which is shame
to tell], That the vow of chastity made in our church by women that are
frail and imperfect in nature, is the single cause of bringing in the
most horrible sins possible to human nature: for, albeit the murder of
their children born before their time, and before they are christened,
and the destruction of nature hy medicine, be foul sins; yet intercourse
among themselves, or irrational beasts, or inanimate creatures, is such
transcendent vileness, that they ought to be punished by hell torments.
The corollary is, That widows, and such as take the mantle and the
ring, delicately fed, we would that they were married, because we cannot
excuse them from private sins. <br /> </div>
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The twelfth conclusion is, That the
multitude of arts not necessary, used in our realm, nourisheth much sin
and offence in waste, curiosity, and disguising in curious apparel.
Experience and reason partly do show the same, forsomuch as nature, with
a few arts, is sufficient for man's necessity. </div>
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This is the whole tenor
of our ambassade, which Christ hath commanded us to prosecute at this
time, most fit and convenient for many causes. And, albeit these matters
be here briefly noted, yet, notwithstanding, they are more at large
declared in another book, with many other more, wholly in our own proper
tongue, which we would should be common to all Christian people.
Wherefore we pray God, of his great goodness, that he would wholly
reform our church, now altogether out of frame, unto the perfection of
her first beginning.</div>
Andyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02908788730958708701noreply@blogger.com0