produce and bring forth its kind, man puts out his hand in winter, and makes preparations for the coming year: so, if the church be still in existence, and that no one denies; and if it be the law and end of her being to embody a first-fruits and earnest of the power which Christ is to put forth in the redemption of all nature; then, what though she hath been brought so low, her life is still in her, and that life will, under a more genial day, put forth its native powers. Will God be baffled in his own most perfect work, in that work which he hath wrought for the honour of his Son? I trow not. The church is in the condition of a man faint, and sick, and apparently dead, who putteth forth neither manly voice nor vigorous action, and is even incapable of thought, and almost beyond feeling: but let that man revive again (and we know the church never dies), and he will both hear and see and feel and act the man. So, if the church reviveth, she must act as the church; which is not in the way of holiness merely, but in the way of power, for the manifestation of the completeness of Christ's work in flesh, and the first-fruits of the same work in glory. The church is like a man who has been fed upon slows without fruits and husks without kernels, refuse which the swine should eat; and she is grown lean and weak and helpless; and, moreover, she has grown degraded in her ideas she has forgotten the nobility of her birth and the grandeur of her destination: but what then? give her proper meat, give her nourishing drink, feed her with marrow and with fatness, and she will put forth her might again, and rejoice in her high places. The question is, whether that be the endowment of the church which we have laid down above? If so, then rest assured that when she revives again she will embody the law according to which she was made, and shew forth the beauty and put forth the power with which she was endowed in the day of her birth. If there be a revival, she will put forth consentaneously and all together more knowledge, more love, more power, more holiness, more complete testimony to the power of Him whose members she is, of that Spirit which abideth in her, of that God which worketh all the gifts in all the members. They called Methodism and Evangelicalism a revival: I always have maintained, that, though better than downright Pelagianism, they were far behind the Reformation ; which itself was only the beginning of a glorious work, strangled in its cradle. But now I see a revival worthy of the name-a revival of doctrine, of discipline, of holiness. Christians are beginning to speak their native language of faith and truth, and to endure their prerogative of being partakers of the Lord's sufferings. And if this revival proceed, it cannot but shew itself in all those essential functions for which the church was constituted; of which one is, to enjoy and hold forth a first-fruits of that power which Christ is to act out in the day of his appearing. I feel it of the greatest importance that those who are seeking to deter men from these great truths should be resisted, and that their mouths should be stopped: I feel it of still more importance that those who are inquiring and searching into these things should proceed with faith and prayer, under the guidance of God's holy word. And therefore with all patience, as one who is working for a master the work that his master hath set him to do, have I endeavoured to exhibit at large the church's endowment of her great Head, consisting of two parts: the first, the inheritance of his complete work wrought in the flesh; the second, the first-fruits of the work which he is to work when he comes again. The former consisteth in perfect holiness, through the renewal of the soul; which is strengthened to subdue the innate propensities of the flesh to evil, to crucify the world, and to overcome the evil one. This we have served out to us in the two sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; in the one of which we receive cleanness of conscience, and in the other participation of Christ's sanctified flesh and purchased inheritance. But none of these go further than to possess us of what he purchased in the flesh: "This is my body, given for you; this is my blood, shed for the remission of sins:" his body, given for the life of the world; his blood, shed for the putting away of all sin. The church hath perfect holiness ministered to her in these two ordinances Christ doth thereby dispense that gift of the Spirit which was dispensed to him by the Father in the days of his flesh, and by the faithful use of which he "sanctified himself." And we, having in these most comfortable ordinances that blessed fellowship of holiness, should sanctify ourselves, that we may be holy as he is holy. This is the work of the Spirit uniting us unto Christ; taking out of us our unholiness and grafting us into Christ. There is a power in the Spirit to wash the Ethiopian white. It is not in man, but it is in God, to do so; and the element with which to do it he hath in the blood of Christ, which cleanseth away all sins. Every man baptized into the church is answerable for a life of spotless, stainless holiness. What though no man hath yielded it? So much the more is the sinfulness of our nature proved, and the divinity of Christ shewn, who did present mortal flesh sinless: and let him be glorified, and every man be a liar. But the truth of God standeth not the less sure. "Let God be true, and every man a liar." Out of this claim which God hath, and this power which we receive after baptism, for a perfect holiness, come our confessions in the church, which are confessions not only of the natural guilt and strength of sin, but of the deeper and deeper guilt which it hath contracted in our eyes by warring against the Spirit of God, and striking at the life of Christ in the soul of the believer. Not only a creationdefiling, but a Redeemer slaying thing is sin; not only aiming at the work of God, but at the person of God manifest in flesh. This standard of perfection is what we measure ourselves by, and not each man's notion of what he can attain to. Man, though fallen into a state of weakness, is still kept responsible for the law of perfect holiness, as at the beginning and he is brought to depend upon God the Redeemer, the incarnate God, the God proceeding forth into flesh to uphold it; so believing in a God creating, a God incarnate, and a God proceeding forth upon flesh, in order to attain unto holiness, we attain thereunto, and are stable therein; and so are brought into the great truth of God, that no holiness can be otherwise effected save by the faith of God in Trinity acting according to their offices. The sin which occurreth in the church is through want of faith in the Godhead thus manifested; and that sin continually occurring, through the defect of our faith, is the occasion for a continual High Priest over the house of God, whose work of intercession may continually go on. Of this and there is no doubt, that every member of Christ is bound and obliged to perfect holiness, and hath the means of fulfilling it and however far he comes short thereof, he must take the guilt to himself, and not look upon it as an ordinance or appointment of God, as a necessary imperfection in the work of Christ, and a native impotency in the Holy Ghost. Now this is the more excellent way of charity, or love, which the Apostle commendeth above all spiritual gifts: it is the knowledge of Christ, and the being known of him; the doing the will of the Father: for the want of which he shall not admit into the kingdom many who in that day shall come with their spiritual gifts in their hand, saying, "Have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works?" This we never for a moment gainsay or undervalue, while we insist that, besides this, there is yet another thing resident in the church; another work which she has to do besides the work of holiness in the flesh. We hold the highest doctrine here, both as to the importance of this personal holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord; and of its measure, even perfectness, whereof love is the bond. Let no one say, then, that we undervalue the sacramental ministration of a cleansed soul and a holy body, when we insist from the premises laid down above, that there is another office to which the church is called besides this, and another endowment with which she is gifted by her Lord and Husband; the dowry, not of holiness only, but also of power. And for this she waited until he himself should, from the throne of God, shed it down abundantly upon his church. Into both of these is the church baptized, as Peter said: "Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." The remission, or putting away, of sin, is that into which we are baptized, as a thing done for the world by Christ's sacrifice of himself: the gift of the Holy Ghost is that which to faith follows thereon-though, to convince Peter of God's equal goodness to the Gentiles, it was poured out upon Cornelius and his company before their baptism. The Samaritan church had the gift of baptism without the gift of the Holy Ghost, which they received by the hands of the Apostles; and thereby we perceive that the church may exist without the gift. But whether it is right in the sight of God that she should so exist, let any one judge, after perusing the things written above. We have shut ourselves out by unbelief from the enjoyment of one great part of our dowry; whereby not only are we straitened, but the glory of our Lord and Husband is obscured, the world is deprived of its witness and testimony, and the gracious ends of God, so far as we can, defeated; and guilt is upon our head, as baptized men, for not using that which we are baptized into, for the possession and for the use of which we are responsible. It is now three years since I drew the attention of the church to this subject, and more than two since I published my views of it in the second of my Homilies upon Baptism. Circumstances have occurred since to fix the attention of the church upon it; and, lest men may be beguiled the one way or the other, we have felt it to be our duty to lay down the doctrine, according as we find it in the Holy Scriptures. |