ffl
THE LIBRARY of
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY Toronto
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED; OR,
THE THEOLOGY OF THE SO-CALLED PL YMO UTH BRE THREN
AND 1-5Y
DANIEL STEELE,
D. D.,
PROFESSOR OF DIDACTIC THEOLOGY IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY.
Author of "People
s
Commentary
"Love
Enthroned,
"Mile-Stone
Papers," etc.
WITH INTRODUCTION TO CANADIAN READERS BY X.
BURWASH,
S.T.D.,
PRESIDENT OF VICTORIA COLLEGE.
TORONTO: WILLIAM BRIGGS, MONTREAL:
C.
78
&
W. COAXES.
80
KING STREET EAST.
HALIFAX:
S. F.
HUESTIS.
6X "
Sft7
^.^ B379
EMAAANUEl
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887
BY
MCDONALD, GILL &
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress
co., at
Washington.
CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION TO CANADIAN READKRS INTRODUCTION
...
3 5
PREFACE
23
CHAPTER
I.
ANTINOMIANISM DKFINED
81
CHAPTER ANTING MI ANISM.
PAOT?.
II.
HISTORICAL SKETCH
CHAPTER
37
III.
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN
52
CHAPTER THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN
IV.
(Continued)
CHAPTER
.
.
77
V.
ANTING MIAN FAITH
IOC
CHAPTER
VI.
THE PLYMOUTH VIEW OF THE ATONEMENT
CHAPTER
121
VII.
ETERNAL LIFE XON-FORFEITABLE
132
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
VII!.
HOLINESS IMPUTED
148
CHAPTER
IX.
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY, on LAST THINGS
CHAPTER
193
.
XI.
DIFFICULTIES OF LITERALISM
204
CHAPTER
XII.
PREDESTINAUIAN BASIS
214
CHAPTER EXEQETICAL ABSURDITIES
162
X.
THE PROPHETIC: CONFIDENCE REVIEWED
CHAPTER
.
XIII. .
.
CHAPTER
.
,
.
223
XIV.
DIFFICULTIES IN THE THOUSAND YEARS
.
.
2%
CHAPTER XV. THE CHURCH NOT THE KINGDOM
.
CHAPTER XVI. ELECT NUMBER OF THE GENTILES
246
256
Introduction to Canadian Readers.
THIS work, by the Rev. DANIEL STEELE, D.D., Professor of Didactic Theology in Boston University, is
An
a very timely book.
Antinomian view
Atonement, an Antinomian definition of
an equally Antinomian view which the Kingdom of Christ its final glory,
modern
this error
to be advanced to
Dr. Steele has well
Antinomianism
Revived,"
century since the Reformation pearance.
and
are the curse of a large part of our
evangelization. "
faith,
the agencies by
of is
of the
it
for in every
has made
It constituted the chief
named
enemy
its
ap
of true
religion with
which Wesley and Fletcher were called
to
thwarting more than
contend,
any other the
mission of Methodism to spread Scriptural Holiness
over the land. has, in
In the work before us Dr. Steele
a very popular
and most trenchant
style,
and with the
logic, set
before
us,
clearest (1)
The
INTRODUCTION TO CANADIAN READERS.
4
nature of this error
(2)
;
A comprehensive and valu A very full exposi
able sketch of its past history ; (3) tion of its (4)
modern organized form
A careful
examination of
errors as to Faith, the
its
as
Plymouthism
;
three fundamental
Atonement, and the absolutely
irrevocable character of the believer s title to eternal life
;
(5)
A most valuable
chapter on the Antinomian
doctrine of imputed Holiness
complete discussion of
;
and
finally, (6)
Advent Doctrine, which accompanies falsely so called.
We
a very
the Eschatology, or Second this Gospel,
regard this entire
system of
teaching as one of the greatest enemies with Christianity it
is
called to contend to-day,
creates weakness from within,
which
which
inasmuch as is
more
far
dangerous than can be any attack from without.
combating
this heresy, our
in Dr. Steele s book
In
ministry will find
younger an invaluable storehouse
of in
formation and argument, giving them the gist of the
keen logic with which Wesley and Fletcher met this error in their day, but admirably adapted to the new guise in which
it
appears in our time.
N. BURWASH.
INTRODUCTION. THE
arguments of
this
book are
directed,
mainly, against the doctrines inculcated so-called little
Plymouth Brethren.
We
more, in this introduction
shall
by the
attempt
which we are
asked to write, than to answer the question, Who are the Plymouth Brethren f "
"
They are a sect (if it be proper to call those a sect who repudiate all sects) popularly known as
"
Darbyites," "Brethren," "Plymouth
ren,"
etc.
They
sixty years
originated in England nearly
He was
commenced
the leadership of Mr.
ago, under
John Darby. Mr. Darby was born parents.
its
Breth
in England, of wealthy
educated for the law, and
practice.
But
his
subsequent
conversion changed his whole course of
He was
impressed that
it
was
his
duty 5
life.
to enter
INTRODUCTION.
6
His father, learning of his pur pose, became violently opposed to it, and not being able to dissuade him from it, actually dis the ministry.
inherited him.
him, and at his
But a wealthy uncle adopted decease left him an ample for
tune.
Mr. Darby having finished his theological studies, was ordained, and admitted to the min istry of the Established
Church.
But he did
not long continue in fellowship with that church.
Not being
able to understand the doctrine of
apostolic succession, he rejected
it,
and with
drew from the Establishment and denounced
it
as an illegitimate church.
Having severed regarded
an
his connection
apostate
church,
with what he he
went
in
search of the true one, not doubting as yet but
what such a church could be found.
But Mr.
Darby never found his ideal church. Such as were of his way of thinking were urged to band themselves together and wait until Christ should make His personal advent, which
INTRODUCTION. they
confidently anticipated
The
occur.
in Ireland.
first
band
But
it
7
would speedily was formed
of this faith
was
in
Plymouth, England,
met with the greatest favor. Here their members soon numbered some fifteen
that the Brethren
hundred.
So marked was their success
ren."
It is
assumed
proper to say,
except
"
name, nor, in fact, any other, Nor do we know that
this "
in
Ply Breth Plymouth that they have never
mouth, that they were called
Brethren."
they seriously object to it. Great success attended the labors of the "
Brethren,"
and bands were formed
Exeter, and several other places.
in
London,
Many
per
sons of wealth united with them, and contrib
uted considerable sums of money to aid in spreading the
About
new
faith.
this time they established their first
periodical, entitled the its
Christian
chief contributor.
Witness, Mr.
Darby being It was not long before their violent attacks on the church drew upon them the opposition
INTRODUCTION.
8
And
of the English clergy.
so well directed
and ably conducted was that opposition, that the spread of the new faith was not only seri ously checked, but their numbers were greatly
reduced.
In 1838, or near that time, Mr. Darby for the Continent.
England Paris, where he remained seeing
much
He
for a time,
But
fruit of his labor.
erland, which he next
left
visited
first
without
in
Switz
visited, he found a more
inviting field.
Some time erland, the
before Mr.
Darby
s visit to
Switz
had
com
Wesleyan Methodists
menced
successful operations in Lausanne, and
quite a
number
of the
members
of the
State
Church had withdrawn and united with them, creating no
some who
among the people. new proselytes to Methodism were
little stir
Among the
still
held to the doctrine of predesti
nation, and rejected the Wesleyan doctrine of Christian perfection. It was claimed that, un
der these
circumstances, those
who held
the
INTRODUCTION. doctrine of predestination, and
9 still
adhered to
the Methodists, had received but half the truth.
These differences of religious opinion extended to the Methodists of Vevay, producing no little disturbance
among
the
members
there.
With
the purpose of overthrowing the new an influential member of the State Church faith, at
Lausanne, invited Mr. Darby to come there
and
He went, and by and the publication of a book
fight the Methodists.
his preaching,
The Doctrine of the Wesley ans Regard ing Perfection, and their use of the Holy Scrip tures, he succeeded in so far bewildering the
entitled,
uninstructed people, that the greater part of them abandoned their faith, and either returned to the
State Church, or united with the dis
senters.
Mr. Darby seemed to have plan.
He
still
more
in his
delivered a series of lectures on the
prophecies, entitled, Views Regarding the Actual
Expectation of the Church, and the Prophe cies which Establish it. These lectures were
10
LNT11ODUCTION.
and produced a profound im pression upon all classes. They were subse in French, German, and quently published largely attended,
English, and
may be found
published works.
In
the
in
Mr. Darby
estimation
author, at least, they lifted the veil
s
of the
which had
long covered the prophecies. Mr. Darby s influence with the people
is
said
have been so great that the regular ministry was almost entirely ignored, and he became to
In
the accepted prophet.
had the
fact, his publications
effect to turn the people, as a whole,,
from the ministry. It was his custom to administer the sacra
ment every Sabbath indiscriminately
men and
dissenters,
him the reputation Christian, anxious to
to
church
which practice earned of
for
being a large-hearted
make
the church one.
When
Mr. Darby had sufficiently drawn the people to himself, he was prepared, it would seem, to make known to them his plans more fully.
These were, to draw out of the State
INTRODUCTION.
Church others,
its
11
best members, and unite
and
them with
so form a circle of perfectly free
congregations, without any organization, and to
make
himself,
it
was claimed, the centre of the
whole.
To accomplish sheets,"
or tracts,
this
end, a series of
"
fly-
were issued at Geneva and
Lausanne, which clearly revealed Mr. Darby s In one of these tracts, entitled, "Apostaplan. cy of the
Economy,"
he laid the axe at the root
of the tree, leaving the whole Christian Church, so far as he
other tract,
was "
On
able, a shapeless
wreck.
the Foundation of the
In an
Church,"
he attacked the Dissenters, denying the right In still another, Liberty to to form a church. "
preach Jesus possessed of every Christian," he denied the existence of any priestly office in the church, except the universal priesthood of believers.
The church having come
the ordained ministry, or priesthood,
No man,
to
an end,
went with
men, Mr. Darby body claimed, had any right to such an office, and to
it.
nor
of
INTRODUCTION.
12 ,,
assume any such right was proof of the corrup In another tion and ruin of the whole system. tract, entitled
"
based on Matt, of
The Promise
xviii. 20, is
entitled,
Schism
"
was
the
Lord,"
given the shibboleth
the Darbyite gatherings. "
of
Finally, a tract
issued, in
which all who
hesitated to take part in these gatherings were
denominated,
"
Schismatics."
It will be seen at a glance that the
work
of
demolition progressed with great rapidity The church is first demolished. Mr. Darby does not allow even a poor Dissenter to organize a one, no matter
how good it might be.
new
Next, the
Gospel ministry is swept away, and should any one set up a claim to such an office, he would give the clearest evidence of his corruption. In this way the world is left without a church
and without a ministry and the only substi tute furnished is a few Darbyite gatherings, which are without form and without responsi ;
bility.
From Switzerland they
France, and gathered,
spread
into
after a time, several con-
INTRODUCTION. gregations
Paris, Lyons, Marseilles,
and oth
A
French periodical was established the propagation of their principles, and a
er places. for
iii
13
land of seminary was started for training Mis sionaries.
That secessions should occur where no orga and where all organizations are
nizations exist,
But
utterly repudiated, seems strange.
not possible for persons,
who could
it
was
readily ac
cept such radical views as Mr. Darby enunci This is pre ated, to be long held by them.
eminently true of the Plymouth Brethren. division soon took place under the leader
A
ship of Mr. B.
"W.
Newton.
It
originated in
England, but extended to the Continent. Mr. Newton, it is claimed, held with Irving that Christ was not sinless.
This notion was ear
by most of the Darby ites, and the obnoxious Newton was formally expelled nestly repelled
by Mr. Darby.
We
will not stop to inquire
how Mr. Darby could have consistently ex pelled a man from his society, when he ignored
INTRODUCTION.
14
and utterly repudiated all organizations. The Newton heresy extended into Vevay, where considerable
ren
"
trouble
followed.
there split into
two
The
factions
;
"
Breth
and
this
was soon followed by several other societies. Another division took place in England, in which Mr. George Miiller, of Bristol, was the most prominent actor.
Other divisions have
taken place. In America there are several schools of the
Plymouth Brethren. Mr. Darby is utterly ig nored by some of them. While the old man was
still
him have
living they
as a second
went
so far as to represent
"
Diotrephes,
the pre-eminence
"
who
(3 John
loveth to 9).
They
insinuated that Mr. Darby, the father of them all,
had very
far
fallen
from original Dar-
would be naturally in byism; ferred from the manner in which they treated at
We
least, this
have in Boston, and other places, two classes, or schools, of the Plymouth Breth
him.
ren.
INTRODUCTION.
The
religious views of the
15
Plymouth Breth
ren are fully set forth, by Dr. Steele, in the fol
lowing pages.
They
are Antinomians
of the
Everything but pure Darbyism belongs to this world. There is nobody right but themselves. The church is fallen, and can straitest sect.
not be reformed, and our only duty
Anything which looks
of her.
perity
is,
sion.
"The
:
"
year-books of
Christianity,"
are the year-books of
It is a corrupt
spiritual
mysterious mixture, a malformation, the master-piece of
Satan, the corrupter of the truth of is
ing Christianity. ;
It is worse,
worse by far than
all
"
God."
made
that thing which Satan has
daism
says
hell."
of their writers, speaking of the church, "
says
to
with the Plymouth Brethren, a delu
Mr. Darby,
One
like
go out church pros is
by
It
of profess
far,
than Ju
the darkest forms
of Paganism,"
The New
Birth, with a
Plymouth Brother,
is
not a change of our old nature, but the forma tion of a new man who is distinguished in all
INTRODUCTION.
16
things from the old
has his
wishes,
and
aims,
feelings
these are spiritual, heavenly,
own
customs,
necessities
and
and Divine.
The
old man, instead of being absolutely crucified
and put
to death,
was only crucified in Christ
eighteen hundred years ago, while, in fact, he actually lives and grows, often worse and worse,
end of
In response to a question we once put to Mr. Darby, he said, his nature, or old man, had been growing worse and worse
to the
life.
ever since he had believed in Christ.
But he
paid no attention to that, as he was saved in Christ and had nothing to do with the old man the carnal mind. it
thus
The
"
:
pond with eighth of at the
his
One
of their
number puts
believer s state can never corres standing."
Romans
The seventh and
exist in the
same
heart,
and
same time.
Mr. Mclntosh, their most venerated authority, Flesh is flesh, nor can it ever be made says "
:
aught
else
but
flesh.
come down on the day
The Holy Ghost did not of Pentecost to improve
INTRODUCTION. nature, or do
away
the fact of
17
its
incurable evil,
but to baptize believers into one body, and con nect them with their living head in Heaven." Perfect holiness, with the Brethren,
and the same with a finished
work
of
justification.
God.
It is in
is
one
It is, or
was,
no sense per
sonal in ourselves, but in Christ, and
when He
plished
died on the cross.
never be diminished nor increased.
committed by a affect his
justified
He may
can
No
sin
person can in the least
The
justification.
must ever remain
accom It
soul
s
standing
as pure as Christ Himself.
get drunk like Noah, commit murder
and adultery like David, curse like Peter, or lie like Ananias and Sapphira, and his standing no more affected by it than was Stephen s when under a shower of stones, with his face
is
shining like that of an angel.
One
of their writers gives the following de
scription of a "
good man
The good man
senting to
God
:
feels that
his prayer
and
when he
is
his praises
pre
and
INTRODUCTION.
18
other holy things, that many vain and foolish thoughts often come unbidden, as the unclean
fowls came
ham had
down upon
the sacrifice which
laid in order to
Abra
be offered to
God
and he feels that his sacrifice is and he asks, Can the pure God sadly spoiled such accept impure sacrifices as I now bring and lay on His altar ? There is so much of self and sin in our holiest things that our very tears need washing, and our very repentance (Gen. xv. 11)
;
;
towards God needs to be repented of. In each of our hearts there is a fountain of black, filthy waters and when we think we are about to ;
present a gift pure and clean to God, the stream bursts forth, and the gifts we thought would be so clean
and pure are besmeared with
sions of our
own
vile effu
And we
corrupt heart.
often
think that Satan empties much of the horrible filth of hell into our hearts, making each of them into a sewer for the foul waters of the abyss of despair to run
through."
Can anything worse than
this be said of the
most wicked man living ? Satan can do no worse than to empty the horrible filth of hell "
into his
heart,"
and make him a
"
sewer for the
INTRODUCTION.
19
waters of the abyss of despair to run This is the best thing the Gospel of through." the Plymouth Brethren can do for poor, fallen, foul
human
And
nature.
same man, who is of hell," and is a
yet, strange to say, this
filled "
with the
horrible filth
sewer for the foul waters of
the abyss of despair to run
same time, pure as Christ words
his
"
through," is,
is
pure.
at the
Here are
:
who
our Great High Priest before God is pure without a stain. God sees Him as such, and He stands for us who are His people, "He
is
and we are accepted in Him. His holiness is ours by imputation. Standing in Him we are in the sight of God, holy as Christ is holy, and pure as Christ resentative, complete in
ous
is
God
pure.
and He
looks at our rep
sees us in
Him who
is
Him.
We
are
our spotless and glori
Head."
Here
is
full-fledged
Antinomianism.
The Plymouth Brethren
avow
a creed, as
profess to have no
They condemn all who putting human opinions in thg
creed but the Bible.
20
INTRODUCTION.
place of the
Word
of
God.
And
yet they have a well-defined creed, and put it forth with great persistency.* They denounce
seem
to
commentaries on the Scriptures as mislead ing and yet Mr. Darby has written commenta all
;
ries quite extensively
on the Bible, to say noth
whom they regard as not nearly, quite, inspired. do not labor for sinners, but for the They ing of Mr. Mclntosh, if
members were
in
of the various churches, as
They may tracts in
if they than world. the outside peril be seen around revival meetings with
more
hand, containing antagonistic senti hands of new con
ments, to be placed in the
purpose of mystifying them, and drawing them away from Christ and salvation,
verts, for the
To find out whether they were a sect, that
is, a fragment cutting from the general Church of Christ, the author of this vol ume once asked Mr. Darby whether he would be permitted to par take of the Lord s Supper with them, if ho should present bimself. Mr. Da by replied that he would bo cllowed 10 partake, provided he should correctly answer certain doctrinal questions. The other "Brethren present strongly dissented from such liberty, and inti mated close communion. Hence, while denouncing all schisms and sects, they are a sect of the straightest and most exclusive kind.
itself off
1
INTRODUCTION. and in
this
way make
21
proselytes to their faith,
not from the world, but from the churches.
We
bid
all
a hearty God-speed
made
lieve that souls are
the
dogmas should most Lord bless
the
of
better
Plymouth "
heartily say
you."
who
And
ing for the salvation of souls.
But
:
are
did
work
we be
by accepting
we
Brethren,
Go
so far as
on,
and the
we can
see,
It evil, and only evil. makes chaos of order, and deceives souls by assuring them that they are in Christ, while
their
teachings are
they are full of corruption. Dr. Steele has done a valuable service for the
all
for
churches; Plymouthism successful, means the churches depleted. While they may hold some views in common with some of the
main purpose is to undermine the churches, and foster a spirit that would lay waste every church in Christendom. evangelical churches, their
We
firmly believe that this
aid in arresting
tliis
growing
book
will greatly
tide of error.
W. MCDONALD.
PREFACE. IT
is
no secret that the author of
believes in a large Gospel,
this
book
an evangel co-exten
sive with the present needs of the offspring^ of
Adam
;
yea, more
:
depraved he believes
that where sin hath abounded, grace doth here
and now much more abound
who
to those believers
insist that Christ is a perfect
inbred
sin,
Saviour from
through the efficacy of His blood, in
procuring the indwelling Comforter and Sanctifier.
He
unhesitatingly proclaims and testifies
to all the
world that Jesus Christ can make
clean the inside, as well as the outside of His vessels
unto honor
;
that heart-purity
and inwrought, and not a cealing rosy.
is
stainless robe,
real
con
unspeakable moral filthiness and lep believes with St. John against the
He
Gnostics, that
if
any man
asserts that he has 23
24
by nature no
defiling
bent toward acts of
no
taint of depravity,
and hence, that he
sin,
does not need the blood of atonement, that he is
and the truth
self- deceived,
but
if
is
not in him;
he will confess his lost condition,
faithful
and
just,
to cleanse
from
(Bengel).
He
living in the
God
is
not only to forgive, but also "
all sin, is
actual and original
we
bold to assert that
days when
Ezekiel
"
are
s
prophecy is will sprinkle clean water upon fulfilled: and shall be clean; from ALL your you, ye filthiness and from ALL your idols I will "I
cleanse you I and cause you ;
will put to
walk
my
spirit
in
my
case of evangelical legalism,
within you,
statutes," "
and ye
a
shall
keep my judgments, and do them. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses and in the days when the words of Jehovah, by the "
;
lips of
Moses, are verified in the experience of
a multitude of believers will circumcise
"
:
The Lord thy God
thy heart, and the heart of thy Lord thy God with all thine
seed, to love the
PREFACE. heart,
and with
thy soul, that thou mayest finds St. Paul s inspired unfoldings
He
live."
25
all
of the Gospel germs,
dropped by Christ,
to be
the exact fulfilment and realization of these predictions,
old
man
is
when
the Apostle asserts that
crucified with him
same manner, and with "
"
that
as deadly
an
is,
"
our
in the
effect
that the body of sin might be destroyed
"
put out of existence (Meyer) ; so that every advanced believer may truthfully assert, it "
"
"
is
no longer I that
"
live
(.B.
V.
Am. Com
mittee).
He life
is
confident that the law of the Spirit of
in Christ Jesus does
from the law of sin and
now
"make
us free
although it does not, this side of the grave, deliver us from errors, ignorances, and such innocent infirmities as St.
Paul gloried
saintly character.
in
death,"
without detriment to his
Believing, as the author
is
not ashamed to confess with tongue and type and telegraph and telephone, in a genuine
CHRISTIAN PERFECTION
a
Scriptural
term
PREFACE.
26
which cannot be used or indignation of
"
without raising the pity
one-half
of
the
religious
world, some making it the subject of their pious sneers
"
he views with sorrow the resurrec
tion of that spurious perfection
which wrought
disastrous effects in past generations, consisting
an imaginary perfect and inalienable stand ing in Christ wholly independent of moral con in
duct and character, the outcome of which must inevitably be, in
God s law
many
cases, the rejection of
as the rule of
life,
and a sad lower
ing of the standard of Christian morality.
an
is
evil
omen when
Christian teachers
It
make
eloquent pleas for the flesh, and fallaciously construct ingenious Scriptural arguments for indwelling sin. So long as the believer dwells body, such preaching, instead of inspiring unspeakable abhorrence for sin, deadens men s in the
sensibility to its dreadful nature "
and leads them
to speak of the corruptions of their hearts in
as
unaffected and airy a manner, as
if
they
talked of freckles upon their faces, and to run
PREFACE.
down
their sinful nature only to apologize for
their sinful practices
;
or to appear great profi
and court the praise
cients in self-knowledge,
due
27
to
genuine humility." noted the fact that a school of pop ular evangelists have espoused the doctrines
We have
which
lie
at the base of Antinomianism,
and
that they are zealously inculcating these pecu liar
tenets in
tions
we
Young Men
s
and summer schools.
Christian Associa
We have done what
by articles in our Christian periodi warn the public of the certain evil re
could,
cals, to
sults
which
will ensue
when
these doctrines de
scend from the few Christian teachers who, by well-established Christian habits,
are fortified
against their pernicious tendency, to the multi
who may be ensnared
tudes of
weak
to their
moral ruin by the pleasing doctrine
believers
that one act of faith in Christ secures a perpet
ual exemption from condemnation, and a
long license for
Some
walking
life
in the flesh.
teachers of this doctrine
may
live in
PREFACE.
28
harmony with the purest ethical precepts of heredi Christ, under what Joseph Cook calls "
tary momentum," and a personal experience of salvation
in
former years, before embracing
But what
their present theological errors.
will
be the legitimate fruit in those who give full credence to a theoretical error lying so near to
conduct and character, and who are without the safeguards of which
we have
just
spoken
?
From our knowledge of the human heart we many shipwrecks of moral character.
forebode
Men
generally live below their creeds
above them.
A
Illustration:
;
few
rise
preacher riding
on top of an omnibus, in London, addressed words of reproof to a tipsy man by his side,
who was using very improper warned him "
Oh,"
faith,
as a transgressor of the law of
said the
and
I
man,
believe
"
it is
in
not by works,
God.
it is
by
Jesus Christ, and of
course I shall be
saved."
sample of myriads,
who
dreaming
language, and
Here
is
a man, a
are living in wilful sin,
of final salvation
on the ground of a
PREFACE.
29
barren, fruitless, speculative belief that Jesus
Christ died for their salvation, a faith -which no more reforms the conduct and transforms the character, than faith in the existence of the seaserpent.
The
mistake
fatal
in ignoring the
is
Scrip
tural test of saving faith, evangelical works.
It
true that the penitent believer seeking the
is
pardon of
sin is justified
same person works which (Jer. xvii. 20, 30 vi.
by
;
10
will
But
faith only.
true that in the day of
is also
Judgment the
be judged by works only,
attest the genuineness of his faith ;
1 Cor.
xxxii. 19 iii.
8,
;
Ezek.
13-15
;
vii. 3,
27
xviii.
;
2 Cor. v. 10
;
Gal.
5-8; especially Matt. xxv. 31-46).
It is
due
to the Christian public that I
acknowledge
my
I
have long
waited for some eminent theologian to voice in refutation
which
is
whose
zeal
of a system
industriously promoted is
should
sense of incompetency for the
proper handling of this subject.
his
it
worthy
lift
up
of error
by persons
of a better cause.
At
PREFACE.
30
length I have yielded to the importunity of
many
men
Christian
to
expose the character
and tendencies
of that system of doctrines which this book is prayerfully directed. against I have made a free use of that great armory
of
"
weapons
Fletcher
Sometimes
s
Checks
to Antino-
have quoted sentences unchanged, noting them with quotation marks. But frequently these marks could not be used mianism."
I
by reason of the alterations which
I
have made,
either to abridge, to modernize, or to eliminate
some personal In
my
allusion.
quotations from the writings of the
Plymouth Brethren and
their
sympathizers, I
have endeavored to give the exact idea of the writer as gathered from the context.
Whoever
of
my
Christian
grieved, I trust that the great
friends
day
will
may
be
reveal
that truth has not been wounded, but rather
cleared of errors
and
her native beauty.
set forth in the robes of
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
CHAPTER
I.
ANTINOMIANISM DEFINED. REV.
J.
FLETCHER
"
says,
a professor of Christianity,
An who
Antinomian is
is
antinomos,
against the law of Christ, as well as against the law of Moses. He allows Christ s law to be a
but not a rule of judgment for believers, and thus he destroys that law at a
rule of
life,
stroke, as a law
being evident that a rule by the personal observance or non-observance of which Christ s subjects can never be acquit ted
or
;
it
condemned,
Hence he
is
not a law
for
asserts that Christians shall
be justified before
God by
them.
no more
their personal obedi-
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
32
ence to the law of Christ, than by their per sonal obedience to the ceremonial law of Moses.
Nay, he believes that the best of Christians that nobody perpetually break Christ s law ;
ever kept
it
but Christ Himself ; and that we
shall be justified or
condemned before God,
the great day, not as
found to have law, but as
we
in
personally be
shall
finally kept or broken Christ s
God
shall
be found to have, before
the foundation of the world, arbitrarily laid, or
not
our account, the merit of Christ
laid, to
own
Thus he hopes to stand great day, merely by what he calls/
keeping His in the
s
Christ s
law.
imputed righteousness
with abhorrence, from our
final
the evangelical worthiness of our sincere obedience of repentance
;
excluding
justification,
own and
personal, faith,
a
precious obedience this which he calls dross,
and
filthy rags-
just as
if it
dung, were the
insincere obedience of self-righteous pride,
Pharisaic hypocrisy.
and
Nevertheless, though he
thus excludes the evangelical, derived worthi-
ANTINOMIAN1SM DEFINED.
83
ness of the works of faith, from our eternal
and
justification
he
if
good works, man. Nay, in
salvation, is
this case,
doing them, thinking he
make people
he
himself
in other respects a
does
good
he piques himself on is
peculiarly obliged to
believe that, immoral as his senti
are, they draw after them the greatest benevolence and the strictest morality." This
ments
reminds us of salist
woman,
the
"
of
testimony
Univer-
a
That she had come three miles
to attend this prayer-meeting, so as
that
the
Universalists
are
as
to
pious
show as the
Orthodox."
But there
are multitudes carelessly following
the stream of corrupt nature
who
are crying
but against the of their wicked hearts, which still
out, not against the unholiness, "
legality,
suggest that they must do something, in order to attain eternal life." They decry that evan gelical legality
love with of faith
which
all
true Christians are in
a cleaving to Christ
by that kind
which works righteousness
a follow-
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
34 ing
Him
He went
as
showing by Paul s faith.
The
about doing good, and a
James works that we have
St.
consistent
Antinomian
whose practice accords with
is,
one
theory
is
that his
St.
loud in his proclamation of a finished eternal salvation, the blotting out of his sins, past, present and future, on the Cross eighteen hun
dred years ago, without respect to his own con His salvation is so duct, character, or works. finished that
no sins can ever blot his name
Book of Life. He thinks that the God magnified the law that we might vilify it; that He made it honorable, that we might make it contemptible that He came to fulfil it, that we might be discharged from ful He has filling it, according to our capacity. out of the
Son
of
;
I love no sympathy with David s confession Thy commandments above gold and precious "
:
stones
:
I
will always
ever and ever
seek
Thy
:
I will
precepts."
keep Thy law, yea,
walk
for
at LIBERTY, for
[
AJSTINOMIANISM DEFINED.
35
In short, the creed of the Antinoraian
was
I
justified
faith is simply a
when
is
this
Christ died, and
waking up
:
my
to the fact that
I
a realization of what have always been saved was done before I had any being that a be liever is not bound to mourn for sin, because it ;
was pardoned before it was committed, and pardoned sin is no sin that God does not see ;
sin in believers,
mit ; that by Christ,
and
however great
God s
He became
I as
com
sins they
laying our iniquities upon as completely sinful as
over, I believe that no sin can
ultimate
I,
More
completely righteous as Christ.
do a believer any
harm, although may temporarily with God. I must not communion interrupt do any duty for my own salvation. This is it
included in the it
It
new
covenant, which
a promise, having no condition on is
is
all of
my
part.
a paid up, non-forfeitable, eternal-life in
surance policy. properly
Since the
made with
us,
new covenant
is
but with Christ for
not us,
the conditions, repentance, faith, and obedience.
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
36
are not on our side, but on Christ s side,
repented, believed, and obeyed, in such a as to relieve
us from these unpleasant
Hence
it is
folly to search for
grace,
and
it
is
who way acts.
inward marks of
a fundamental error to
make
sanctification an indispensable evidence of justi
an error which dampens the joys of him who takes Christ for his sanctification, and
fication
plunges him into needless alarms and
distresses."
CHAPTER
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
ANTINOMIANISM.
THEOLOGICAL times of
II.
errors
move
very long periods.
those comets of
unknown
in cycles,
They resemble
orbits
which occa
but they Often they leave moral
sionally dash into our solar system
are not as harmless.
ruin in their track. is
practical,
tion of
Since
and aims
men,
all
some
all
;
Christian truth
at the moral transforma
negations of that truth are
they not only obscure the truth its purifying effect, but they This is positively corrupt and destroy souls. deleterious;
and obstruct
specially true of errors
obligation to the
which release men from
law of God.
After
St.
Paul
had demonstrated the impossibility of justifica tion by works compensative for sin, and had established the doctrine of justification through 37
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
38
a faith in Christ which works by love and purifies the heart, there started
teachers
who drew from Paul
fallacious
inference
s
up a
teachings the
that the law of
abolished in the case of the believer,
henceforth delivered from rule of
life.
its
class of
God who
is is
authority as the
Hence they became, what Luther
Antinomians (Greek anti, against, and nomos, law). We infer from Rom. iii. 8, 31 vi. 1 Eph. v. 6 2 Peter ii. 18, 19, and James
first styled,
;
;
ii.
;
17-26, in which warnings are given against
a perversion of the truth as an excuse for licen tiousness, that
Antinomianism, in
its
grosser
form, found place in the primitive church.
All
along the history of the Church, a revival of the cardinal doctrine of justification, by faith only, has been followed
by a resurrection of which Antinomianism, Wesley defines as the doctrine which makes void the law through "
faith."
is
Those who aver that ultra-Calvinism
the invariable antecedent of Antinomianism,
would be unwilling
to accept the necessary in-
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
39
ference that the apostle to the Gentiles was an ultra-Calvinist
;
yet
it is
true that the doctrines
of Calvinism can be logically
conclusion.
It is also
pushed to that true that other forms of
doctrine which emphasize faith in Jesus Christ,
ground of acceptance with God, are more or less liable to have the tares of Antinoas the sole
mianism spring up
The
in their field.
root of this error lies in a false view of
the mediatorial
forms for
men
to perform,
work
of Christ, that
He
and that God can
justly
demand
nothing further from the delinquents. claimed that Christ
oned
per
the obedience which they ought
perfect virtues are reck
s
to the believer in
him for their absence
It is
;
such a way as to excuse His chastity compensat
ing for the absence of that moral quality in the believer.
Hence, adultery and murder
in
King
David, being compensated by the purity aud benevolence of Jesus imputed to him in the
mind
of
God, did not mar David
righteous before God.
s
standing us
40
AXTIXOMLLSfISM REVIVED.
Theologians who state the doctrine of the atonement with proper safeguards, are careful to limit its vicarious efficacy to the passive obe
dience of the Son of God, His sufferings and death. His active obedience constitutes no part
His
of
substitutional
Antinomianism
is
of
found in the inclusion of the
latter in the atonement.
God-man was
The germ
work.
It
is
true that the
actively obedient to the Father
s
but this obedience was personal, and not mediatorial. Hence, every one justified through
will,
faith in the
shed blood of Christ,
is
under
gation to render personal obedience to
obli
God s
In this respect Jesus cannot be his proxy
law.
or representative.
Says
Bishop
Hopkins:
"Though
Christ s
bearing the punishment of the law by death
does exempt us from suffering, yet His obeying of the law does not excuse obedience to the
He
law.
we only as a rule of righteousness." should be said that the Gnostic sects were
works It
obeyed the law as a covenant of
HISTORICAL SKETCH. Antinomian on other grounds.
4.1
They held
that
their spiritual natures could not contract moral
pollution,
whatever their moral conduct might
be, sin inhering only in matter.
gold retains its purity while
As
a piece of
encompassed by
the filth of the swine-sty, so the soul keeps pure
amid the grossest
sins.
This species of Anti-
nomianism was not limited to those who pro It was adopted by all fessed faith in Christ.
who
held that
all
evil inheres
in
uncreated
matter.
Modern Universalism Antinomianism.
is
only another form of
It is the expectation of salva
tion through Christ, without obedience to either
the law or the Gospel.
was very early disfigured by antinomianism, a doctrinal and practical error which opposes itself to God s law even in the Christianity
evangelical form in which
adorable Son,
"
Thou
it
was defined by His
shalt love
God with
all
thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." This had been the burden of Christ s preaching, with
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
42
the hint that His
own
life
was
to be given, as a
ransom for many, and to secure grace to enable them to fulfil God s law. The apostles, by precept and example, powerfully enforced their
Lord
s
doctrine and practice.
Their lives are
true copies of their exhortations.
say which
excite
men most
tQ
It is /
hard to
believe
and
obey, their seraphic sermons or their saintly
Success crowned their labors.
lives.
Both Ju
daism and paganism heard the thunder of their words of faith and fell prostrate beneath the lightning of their works of love. all is lost,
into stills
Satan hastens to
"
But
before
transform himself
an angel of
In this disguise he in light." speculativ e faith, instead of a saving faith
which works by love, purifies the heart, and overcomes the world he pleads for loose living, ;
badge of contempt upon the daily and cross, gets multitudes of Laodiceans and Gnostics into his snare. Sad and sure is the
puts the
result.
idle
Genuine works of
works of men
s
faith are neglected
;
invention are substituted
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
God s commandments and fallen gliding downward through the smooth
for those of
churches,
way
43 ;
of antinomianism, return to the covert
of Phariseeism, or to the
broad way of
way
infidel-
ity.
Such was the distressing outlook upon the True faith was de
church when Luther arose.
throned by superstitious fancy, and works were choked by the thorns of this baneful
will nigh
Luther swung the sharp scythe of re form over northern Europe, and he might have
error.
mowed itself, if
a broad swath through Italy
and Rome
he had not at the same time scattered
dragons teeth of antinomianism, which sprang up around his German home an army
the
of
armed men.
The balance
of evangelical
precepts had not been preserved in preaching the forgiveness of sins
adding that this faith
by is
faith only,
without
genuine only when
it
buds, blossoms, and bears the fruitage of holy character.
Our Lord
s
sermon upon the Mount, was
ex-
44
ANTESTOMIANISM REVIVED.
plained away, and St.
James Epistle was wished
out of the Bible as an
"
epistle of
straw,"
and
not of the precious stones of Gospel truth. The practicable law of Christ, styled the law of lib erty, because of the ease
with which
it
could
be kept by a regenerate soul entirely sanctified
through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, was perpetually confounded with that impracticable Christless law
of Edenic
innocence
and the
;
avoidable penalties of the former were injudic iously represented as
one with the
dreadful
curse of the latter, or with the abrogated cere
monies of Mosaism.
Then the law
of
Christ
demanding purity and love was publicly wedded and poor bewildered Protestants
to the devil,
were taught to defy and scoff at both. From such a seed-sowing the dreadful harvest waved over Germany. Lawless believers, under the
name
of
Ana-Baptists, arose fancying them
selves the dear elect people of
thus
"
:
God, reasoning
First, the earth belongs to the saints,
and, secondly,
we
are the
saints."
All things
HISTORICAL SKETCH. were
theirs.
45
They were complete
in
Christ,
and absolutely sure of salvation by reason their standing in Him. They went about
mobs
religious
to
people from
deliver
bondage, and bring them into
to
eyes.
in
legal
G-ospel liberty,
a liberty to despise all laws, Divine
and
of
and human,
do every one what was right in his own Luther was alarmed and shocked. He
hastened from his concealment in the castle of
disgracing
movement which was the Reformation. But the mischief
was done
the thistle-seed had been broadcast
the Wartburg, to check a
:
over Germany. did
riot
The only proper remedy he
perseveringly apply
:
salvation, not
by
the merit of works, but by the works of faith, as a condition,
and
as a proof of its genuine
ness in the great day.
Men
are
now
justified
from the guilt of sin by a work producing faith. They will be justified in the day of judgment only on the testimony of faith-produced works.
wisdom enough abandon the root of the mischief when he
Nevertheless, Luther learned to
ATINOMIANISM REVIVED.
46
drew up,
those
"
:
who
indorsed, the
which are
in
Confession,
words
rather,
or,
these
Augsburg remarkable
We
teach touching repentance, that have sinned after baptism may ob
tain the forgiveness of sins as often as they are converted," etc.
"
:
We
condemn
the
who
say that those who have been can no more lose the Holy justified
Anabaptists,
once
Again
Spirit."
This antidote of Gospel truth, clearly and frequently enforced, might have stopped the spread of Antinomianism. But Luther did not insist
it
upon
seemed even
to
,
vascillated,
contradict
it.
and
sometimes
When
Calvin
arose,
though he seldom went the length of
some
of his followers in the next century in
speculative
Antinomianism, yet he
lent foundations for
it
laid excel
in his un-Scriptural
and
unguarded doctrine of absolute decrees, and
of
the necessary, final perseverance of backsliding believers.
We have
hinted that Antinomianism has had
HISTORICAL SKETCH. its
the history of the
cycles in
full
47
Church.
development, since the Reformation,
is
Its
due
John Agricola (1492-1566), one of the early coadjutors of Luther, some of whose expres
to
as to justification
sions,
and the law,
in the
heat of his great controversy with Rome, were hasty,
extravagant,
and
quite
Antinomian.
These utterances system
so
Agricola developed into a extreme, and so subversive of
Christian morals, that he published in 1537
an Art thou steeped in sin adulterer or a thief? If thou believest, thou these words
"
:
art in salvation.
All
who
follow Moses must
go to the devil; to the gallows with Moses." This was the kind of tares sown in Luther s field
him
by a professed violently, calling
friend.
him
Luther attacked
a fanatic,
and other
After Agricola s death, Amsdorf and Otto advocated his doctrines, and main
hard names.
tained that good works are an obstacle to salva tion.
Similar sentiments were
England
in
preached in But the days of Oliver Cromwell.
AOTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
48 it
remained for Dr. Crisp, (1600-1642), a rector
Church
of the
of England, to give this error its
Anglican theology, from the seed-corn of high Galvanism. The follow full
in
development
ing sentiments abound in his sermons
law
and
cruel
is
tyrannical, requiring "
naturally
impossible."
The
"
:
The
what
is
sins of the elect
though He did not commit them, yet they became actually His transgressions, and ceased to be theirs. were so imputed to Christ, as
The
feelings of conscience
sin is theirs, arise
truth.
that,
which
tell
them that
from a want of knowing the
but the voice of a lying
It is
spirit in
the hearts of believers that saith they have yet sin wasting
their
conscience,
and lying
burden too heavy for them to bear. righteousness
is
so
imputed
as a
Christ s
to the elect, that
they, ceasing to be sinners, are as righteous as
He is
was, and
all
that
He
was.
An
elect person
not in a condemned state while an unbe
liever calls
and should he happen to die before God him to believe, he would not be lost. ;
HISTORICAL SKETCH. Repentance and confession of sary to forgiveness.
A
49
sin are not neces
believer
may
certainly
conclude before confession, yea, as soon as he hath committed sin, the interest he hath in Christ,
and the love of Christ embracing
him."
This doctrine completely destroys the dis
between right and wrong, and removes motives to abstain from sin. It boasts in
tinction all
the perseverance of the saints, while in
no saint but one, that
to
persevere. this
is,
Jesus,
it
believes
and neglects
Several vigorous theologians baneful doctrine, the chief of
opposed whom were Baxter and Williams, who, after heroic
efforts
and no small
suffering, finally
triumphed.
The next Church was
in
revival of Antinomianism in
the
England and among the dissenters, the eighteenth century and was met
of
most courageously by John Wesley, the apostle and of Christian per
of experimental godliness
and by the seraphic John Fletcher, whose writings, says Dr. Dolliuger, "are the fection,
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
50
most important theological productions which issued from Protestanism in the latter part of the eighteenth
His reasoning
century."
gent, his imagination vivid, his style clear cisive,
and the momentum of
his
co
is
and in
arguments
is
so
he swept the field, driving Antinomianism out of England during, at least, two His "Checks" stand to-day un generations. irresistible that
No man
answered and unanswerable.
them with candor and continue obligation of believers to
the law of
God
;
strict
can read
deny the
to
obedience to
that inwrought holiness
requirement of the Gospel, and that there sharp contrast between
A
it
is
is
the
no
and the law.
thorough study of these
"
Checks,"
by the
ministry in our times, would wonderfully stim ulate their spiritual
life,
tone up their theology,
and furnish them with the weapons for the con flict with the cycle of Antinomian error which is
now upon
the Church.
The agency through which tombed by Fletcher, lias had
this heresy, its
en
resurrection,
HISTORICAL SKETCH. is
the
so-called
Plymouth Brethren,
51
whose
peculiar tenets will be described in the next chapter.
CHAPTER m. THE PLYMOUTH BKETHEEN.
WHAT are
the
a question which
Plymouth Brethren ?
many
This
people are asking.
is
An
old lady at Hamilton camp-meeting Last year,
hearing the writer doctrines,
claiming,
comment on one
of their
indignantly left the audience, ex have heard enough of the Ply
"I
mouth Brethren and Beecher, too She was thinking of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. The Plymouth Brethren originated in Dub "
!
lin,
Ireland, about the year 1830,
and almost
simultaneously in Plymouth, England.
In the
latter place they increased so rapidly that they
once numbered 1,500.
Hence they
are called
by outsiders Plymouth Brethren. Although Plymouth, they do not repudiate the word "
52
THE PLYMOUTH BEETHREN. they style themselves leading mind, if not
who
"
The
53 Their
Brethren."
their original
founder,
died a few years ago at an advanced age,
John Darby. Darbyites.
Hence they are sometimes The movement was at first
test against ecclesiasticism, like that of
is
called
a pro
George
Darby, a clergyman in the Church of England, renounced the Church, and assumed that all existing Church organiza Fox, the
tions
first
Quaker.
detriment to Christianity,
a
are
obstructive of life.
His
and
regeneration and the spiritual
band
little
of adherents claim to be
a reproduction of the primitive disciples
the
only genuine specimens on earth. They refuse to take any distinctive name, and disavow that
they are a sect. Brethren, as the bonds
if
of
are all priests
They
call
themselves the
they were the only persons in brotherhood. They
Christian
and
all
laymen.
in Christianity there is
They
insist thai
no specially called and In this they resem
ordained ministerial order. ble the Friends
;
but, unlike them,
they lay
54
ANTHTOMIANISM REVIVED.
great stress
upon
ordinances,
the
especially
Lord s Supper. This they celebrate alone by themselves every Lord s day, and it constitutes the chief part of their worship. To find out whether they are a sect, i. e., a fragment cut ting itself from the general Church of Christ, I once asked Mr. Darby whether I would be permitted to partake of the Lord s Supper with them if I should present myself. He replied that I
would be allowed
to partake, if I should
correctly answer certain doctrinal questions. The other Brethren present strongly dissent "
"
ed from such
communion.
liberality,
Hence,
and intimated
while
close
denouncing
all
schisms and sects, they are a sect of the straightest and most exclusive kind. They baptize
by immersion
only.
Meetings for worship in
cluding only believers, are entirely different
from meetings for preaching where the unregenerate are permitted to be present. They
much about separation unto God, by which they mean abandonment of ecclesiastical organtalk
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. izations
and
,
55
from
even, refraining
politics
voting, insisting on deadness to the world and entire devotion to God, by going forth and
Christ
preaching
wherever
and
in private
get a
can
they
They make constant use
hearer.
of the Bible
in public, or, rather, of a certain
line of texts, interpreted to sustain their
Word
of God,
you
will find
with the commentaries
and
of
To propagate
others.
scatter
many
tracts
them
all
equipped
Mclntosh, Darby,
their doctrines they
and small expository books.
Several years ago, D. L.
method
pecu on the
Professing to rely only
tenets.
liar
of Bible-study
Moody
learned his
and Bible-readings from
the English Plymouth Brethren. In his eager ness to attain a knowledge of the Bible, he
made
his first
voyage to Europe, attracted by
the fame of these students of the tures.
their
Hence they claim him system.
converts
to
repudiates
Holy Scrip
as a product of
In his earnest exhortation to join
some church, he
certainly
Plymouth come-out-ism, an4
h<?
en>
ANTIXOMIAXISM EEVIVED.
55 phatically of
tenets
accords
disclaims
some
Brethren.
the
of
the theological
how
Just
far
them we do not know.
with
he
He
adopts their milleimarianism, and preaches the personal reign of Christ on the earth as a sub stitute for the
and
present agency of
of preaching,
the
Spirit
which are regarded as inade
quate for the successful evangelization of the
whole world,
arid the reconstruction of society
on a Christian
world it
is
basis.
His declaration that the
like a ship so hopelessly
cannot be gotten
left to perish,
off the rocks,
but must be
while Christians rescue as
of the passengers as possible,
Plymouth
wrecked that
is
many
a pessimistic
idea.
England the Brethren are quite numerous and influential. Some, as Tregelles are very Such men as Varley, Lord lladscholarly. Jii
stoek, Blackstone,
and Muller, are either pro
fessed Brethren, or arc in strong
sympathy with
They have missionaries in India whose disorganizing influence has given our Methodist them.
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. some
missionaries
trouble,
and the
secession,
missionary stations.
loss
57
and has caused one
of several
promising
The Wesleyan Methodist
Lausanne and Vevay, in Switzer
societies in
land, at one time suffered great loss through
the bewilderment caused
by the preaching of Mr. Darby against their doctrine of Christian
perfection,
and
The leaven
their use of the
Holy
Scriptures.
of their doctrines has already spread
widely in America, and their theological tenets are preached
New
York,
their
by leading ministers in Boston, and other cities, while
St. Louis,
theories
of
Church
organization
are
rejected.
The Brethren, having no written creed and no Church schisms,
discipline, are
so
that
exposed to constant
there are
several
sorts
in
England, and two sets in Boston at the present time who repudiate each other quite cordially.
The anti-Darby party aver that the Holy Spirit lias drawn the portrait of John Darby in 3 John 9, 10.
But
in the worst of their theological
ANTINOMIANISM KEVTVED.
58
tenets they are quite generally agreed
Antinomianism.
We
if any man law of the God, even to obey
say that
their
have heard Mr. Darby had anything to do with it,
he was a sin
ner by that very act.
Their primal error seems to be in their con ception of the
a kind of personality,
sin, as
the
Atonement.
cross
Whose
of
sins?
Christ and
Those of the
sins past, present,
and
They teach that was condemned on put away forever. believer.
future, are
All his
"judged"
and swept away forever in the Atonement, and the believer is to have no more concern for his past or future sins, since they were blotted out
eighteen hundred years ago.
Here
is
their
most mischievous tenet respecting faith and its relation to the Atonement and to eternal life :
The
act of faith renders the
momentary Atonement eternally available, and without any first
further conditions infallibly secures everlasting life.
Hence the younger Dr. Tyng,
in a recent
sermon odorous of Plymouth, declared that
in
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. that act of faith the believer s
59
"
responsibility
This must mean that his probation his eternal salvation having been abso ceases,
ends."
lutely secured.
The
object grasped by faith
is
much
not so
Jesus Christ, a present Saviour, as His finished
work
of
condemning and putting away sin on Faith grasps only past and finished
the cross. acts."
"
assent to
Intellectual
facts, the
these
historical
atonement of Christ judging
and His resurrection
my
sin,
as the proof thereof, con
stitutes saving faith.
Their view of the Atonement
exploded commercial theory ing by Christ equals so sinners saved
by
Christ.
is
so
the old and
much
suffer
much suffering by the With this theory of
the Atonement, they cannot proclaim
its
uni
So versality without teaching Universalism. they make a distinction between the death of Christ for
all,
only for those
and cleansed
and the blood
who
are,
thereby.
through
By
of Christ faith,
this
shed
sprinkled
means God
ANTIKOMIANISM REVIVED.
60
saves believers, and "
mercy
toward
all
presents
aspect of
"an
mankind.
Their idea of justification
is
not that
present act, taking place in the
mind
favor of the penitent believer,
but
ages ago.
Faith puts a
man
God
of
it is
completed, wholesale transaction on
it is
a
in
a past,
Calvary
into the realization
of the fact that all his foreseen sins were then cast
behind
God s back
forever,
and that he
has a through ticket to heaven.
new man is created in old man remains with al).
In regeneration, the the believer, and the
Mr. Darby asserted to the writer that after more than fifty years of his
powers unchanged.
Christian experience he found the old
man
in
himself worse than he was at his regeneration.
Says Mclntosh
"
:
It is
no part of the work
of
improve human nature," but to be past praying for, make a brand-new man to dwell in the same the
Holy
Spirit to
that seems to
body with the old man till physical death lucki ly comes and kills the old Adam who had sue-
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. cessfully defied all
in heaven
power
has the entire possession of the disem
How
bodied soul. ness bearing
Cor.
Heb.
xii.
John
iv.
10,
14
17).
this doctrine of :
"He
that
is
This
sin.
holi
Col.
;
iii.
ii.
vi.
13;
6, 19,
iv.
7;
11 (Rev.
22; 2 10;
ii.
Ver.)
The only Scripture cited death sanctification is Rom. dead
is
evidently means
unto sin
Rom.
74, 75;
i.
7, 2; 1 Thess.
vii.
from a
different this
heavenly fruit this side of the
its
grave (Luke
7
and earth
Henceforth the new
effectually to crucify him.
man
61
is
from
free
(see verse 6), he
sin."
who
;
1
for vi.
This
has died
freed or justified (Rev. Ver.) from text,
found by the
escaped the keen
eyes
minster Assembly,
who
of
"Brethren,"
the whole
West
could find nothing in xii, 23
proof of this point better than Heb. "
the spirits of just
men made
:
perfect,"
ing the point in proof that they were perfect in death.
The Greek
that the text reads, not the
*
assum
made
scholar will note
"
perfected
spirits of perfected just
spirits,"
(men),"
but
implying
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
62
perfection in this
Yet the old man
life.
is
to be
quite vigorously choked down and kept under till death comes to the rescue and brings that good
riddance which
the Father,
and Holy
Son,
He is to be reckoned Spirit, could not bestow. as dead by a kind of pious fiction, though he is as lusty
and vigorous
which says
"
that the
"
"
pressed
and
of
might be
sin
"
rendered inactive
"
;
be crucified, mortified,
or
"
be re
and those
which the old man, or the
Scriptures in to
body
explained to signify,
is
destroyed
That Scripture
as ever.
killed,
flesh, is
are
all
understood to imply a life-long torture on the cross
a killing that continues through scores
of years.
Says
J.
Denham
Smith, a conspicu
ous Plymouth theologian, in a standard theo The two natures remain in him logical tract "
:
unchanged.
His old nature
is
not modified or
ameliorated by the impartation of the new; nor, on the other hand, does the new nature
become
corrupted by reason of its co-existence in the same being with the old. soiled
or
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
63
or amalgamation.
no blending They are essentially and
eternally distinct.
The
They remain the same.
ably and incurably
nature
is
There
is
old nature
while
corrupt,
divinely pure in its
neither
is
the
new
is
is
not
com
brought out that
regarded as responsible for the acts of
For they are conceived of as per flesh of the believer behaves
the other. sons.
the fact
till
unalter
essence."
This doctrine of the two natures pletely stated
is
If
the
badly, that
none of the believer
is
s business.
He
does not live in that department of his being, and hence has no responsibility for its
The
evil deeds.
and
cross
of the
it ?
that
But,"
should I
why
sentence,"
This reminds us of the story
for profanity.
member
a lord, not
queried the servant,
gets the lord,
The
bishop,
who who
of the house of lords, replied,
he swore as
"
was condemned on the
English bishop and his servant,
reproved him \vas a
flesh
under
is
worry about
"
what
will
"
become
as
when
a
bishop.
the devil
of the bishop ?
"
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
64
The iii.
favorite
to substitute
9, is
soever,"
that
is
method
and
to say,
"
"
born of God does not commit
the style of exegesis
to
read the text thus
of
God doth not sin.
righteousness
:
We
growing.
the
sin,"
This
sin.
We
are double creatures
part of us that
the
is
who
have a right Wliatsoever is born
"
:
way through. That born of God does not sin. all
for
"
that part of our nature
unregenerate part will continue to is
John
of exegesis of 1
whatsoever
"
Sin
is
is
decreasing
So we need not
;
feel
we
find ourselves going astray, discouraged if the purpose of our heart is toward God. We if
are confident of constant progression
being better in the other
always
first
life
sure of
than here.
the full corn in the ear.
The Apostle
tells
that religion brings us great assurance.
know we Him now
shall be like !
It is
the blade, then the ear, after that
We
Him
are a long
how
little
way from
fect pattern of Christ, of being
like
us
We like
the per
Him
in
character, with not a stain upon the soul
s
THE PLYMOUTH BEETHEEN.
G5
Feed your soul on the thought of Look for the hour better things to come.
whiteness.
when He
shall
appear and
we
shall
be like
Him."
At
this point the following questions are per
tinent 1.
:
Have we any
right to lower the standard
of character required in the Scriptures to suit
the state of
"
those
who
are called Christians
"
?
Is not
such an expounder guilty of a perversion
of the
Holy Scriptures ?
How
high a rank is that theology entitled to which discrowns man in order to save him 2.
;
which changes him from a who to a what," from a person to a thing, in order to keep him "
"
"
Does such a theology empha the sacredness and dignity of man ? Does
from sinning? size it
honor the Holy Spirit to
teacli that
"
gets impersonal sonal
"
whatsoevers,"
whomsoevers
He
be
instead of per
"
?
In the light of this exposition, what be comes of St. John s sharply defined line sepa3.
ANTINOMLAJSTISM REVIVED.
60
the children of
"
rating
dren of the
God
not sinning
are manifest,
"
"
:
the
not only
and the children
down
tears
"
the chil
In this
"
the
God
children of
in the fact of their sinning. "
and
For in the very next
devil"?
verse to the text he says fact of
"
of the devil
"
This exposition
the fence between the
garden and the devil s common," but it actually binds up the child of God and the
Lord
s
child of the devil in a single personality,
im
possible to be classified either with the right
eous or the wicked. 4. Is
the
human
being of
nature that a part of part
commit
5. Is
ment
such a double
him may be
holy,
and a
sin ?
not the action of the free will an ele
of every
moral
act,
and can the
will at
one and the same time sin and abstain from sin?
such a moral philosophy is good in the Could pulpit, would it not be good at the bar? 6. If
uot
the
lawyer plead
that the part of the
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. accused which
born of
is
the crime, and that
it is
God
is
67
innocent of
only the unregenerate
part that has done the mischief, and therefore the regenerate part should be acquitted ?
Would not any judge, endowed with average common sense, sentence the unregeuerate part to the gallows,
and
the undivided soul 7. Is
the regenerate part to
tell
The
look out for itself?
it
shall die.
there any analogy in the natural world
for a partial birth
a part being born at one
time and a part forty or
A
hearer
asks
soul that sinneth
me
of
the
this
years afterward
fifty
exposition "
question
:
very properly
What
if
a person
should die before he gets wholly born ? 8. Is
knowledge cation, but saints ?
of
it
does not relate to present
of forgiveness and of entire sanctifito
Does our
the it
final
perseverance of the
not always relate to a knowl
present
acceptance with
except this one expression, hope"?
"
the expounder right in his interpretation
of assurance, that
edge
?
"
God,
the assurance of
ANTINOMIASTISM REVIVED.
68 Is
9.
freedom from sin ever presented as an
object of hope in the future fication ever classified
Is entire sancti-
?
with the good things to
come, such as the second coming of Christ, the resurrection and glorification of the body, and the rewards of 10.
Does not
Heaven ? St.
John, in this very
declare, that as Jesus
world
?
is,
Does the likeness
lievers shall
epistle,
so are Christians in this of Christ
have when they
shall
which be see
Him,
consist in the fact of their being then sancti fied,
or rather in the fact of both soul and
body
then glorified ? 11.
Our
last question is this
:
Is
Antinomian-
ism getting up out of its grave in New Eng land ? For the innermost essence of this error is, that
it
destroys
human
responsibility for sin,
by
who upon saddling a mere mythical person who turns out at last cannot be found in the Day of Judgment. it all
We
the flesh,
."
the old
are impressed, in reading the
man,"
Plymouth
writings, with the perpetual confusion of the
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. "
term,
sinful
flesh,"
with the body, as though
sin could be predicated of
Some even speak
man.
69
the material part of
of the
Thus
foot as committing sin.
Oriental philosophy and of
hand and the
the old error of
Gnosticism, that
inherent and unconquerable evil lurks in matter, lies at
the bottom of the
Plymouth theology. Of course they strenuously antagonize in wrought and personal holiness as an utter im possibility, since the old
man
has a lease of the
soul which does not expire
they "up "
insist that
till
death.
Yet
they are perfectly holy in Christ
while perfectly carnal and corrupt here in their moral state. They dwell
there,"
down
"
ad nauseam upon the distinction between the standing in Christ and the state. The standing by a single act of faith is the great and decisive thing the moral state is a
in Christ attained
;
small
affair,
having not
damage the standing.
the least
David
and with hands red with
power
to
in Uriah s bed,
his blood,
was
in a
sad moral predicament indeed, so far as his
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
70
moral state was concerned, but his
judicial
standing in Christ was not in the least inr All that he lost was his communion paired.
with
God "
joy
;
that he sought for
Thou unto me
Restore
salvation."
murder.
all
God
before
away ite
the joy of
Thy
did not see his adultery and
These were covered with the blood
atonement
of
was restored
shed
the
in
Divine purpose
the foundation of the world, and put
forever before David
A favor
was born.
proof text for this abominable dogma, which
lays the axe
flt
the root of the whole system df
Christian morals,
is
Num.
21:
xxiii.
"He
hath
not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel," correctly rendered
by Rosenmiiller
"
:
God cannot endure
hold iniquity cast upon Jacob, nor can to
see
against
affliction, Israel."
ing of this text. it
vexation,
trouble,
He
bear
wrought
Some such must be the mean The Plymouth exegesis makes
deny the omniscence of God, and contradict His declaration Because all
positively
"
flatly
to be
:
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. these
men which have
seen
My
glory,
71
and
My
miracles which I did in Egypt and in the wil derness, have tempted
Me now
and have not hearkened
to
these ten times,
My
voice
;
surely
they shall not see the land which I swear unto their fathers, neither shall
any of them that
provoked me see
xiv. 22, 23).
(Num.
it"
God
not only saw the sins of Israel, but He kept accurate account of their number, and so in dignant was ter one
The Christ,
that He purposed to smite and whole nation, and raise up a bet
He
disinherit the
from Moses (Num.
xiv. 12).
doctrine that the believer
and
is
is
seen only in
regarded as pure as Christ
Him
founded on his incorporation into the glorified human and Divine Person in lieaven. self,
The the
is
act of faith
first
Since,"
writer,
dropping
and
glorified
body
of Jesus
Mr. Darby said to the Jesus does not walk about in heaven
"
"
the occasion on which
Spirit eternally incorporates the be
Holy
liever into the risen
Christ.
is
as
off fingers
and
toes,"it
follows that
ANT1NOMIAN1SM REVIVED.
72
every believer once incorporated into Christ absolutely sure of ultimate salvation. tainty
act beyond contingencies. even murder, can remove us from our
standing in Christ.
Sin
may
munion, and leave the soul ness for a season "
All
is
;
well,"
30
of this doctrine, Eph. v.
"
of
are
members
His
rejected
flesh
com
and dark
sin in a believer is
ends in eternal
it
obstruct
in sadness
but since, as Shakspeare says,
well that ends
well since
we
cer
No
forever
is
of sin,
The
is
of
His
life.
is
quoted:
"For
The
clause,
body."
and of His
For a proof
bones,"
which
the Revised Version as spurious,
by
is is
strongly emphasized as a proof of a literal in corporation into the person of Christ. attention to the context will
embodiment
A little
show that
in Christ cannot be
literal
meant without
implying the actual incorporation of the hus band and wife in one flesh." If it be said, "
this is just
that the
what marriage produces, we
"one
flesh"
of
reply,
wedlock becomes two
through infidelity to the marriage
vow
(Matt.
THE PLYMOUTH BBETHKEN.
73
v. 32).
Sin destroys the soul s marriage with
Christ,
and brings about a divorce which may
become eternal (James iv. 4-6, Rev. Ver). Another favorite proof-text is Eph. ii. 6, which is
understood as teaching that
in their judicial
all
believers are. "
standing, literally
gether in
sitting to
Christ
in
Jesus." heavenly places Another proof-text is found in the oft-recurring
words, It
"
in
may
Christ."
be safely said that the Plymouth doc
trines find their basis in a literalizing of figures,
ingenious allegorizing of facts, and a straining of
r
t}
pes.
The
best specimens of typology run
wild, are found in the
For instance
:
Plymouth commentaries. In order to prove that it was
not the mission of the Comforter to sanctify the pentecostal Church, and to destroy sin in the hearts of full believers, this
argument which is thought Leaven always stands for 1C, 17,
is
the
command
bread for Pentecost.
to be sin.
is
the line of
unanswerable In Lev.
:
xxiii.
to put leaven into the
Therefore there was siu
ANTINOMIAKISM REVIVED.
74
in the Pentecostal
with the Holy
Church
Spirit,
after
whose
it
office
was is
filled
not to
cleanse believers from all sin, but to incorporate
them
into Christ
up
in the sky.
TJiis is the
M
lnargument of their greatest annotator, and whose skill tosh, spiritual insight exegetical
are
by some
of
"
the Brethren
"
attributed to an
inspiration almost plenary. Says another writ We know that Moses in the law er, J. R. C.: "
These ancient enactments spake of Christ. were shadows, in many, if not in all, cases, of good things to come." Then from the Mosaic the man who hath taken a requirement that wife shall not go out to war, but shall be free "
at
home one year
to cheer his
wife,"
he gravely
argues that this signifies that Christ will not go forth to battle until
He
has remained with the
saints a certain period at
Here
is
home
in a kind of
a specimen
of
Major are doctrines whose all typology, Brethren: drawn from the Plymouth First,
honeymoon. Whittle
s
he assumes, without a particle of proof, that
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. the ark
went the all
is
a type of Christ.
new; none
who
saved
Secondly,
into the ark in the old world
!
none were
died,
75 all
who
came out
in
Hence
lost.
are once in Christ will be infallibly
Admit
the premises, and the
demon
stration is irresistible.
These are only a few specimens of the logic of types when handled by an ingenious man, eager to find biblical proofs for for un-Scriptural doctrines.
The great master God s Word,
cious treatment of
who can
of this falla
the wizzard
give a Scriptural flavor to tenets most
repugnant to the sacred oracles, is Andrew Jukes. Whether one of the "Brethren," I
know not
;
but he
is
unexcelled in their typo
logical sleight of hand,
even going beyond his
and demonstrating the ultimate res toration of all the wicked in hell to holiness
teachers
and heaven. their
Evangelical minds should be on
guard against
stilling
this
subtle
method
dangerous theological errors.
of in
There
76 is
ANTINOMLAJSTSM KEVIVED.
a large class of minds which are easily capti
vated by types which are purely fanciful, the cunning inventions of men.
CHAPTER
IV.
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN
{ContinuecT)
.
A CARDINAL Plymouth tenet is the necessary continuance of the
flesh,
or the old man,
and
unchanged, with the new man, till Regeneration has no effect on the old
his abiding,
death.
or extinction.
He
incapable of becoming better, and has a
life-
man by way of improvement is
lease
or
in
what says
J,
itself
may put new nature
ship of either the indefinite
period
without
standing, only the
when
The
the believer s soul.
the old
Adam
or the old for an
detriment
communion is
tenement with two rooms. faces the sun,
is
and the
is,
to
the
obstructed
The
at the helm.
illustration of the Christian soul
ment
personality,
under the leader
that
best
it is
a
The spiritual apart fleshly room is in
the rear, turned from the sun.
The
ouce sure of his standing in Christ,
believer,
may 77
live in
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
78 the front
may
room and bask
He
shade.
in the sunshine, or he
back room and
retire into the
live in the
exhorted to live in the front
is
room, and to keep the back room locked, if he would have unbroken happiness through cloud less
communion with God.
But
if
he should
disregard the exhortation, and, owl-like, should
dwell amid the darkness
all his
days, he
is
just
as sure at last of the inheritance of the saints
though he was not partial to the light while dwelling in his double tenement on the in light,
earth.
These teachers have a special
hostility to the
Weslyan doctrine of Christian perfection, against which they oppose perfection in Christ. are very shy of the term
They
since this, as used to
our love to
"
say,
for,"
the whole
ness
is
by
God
This
perfect."
is
St.
"
:
not
perfect
love,"
John, evidently refers is our love made
Herein
God s
says Alford,
context."
"
"
love to us, as some
this is forbidden
Inwrought
by
personal holi
denied, as ministering to pride, while a
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
79
constant declaration of inward vileness, and of a fictitious purity, by the imputation of Christ
s
purity, is supposed to conduce to our humility
and Christ
s exaltation.
The Plymouth
idea of entire sanctification
exceedingly complex and contradictory.
is
First,
our standing we are as holy as Christ sec ondly, in our flesh we are perfectly vile, the old in
;
man
being incapable of improvement
the
new man
is
;
thirdly,
perfectly pure, being a
new
creature by the Spirit, and hence not needing sanctification.
This statement
is
highly sug
gestive of the celebrated kettle plea 1.
It
Our
client
was cracked when he borrowed
whole when he returned
practical holiness in
is
make your
standing."
3. It
was
an exhortation to
"Be
here because ye are holy up there
your
;
most of the writings
the Brethren, on this wise:
to
it
2.
it.
But, nevertheless, there
"Strive
:
never borrowed the kettle;
of
holy down
"
(in Christ).
correspond with Yet this motive to Christian state
ANTINOMIANISM IlEVIVED.
80 purity
is
by the assurance that the
neutralized
believer s standing in Christ
is
eternal anyhow,
just as the exhortation to sinners to repentance
by a Universalist
is
ultimate salvation "
God
a motive of no force, since certain.
is
"
standing."
edness and security are themselves,
We
M Intosh
will never reverse His decision as to
His people are as to
"
Says
made
:
what
Israel s bless
to depend, not
but on the faithfulness of
on
Jehovah."
must never measure the standing by the
but always the state by the standing. To lower the standing because of the state, is
state,
to give the death-blow to all progress in practi cal
Christianity."
That
is
to
must always be judged by the the tree
by the
to practical
fruit, is to
the fruit
say,
tree
to judge
;
give the death-blow
pomology.
The opening verse
of 2 Cor.
xii.,
speaks of
Lord the closing verse condemns un cleanness and fornication and visions
and revelations
lasciviousness not mer,"
says
of the
repented
M Intosh,
"
;
of.
we have
"In
the for
the positive
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
8]
standing of the Christian; in the latter, the state
possible
Yet he keeps
watchful."
amid
which he may
into
all his
other
His
"
:
his Christly standing
swinish wallowings
mouth Brethrenism In John
This
!
the
is
Here
in a nut-shell.
xiii.
not
fall if
Ply an
is
Lord Jesus looks
at
and pronounces them clean although in a few hours one of *
disciples
every whit
them was
;
to curse
and swear that he did not
know Him. So vast is the difference between what we are in ourselves and what we are in between our positive standing and our possible state." (Notes on Leviticus.) These theologians make a nice distinction be Christ
tween conscience of
sin
where neither the affords "
The
and consciousness
Bible nor
moral
science
the least ground for this distinction, "
former,"
say they,
the normal experience of
is
guilt
all
;
the latter
believers.
ever feel the motions of sin within their
Whereas conscience sciousness is
of sins,
when
is
They
hearts."
nothing more than con
the question of right or
before the mind.
is
wrong
ANTINOMIANISM EEVIVED.
82
Here is another distinction vital to the Ply mouth system It is of the utmost importance "
:
we
that
the flesh
accurately distinguish between sin in
and
sin on the conscience.
If
we con
found these two, our souls must, necessarily, be unhinged, and our worship marred." Then
John
follows the Scriptural distinction in 1
8-10
we
"
:
we
say that
we have
no sin (in us),
deceive ourselves, and the truth
In the next verse
us. 1
If
we
i.
not in
is
find the sin on us
the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all "
sin.
What becomes
of the sin in us
when
all
sin is cleansed, the writer does not deign to say
;
but he does say that, Here the distinction be tween sin in us and sin ow, is fully brought out "
and
established."
It is so
"
fully
brought out
"
that
it
1,800 years for Bible readers to discover
it,
took
and
From then only through Plymouth eye-glasses to a Darby this has been standing Augustine !
proof-text against entire sanctification,
which
as plainly taught in the passage as the
sun
is
in
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
83
Let any candid mind read the
the heavens.
If we if have no we means, say any unregener ate man denies that he has any sin which needs
context, and he will see that the clause,
"
sin,"
the atonement, or that he has ever sinned, as is
would is
No
in verse ten, he deceives himself.
so stultify himself as to say that he
cleansed from
who
sin in the seventh verse, is
all
a dupe and a liar in the eighth verse, tifies to
the all-cleansing blood.
written
down
as
if
he tes
John must be
utterly self-contradictory
say that he that
it
writer
is
born of
God
to
sinneth not,
and then brand with deception and falsehood the
man who
should profess that by grace he
was kept from sin. Yet this passage, wrenched from its context, is the proof constantly reiter ated, that there life.
no salvation from
is
The absurdity
indwelling
the highest attainable state
sin, as
of the Christian,
and
part of the person cleansing,
is
sin in this
of this text as a proof of
of self-deception
who
on the
professes entire inward
akin to that of advertising a com-
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
84 plete false
cure of cancers, and then branding as every testimony to such a cure.
Another text constantly urged by them, utter
disregard of the context,
is
in
Gal. v. 17,
that fallacy in logic called
"
which, by begging the question," they assume to be descriptive of the most perfect specimen of the Spirit s work in a human soul, whereas St. Paul is writing to a backsliding church. translated
by Dean
"
I
marvel,"
Alford,
"
says he, as
that ye are so soon
removing from Him that called you in the grace of Christ, unto a different Gospel." Again :
"
Are ye
Spirit, are
so foolish
ye
now
?
in
Having begun
the
being made perfect in the
flesh?"
In believers, in struggle spirit.
is
this
mixed moral
state,
a
going on between the flesh and the
The
fallacy lies in the assumption, that
the best Christians are in this state, against the positive testimony of St. Paul crucified with Christ live,
;
and
it is
but Christ that liveth in
"
:
I
have been
no longer
me."
I that
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. The sized
doctrine of assurance
by
strongly
empha
these Christians as the privilege of
who
are in Christ.
their
condemnation of the
and
is
85
insist
they
They
all
are very earnest in "
"hope-so
experience,
on a clear and
undoubted
knowledge of the forgiveness of sins and adop tion into the family of God. But this truth,
when
joined with the pernicious doctrine of
eternal incorporation into the glorified
body
of
removes the safeguard against sin, which old-fashioned Calvinism set up, in the uncer Christ,
tainty which every Christian
was taught that he
must feel respecting his acceptance with God. Both Calvinism and Arminianism have checks which deter believers from
Arminian
is
sin.
told that the holiest saint
The
on earth
from grace and drop into hell. The may Calvinist is restrained from abusing the doctrine fall
of unconditional election
that no his
man may, beyond
own name
chosen ones.
is
by the consideration,
know that register of God s
a doubt,
on the secret
This ignorance inspires a health-
AKTIKOMIANISM REVIVED.
86 ful
promotive of watchfulness and
solicitude
persevering fidelity in the Calvinist, just as the possibility of total
and
final
conserve the purity of
apostasy tends to
the Arminian.
The
Plymouth Brethren drop both of these safe guards by uniting, with eternal incorporation into Christ, a present
and absolute assurance
of
There may be a few souls who would not be put in imminent peril by the that fact.
revelation, that their eternal salvation
is
secured
beyond a peradventure but the mass of believ ers would become dizzy, if suddenly lifted to ;
such a height, and many would fall into sin. Human nature at its best estate can never be safely fear.
from the salutary restraint of Hence we predict that great moral dis released
asters will follow the general prevalence of the
teachings of Mr. Darby and his school.
In this matter of assurance,
guarded are
who tion
how much more
the utterances of John Wesley,
teaches the certain knowledge of justifica
by
faith,
with
appropriate
safeguards.
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
87
Let none ever presume to rest in any supposed testimony of the Spirit which is separate from
"
the fruit of
mouth
idiom,
presume to
This, translated into the Ply
it."
would read thus
rest in
"
:
Let none ever
any supposed standing
Christ while his actual state of character
radiant with
all
the
no one who
"Let
is
excellences of
is
in
not
Christ."
in a state of wilful sin,
imagine that he has a standing in Christ pure and clear before the throne of God, for hig standing in heaven
is
the same as his state on
earth."
In perfect accord with this absolute assurance of final salvation, is the denial of the general judg
ment
as taught in all orthodox creeds.
If the
have a through ticket for heaven,
saints
why
should they stand before the judgment seat of Christ
?
The
lips of the
comment luted to
favorite proof-text, ever
Brethren,
that
"
is
John
condemnation
"judgment."
"
v. 24,
should be trans-
To show how
prove the doctrine for which
on the
with the
far this fails
it is
quoted, I
A2JTIX03IIAXIS3I EEVITED.
88
adduce
will
Greek: life
"
Alford
The
note
s
Anglicizing
believing and the having eternal
arc commensurate
;
where the
life is
remits, the other is
forfeited.
its
is
set before us as
(See Eph.
19,
i.
20)."
"
(pcrsevcringly)
in
the
faith,
the
and
their
completion
who
believeth"
"He
comes not
is,
But here
an enduring
are described
effects
;
faith
and when the one
possession of eternal
faith
the
has no concern
into,
with, the separation (/.r/m-), the damnatory part of the
judgment."
All the texts which teach
the simultaneous judgment of
all
family are ingeniously explained tial
the
human
away by par
judgments strung along through the future,
after the doctrine of
make way
for this
Swedenborg,
new
in order to
doctrine, that the saints
will not be before Christ s
in the last day.
We
these explanations sion of the
shall
judgment tribunal show the fallacy of
when we come
Plymouth scheme
or lust things.
to the discus
of eschatology,
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
THE
REAL
SINS OF BELIEVERS ARE NOT
This
is
89
SINS.
a necessary inference from the assured
exemption of believers from condemnation, For however deep their fall into gross sins.
exemption implies the absence of guilt. Those acts which entail no guilt cannot be real
this
sins.
If
they appear to be
ance
is
deceptive.
English doctor "
pulpit,
A
and murder.
a
Hence,
appear
distinguished
of divinity
could say in the
may be
assured of pardon
believer
as soon as he
sins, their
commits any
sin,
even adultery
Sins are but scarecrows and
bears, to frighten ignorant children,
but
bug
men
of
Understanding see they are counterfeit things." The author has heard Dr. Brooks, of St. Louis, assert that the sins of believers mate rially differ
from the
sins of unbelievers, hint
ing that they are not real sins in
cause in
He
sees the believer
Jesus Christ.
This
is
and
God
all his
s eyes,
be
acts only
the logical conclusion
from the premises that character
is
transferable,
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
90
that Jesus Christ on the cross
became a
sinner,
and was punished, while we, by a single act of faith, assume His righteousness by an inalien able incorporation into His glorified person in heaven, and are ever afterward viewed by God as possessing all His moral excellencies, among
which
is
What
sinlessness.
an opiate to the accusing conscience
what a weakening against sin, set
!
removed, and ordinary
of
the divine safeguards
man s moral
constitution,
on the very face of such a theo
are manifest logical tenet
up
in
!
human
The
chief barrier against sin
sinning
is
made
is
With
easy.
beings, even after regeneration,
with impunity becomes a tremendous temptation, and to most men an
facility for sinning
irresistible
incentive to sin.
emnly pronounced
"
woe
If
to
God
has sol
them that
call
(moral) evil good, and (moral) good what must be His sentence against those who
evil,"
entirely rub out the broad
boundary
line be
tween them by teaching that the willful
viola-
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. tion of the
known law
of
Yet
but not a real sin?
ing,
table
God
only a seem
this is the inevi
outcome of the doctrine that there never
can be condemnation to them
The
is
91
case
who are
in Christ.
aggravated by the denial of the
is
possibility of entire sanctification in this
life,
and by the assertion that the flesh, the sinward bent of the soul, must remain until it is eradi cated by physical death.
Broadcast these twin
doctrines throughout Christendom, that believ ers are incapable
principle
during
is
of real sin,
and that the
a necessity in every
this life,
human
sin
heart
defying the blood of Christ to
purge it away, and the Christian Church will need myriads of patient toilers to grub up these seeds of immoralities,
Canada
thistle is to the
more baneful than the farmers of this western
world.
This whole question of the believer s relation to God s law has been discussed by the theo logical
giants of
from Baxter
s
past generations.
Aphorisms on
I
quote an
Justification,
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
92
epitome made by J. Wesley: "As there are two covenants, with their distinct conditions, so there
is
a twofold righteousness, and both of
them absolutely necessary
for salvation.
Our
righteousness of the first covenant (under the remediless, Christless,
Adamic law)
is
not per
sonal, or consisteth not in any actions preferred
we never
for
by us;
personally satisfied the
law (of innocence), but in Christ.
it is wholly without us, In this sense every Christian dis-
claimeth his
Those
works.
righteous
and
own
who
so are in
eous.
Though
righteousness,
or his
own
only shall be in Christ legally believe
and OBEY the Gospel,
themselves evangelically right Christ performed the conditions
law (of Paradisaical innocence), and made satisfaction for our non-performance, YET
of the
WE
OURSELVES MUST PERFORM THE CONDI TIONS OF THE GOSPEL. These (last) two propositions
seem
to
me
so
clear, that I
wonder
that any able divines should deny them.
Me-
thinks they should be articles of our creed, and
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
93
a part of children s catechisms. To affirm that our evangelical or new-covenant righteousness is
and
in Christ,
by
riot in ourselves,
or performed
and not by ourselves, is such a mon piece of Antinomian doctrine as no
Christ,
strous
man, who knows the nature and difference of the covenants, can possibly
Aphor. Prop. 14-17.) practical, fatal
entertain."
Thus speaks
(Bax.
this pious,
well-balanced dissenter against the
errors
Adamic law with demanding
from
confounding
the
the law of Christ, the
first
arising
of a perfect
man
a faultless
life,
the
other requiring an imperfect man, inheriting
damaged
intellectual
der perfect, that
is,
and moral powers, pure love,
Heavenly Father, through Christ Saviour, with the
assistance
to
to ren
God
his
his adorable
of regenerating
and sanctifying grace. It was the clearly discerned distinction be tween the two covenants which prompted good Bishop Hopkins to make this paradoxical reso lution r
"So
to BELIEVE, so
to
rest
on the
ANTINOMIANISM KEVIVED.
94
had never wrought any thing; and withal so to WOEK, as if I were merits of Christ, as
if
only to be saved by
each of these
its
I
my own
merits."
due in practice,
is
To
give
the verj
height and depth of Christian perfection.
MODERN ANTINOMIANISM EXAMINED. The new Antinomianism does not make Cal vinism prominent by any formal statement. It is rather implied than expressed. Nothing is said of sovereign decrees
For
election.
and
this reason it does not specially
offend Arminians, while
its
doctrine of the final
of all believers
perseverance pleasing to those
modern in
New
of unconditional
who hold
is
a tenet very
Calvinism, with
alleviations, the only form
England.
still
For these reasons
its
extant
this great
is well adapted to become widespread in both these great branches of orthodoxy.
error
There
is
a class of people
who
are specially
pleased to see the Gospel set in antagonism with the law, and they breathe more easily
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. when they rule of
are assured that
life, is
God s
95
law, as the
abrogated by the Gospel.
repugnance of the Gospel to the moral
This
law
is
one of the primal errors of all Antinomians. But the form which this antagonism takes, is This peculiar to the modern Antinomianism. is
the difference between the believer s stand
ing in
Christ,
and
his
actual
moral
These bear no relation to each other. state
may
fects of
stead.
first
brick in a row,
is
the perfections of Jesus being seen in
This standing, attained by the
of faith,
The
Like the
seen by the eye of God, the de the others, covered by Him, are not
Jesus only
;
The
be utterly bad, while the standing be
perfectly good.
seen
state.
is
first
act
and everlasting. this doctrine of an eternal
inalienable
influence of
and inalienable standing in Christ, and of ex emption from the day of judgment, must, in
many
cases,
be disastrous.
The removal
of the
wholesome safeguard found in the fear of being morally shipwrecked and cast away, must tencl
ATDTOMIANISM KEVIVED.
96
few
to looseness of living in not a
cases.
It is
possible that a few might suffer no detriment
from embracing such a theory, but they would
Most people
be exceptions.
How
above their creed.
temptations of
fierce
and be
verses,
before old
?
below, not
sing the following
life,
just as watchful against sin as
Especially,
man
live
can a man, amid the
how can one
in
whom
the
exists in full strength ?
"
Rejoice, rejoice,
my
soul,
Rejoice in sin forgiven ;
The blood
of Christ hath
For thee His "
Rejoice in peace
No Thy
Heaven
made
safe thou canst not
itself
no moral
trine to
men
thee whole;
sure:
conscience purged, thy
Is there
my
made
was given.
judgment now for thee
More
all
life
;
life secure,
be."
can afford no greater safety peril in preaching such a doc
In
in the furnace of temptation ?
study of
human
nature,
I
have found
that the removal of barriers against sin
tremendous incentive to
its
!
commission.
is
a
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
07
REPENTANCE SLIGHTED. At another open
the
point,
to criticism
its
Plymouth system
neglect
of,
is
or very slight
need of repentance. This is I with its Antinomian tendencies. in keeping quote from Dr. Robert Anderson s book, emphasis on, the
"
The
Gospel
and
its
a
Ministry,"
highly commended by Mr. Mood}*, this criticism, and to show that this
book
to verify
defect
is
not an oversight, but a part of the system, the justification of
tion
"
:
The
which
attempted in this quota soundest and fullest Gospel is
preaching need not include any mention of theword (repentance). Neither as verb or noun does
it
occur in the Epistle to the Romans,
God
s
great doctrinal treatise on redemption
and righteousness, the second chapter. all
the
single
liiblc
will
mention of
save in the warnings of And the Gospel-book of
be searched it.
wrote His Gospel, that
i:i
vain for a
The beloved
men might
Disciple
believe
and
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
98
and His Epistle followed, to confirm be lievers in the simplicity and certainty of their live,
but yet, from end to end of them, the word repent or repentance never once faith
;
*
This proves nothing.
occurs."
to
every student, that the synoptic Gospels,
which are
full of repentance, present a differ
ent phase of Gospel. for
teaching from John s would not be natural to look
Christ
Again,
it
s
exhortations to repentance in epistles to
believers,
To
It is manifest
whether John
s
epistles
or
Paul
s.
find these, let us turn to the reports of the
Apostle
s
Acts, and
sermons to the unconverted, in the
we
will find repentance preached in
due proportion to other duties. See the con cordance, in which these words will be found in the
Acts eleven times.
remembered
It
that, though the
must be carefully word believe "
"
occurs about a hundred times in John s Gospel,
and "
"
"
repent
believe
"
is
is
not found even once, John
so large
in
its
meaning
that
s it
comprehends conversion, or turning from sin, as
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
99
This fulness of
well as trusting in Christ.
meaning must not be neglected, but must be magnified by him who would get John s deep meaning. He can never be quoted to support Antinomiariism. The preaching of repentance in no way belittles faith in Jesus, the sole con dition of forgiveness, but
it is
prerequisite to its exercise.
must be earnestly preached.
the indispensable
Hence, repentance
CHAPTER
V.
ANTHSTOMIAN FAITH.
WE
look in vain in
Antinomian
school,
all
these writers of the
whether ancient or modern, definitions of saving faith.
for
any adequate After a faithful and patient study, extending through ten years, I can find in these writings
no better notion of
faith
than a bare
intel
lectual assent to the fact that Jesus put
once and forever on His
sin
away
There
cross.
is
no
preliminary to this mental act, such as a heart felt
of
conviction of sin, and eternal abandonment
it
any
in purpose
and
in reality.
test of this faith in the
fruits.
The
evangelical
faith is utterly ignored,
genuine repentance,
and
ful obedience,
heart and 100
life
;
its
its
Nor
is
there
genuineness of
definition
that
it
has
its
of
saving
its
root in
bud and blossom
in joy
fruitage in holiness of
that in addition to the assent of
ANTINOMIAN FAITH. the
(James the
the
intellect, ii.
there
19),
the
will,
moral
fruitless
faith
of
devils
must be the consent
Christward movement
of
the
of
and an unwavering reliance
sensibilities,
Him
on Him, and on
alone,
as
a
present
Nor do the Antinomians teach that
Saviour.
faith is continuous
a life-long outgoing of the
but rather that
heart in glad obedience efficacy
101
is
its
concentrated into a single act of
assent to a past fact, an act which forever and
We
forever justifies.
can easily predict the upon a foundation
character of the edifice built so
defective.
On
such a corner-stone
we do
not expect to find a love which purifies the heart and overcomes the world, a hunger and thirst after righteousness,
holiness,
an eager pursuit of
pressing on unto perfection Rev. Ver.), and that perfect love
and
"
"
(Heb. vi. 1, which caste th out
"
all fear
that has
torment."
We find rather a dry, intellectual religion, cious of its speculative
tena
theory, indifferent to
inward and outward holiness, and reveling in imaginary graces,
or, rather, in
the perfections
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
102
of Christ falsely
his
imputed
keep the old
preferring to
summary
crucifixion,
to
man in
themselves,
and
alive rather than
order
"
that the
body of sin may be destroyed." We find a sys tem which is a great comfort to the backslider in heart
and
who have
and a pleasant refuge
life,
lost
sanctified, into
to those
among the which they once entered when their
inheritance
under better religious instruction. We have thus far spoken of an indefinite Antinomian faith
;
we now proceed
to speak of
FAITH VERSUS FEELING. "
The power
of
God,"
says Fletcher,
"
is fre
of, but rarely felt, and too often the despicable name of cried down under
quently talked
frames and feelings." If I had a mind," said the eloquent George "
Whitefield, pel,
I
and
"
to hinder the progress of the
to establish the
kingdom
Gos
of darkness,
would go about
telling people they might or have the Spirit of God, and yet not feel which is much the same, that the pardon which it,"
ANTINOMIAN FAITH. Christ procured for them
is
103
already obtained by
them, whether they enjoy the sense of it or not. This is the kind of faith which multitudes of souls in utter spiritual barrenness are resting in for eternal
life.
of looking for is
Wesley,
It is
are exhorted to
any changed
inconsistent "
They
beware
feeling, that feeling
Says John easy to satisfy ourselves without with true
faith.
being possessed of the holiness and happiness of the Gospel.
It is easy to call these (holi
ness and happiness) frames and feelings, and
then to oppose faith to one and Christ to the
Frames (allowing the expression) are no other than heavenly tempers, the mind that other.
was
in Christ
tions of the
;
feelings are the Divine consola
Holy Ghost shed abroad
ever faith
is,
and wherever Christ
these blessed frames
not in us,
it is
and
feelings.
This
is
is,
there are
If
they are
a sure sign that though the wil
derness become a pool, the pool wilderness
in the
And wher
heart of him that truly believes.
again."
(Note on Peter
is
become
iii.
a
18).
the process of inculcating this kind
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
104 of faith.
The
religious teacher sits
down
in
the inquiry room, by the side of the seeker, If opens his Bible at Romans x. 9, and reads thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord "
:
Jesus (Jesus as Lord, Rev. Ver.), and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Do you confess that Jesus is your Lord ? Yes. Do
you
believe that
He
arose from the dead ?
Yes.
Well, praise the Lord, you are born again ! you have found eternal life. But I do not experi ence any inward change. Never mind that; you are to believe without any feeling. If you look for feeling as the ground of your faith
you are now a child of God, you dishonor the Word. The Word says that you are saved, and you ought to believe the Bible. It is weak that
and childish
to be looking for I strongly advise
your
feelings.
tized
and join the Church.
the conditions of salvation.
any change you
all
in
bap
You have fulfilled You are hence
forth to count yourself a Christian,
resolved will to crush out
to be
and by a
doubts respecting
ANTINOMIAN FAITH. jour conversion, whenever they
105
arise.
For they
will arise.
All true Christians have doubts of
this kind.
It is
there
But, dear pastor,
in Christ.
good hope all
an evidence that they have a
is
in the
new
birth?
I
is this
expected
I
should have unspeakable joy, arising from a I thought I should be
sense of burning love. sure that I was saved sion
by
by some inward impres
Holy Ghost.
the
Oh, says the pastor,
are not to expect a miraculous conversion.
you That kind SlN
is
limited to the Apostolic age.
"
IK,"
AND SlN their
all
Through
"
"in"
and
"on."
to deliver
Gospel not from
sin
"
between the preposi It is the aim of the
from sin
in
"
THE SOUL.
books and innumerable
tracts runs a distinction
tions
ON,"
the
"
on
"
heart,
the soul, but till
we
pass
through the gate of death. In other words, justification is affirmed, but entire sanctification the present life is denied. The blood of Jesus Christ is efficacious for the removal of in
AKTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
106
actual sins, but ciple, or
it fails
inbred
sin, till
to eradicate the sin prin
physical death conies to
the aid of atonement, and completes
Thus the penalty
power.
destroyer.
"Death,
of
sin
its
saving
becomes
its
that foul monster, the off
spring of sin, shall
have the important honor of
killing his
says Fletcher.
father,"
"
He
to give the great, the last, the decisive
In vain do
we
and
tures are cited
cleansing from
When
"on."
which teach immediate perfect 1 John i. 7, 9, we are "
cleanse
herent purification.
But
Romish doctrine
light."
of
of
here means
"
judicial clearance, or justification,
dition
those Scrip
all sin, as in
assured that the verb
in the
death
for the important distinction
and
"in"
is
blow."
call for Scripture proofs for
sanctification,
between
alone
and not
this involves St.
in
John
good works as a con If we walk in the
"
justification
This
is
certainly a course of
good works
prescribed as a condition of cleansing.
If this
pardon, we have a condition unknown to St. Paul. But we have as great a difficulty in pas-
is
ANTINOMIAN FAITH.
107
sages which urge us to cleanse ourselves, as 2 Cor. vii. 1. Here we have a cluster of absurd "
ities.
(1.)
Self-justification
ourselves."
(2.)
:
Let us cleanse
and
Justification is divided
distributed into two parts,
"
a piece-meal pardon (3.) state. How can a state be
flesh "
!
and
"
spirit
Filthiness
"
is
a
have
justified, or
judicial clearance or acquittal ? It is easy to see that sin
who has been adopted (2 Cor.
vi.
God
the
is
Corinthians are ex
purgation as a condi perfecting holiness in the fear of the
horted to seek tion to
the believer,
18), or inbred, original depravity,
here intended, and
"
"in"
into the family of
its entire
Lord."
NOT UNDER THE LAW. "
This
Free from the law, oh, happy condition! is
"
a verse which should never be sung
except with those safeguards which the author of the hymn has not been careful to set up. (1.) It is
true that all
mankind
are,
by the
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
108
atonement, forever freed from the necessity of pleading that we have perfectly kept the law,
We
in order to acceptance with God.
from the necessity of legal
are freed
Such
justification.
a necessity would shut up a sinful race in
We
eternal despair.
as the (/round of justification. justification
is
Nor are
(2.)
Our ground
of
the blood of Christ shed for us. true believers,
who have
the Spirit of adoption, under
impulse
from the law
are freed
to service.
They
received
the law as the
are not spurred
on
to
by the threatened penalties of God s Love to the Law-giver has taken the
activity
law.
place of fear of the law as a motive. specially true of those of
whom
menting
advanced
perfect love has cast fear.
rience, there is
This
is
believers, out
all
servile, tor
Before emerging into this expe a blending of fear and love as
motives to service.
In this state the believer
is
not wholly delivered from legalism. But the law is put into the heart of the full believer,
and
its
fulfillment is spontaneous
and
free.
"
I
ANTINOMIAN FAITH. will
109
run the way of Thy commandments when
Thou
my heart." The Septuagint our used Lord Jesus, reads I Version, by have run. etc. Without the Since," shalt enlarge
"
:
"
.
.
.
says St. Paul,
law,"
an outward yoke laid under law to Christ."
as
upon the neck, "but Love to Christ absorbs
into itself all the princi
and prompts to their Love is the fulfill Hence,
ples of the moral law,
"
glad performance.
ment
Rom.
of
the
vii. 6,
corrects the
law."
This
the meaning of
is
as translated in the Revision
which
blunder of King James version
from a faulty MS., making the law of God instead of the believer s dying to
ceasing to be actuated by
coming obedient love.
"
its
terrors,
new
from the
it;
die,
that
is,
and be
principle
of
But now we have been discharged from
we were NEWNESS OF THE
the law, having died to that wherein
holden SPIRIT, (3.)
;
so that
and not
We
ment of our
WE
SERVE
IN"
in the oldness of the
letter."
are free from the law as the instru sanctification*
Christ has become
ANTINOMIAN1SM REVIVED.
110
our sanctification by purchasing with His blood the gift
of
the
Holy
Spirit.
He
called
is
not as a peculiar attribute, distinguish holy," ing Him from the Father and the Son, but be "
cause
We
it is
are
"
and
Spirit
His great elect
to
office
through
belief of the
make men
holy.
of the
sanctification
truth."
(4.) Christ has freed us from the ceremonial
law. (5.) Believers
in Christ
are
not delivered
from the moral law, as the rule of life. The form of this law may change, but the essence is
as
immutable as
bosom
it
its
goes forth.
Author, out of whose If believers
from the law, as a rule of
life,
were free
we should
be
obliged to change the verse "Free
A
from the law, oh, wretched condition
moral intelligence, whether
man
"
!
or angel,
thus freed from his proper norm, would dash into ruins like a locomotive of an express train
freed from the
rails.
As
the rails give direc-
ANTINOMIAN FAITH. tion to the is
Ill
mighty momentum of the
train, so
the law designed to direct our moral progress
to a destiny of unspeakable blessedness.
Diso
bedience derails and destroys. Hence the law The soul is a blessing of unspeakable value. that despises
it is
imminent
in
ology which teaches "
happy
condition,"
that
The
peril.
men mount
the to
a
by ridding themselves
of
the beneficent guidance of the moral law, merits the condemnation of
Law-giver
all
Jesus
Christians.
to control, as well as a
is
Redeemer
a to
save.
THE SINNER HAS NOTHING TO Do. "
Nothing, either great or small,
Nothing, sinner, no; Jesus died and paid
Long, long
it all,
ago."
All that Jesus has done for the sinner will
do him no good till he personally appropriates, by a faith which requires the highest effort to exercise,
and which prompts
course of good works.
"
This
to is
a continued the
work
of
ANTESTOMIAmSM REVIVED.
112
which He requires that ye believe in His Son." In all cases there must be repent
God
ance and
forsaking wicked ways, and In the case of the unbeliev
its fruits,
turning to
God.
ing Jews there were two severe preliminary
works before they could conquer
their
love
for
believe.
human
They must honor,
through the use of prevenient grace,
and
rise to the
position where they are swayed by the honor that comes from God only, or the only God.
Hie
labor, hoc
toil.
this is work, this is opus est Jesus sets another task before the Jews
before they can believe in Him. believe in Moses.
Men
lect inferior light, and, at a single
up
They must
cannot indolently neg
bound, spring
to the highest exercise of faith in Jesus, the
Light of the world. They must be of the truth before they can come to Him who is the Truth.
They must
so love
the truth already within
their reach as to be willing to search for
gently,
and
to follow
wherever the truth
it dili
leads.
This implies self-denial and cross-bearing, even
ANTINOMIAN FAITH. before Jesus
is
113
apprehended as their Saviour.
Then having found Him, they must consecrate powers of service to do His will they must work while the day lasts. These works
all their
;
are rewardable, though not meritorious, in the
God under
sense of putting
obligation to
com
In the light of these truths have an Antinomian verses
pensate the doers. the
following
sound
:
"
Cast your deadly
Down
doing
down
at Jesus feet;
Stand in Him, in
Him alone,
Gloriously complete. /
Cease your doing;
all
was done
Long, long ago. "
Doing
is
a deadly thing
Doing ends in
death."
There is a call in this latter quarter of tho nineteenth century for St. James to go through world preaching from his favorite text: "Faith without works is dead." Sinners are
the
not saved by works, but they must work to be
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
114 saved.
out your salvation -with fear Ye are workers together with
"Work
and trembling. God."
THE FLESH REMAINS FLESH. Two
natures co-existing in the believer in
his best possible
John "
iii.
6,
earthly state,
which
That which
is
amended
born of the
is
is
proved by
to
read thus:
flesh is flesh,
and
remains flesh, and that which is born of the This is quoted to prove that Spirit is spirit." the single nature is untouched in the new birth, while an entirely creature,
is
new
created,
nature, or, rather,
new
and associated therewith.
This view assumes, without proof, the follow ing
:
1.
That John uses the term
"flesh"
in the
Pauline sense, which as Meyer says, is strange to him ; while Cremer, in his Biblico Theo "
"
logical
Lexicon, quotes this passage as an in
stance
of
John
s
merely that which
man s
use of sarx, "
flesh, to signify
mediates and brings about
connection with
nature."
He
finds six
shades of meaning to this important word, the
ANTINOMIAN FAITH. only embracing the idea of
last
cludes from this meaning four Gospels in which the
He ex
sin.
passages in the
all
word
occurs.
assumed that such writers as Weiss,
2. It is
and Julius that the
115
error
Miiller, are in
of Jesus
meaning
is,
when they say "the
corporeal
birth only produces the corporeal sensual
There
3.
tion out of nothing.
Dr.
Whedon,
"
is
it,
"
For as
generation,"
it
new
a
principle of
life,
as living being, to the likeness
of the generator, so regeneration
tion of the
says
a modifying of substance or
being, imparting to
conforming
part."
a confounding of birth with crea
is
human
spirit
by
is
the
conforming the temper of the
a modifica
Holy
Spirit,
human
to
the
Holy."
So that that which the same person as
is
He
is
of
spiritual
The "
is is
born of
born of the
identical
for in the
instead
man,
term
soul,
flesh,"
of
flesh.
new
qualit}
spiritual
death.
henceforth endowed with the life,
the Spirit,
body, and spirit says Alford,
"
is
in-
ANTLNOMIANISM REVIVED.
116
eluded every part of that which the ordinary
again by
What
the is
method
of generation
endowment
born after
is "
of spiritual
is
born
life.
born again in the view of the irnpu-
Not the
tationist?
remain fallen
;
fallen nature,
born again
is
nothing
that must ;
but a
new man is created de novo and put into the believer, who is henceforth to live a dual life, liis
personality sometimes dwelling under the
uway
of the old man,
rule
of the
new.
and sometimes under the
This
For in a true birth there life
is
is
all.
a communication of
is
So in the
to non-living matter.
birth there
not a birth at
the impartation of
life to
spiritual
a spirit
ually non-living soul. 4. Our best philosophers say that the only
safeguard against materialism the soul
is
created
by
is
the theory that
a direct act of the Creator.
This theory would seem to
lie
at the base of the
reasonings of the imputationists on this text, and to afford
them an analogy for the absolutely new
creation of a spiritual
man
at the
new
birth.
ANTDIOMIAN FAITH.
Now
well
it is
known
117
in theological circles that
there are three theories for the origin of the
human
spirit,
(1) pre-existence from the date
of the creation,
and waiting
to
be incarnated,
(2) traduction, or derivation from parents, the
same as the body, and (3) direct creation
at the
time of birth, or of generation. It is not incumbent on me to show which the true theory.
is
But he who builds on any must first demonstrate its
of these hypotheses truth.
We
assert that the declaration of the
imputationists, that a
new man
is
created, not
by a transformation and renewal of the old man, but by an immediate logically
ing the
upon
creation, rests ana
a misunderstood theory respect
first birth.
For
this theory is
not that
of creation absolutely independent of all ante
cedents, but each soul
is
created as part of a
system which has been dislocated by Adamic matrix, though marred by still
of a
sin.
The
being used in the creation, and not the matrix
new
race.
sin,
ANTIKOMIANISM REVIVED.
118
Well does Augustine
"
say,
"Where
the Scrip
ture renders no certain testimony, human in quiry must beware of deciding one way or the other."
Let us emerge, then, from
region of
this
common sense. Nicoright when he understood
speculation into that of
demus was surely that the
same
new
birth
subject.
was a second birth of the
The same man born
of the flesh
must be born again. Jesus Himself fully explains the meaning which St. Paul puts into the words, "in
Christ,"
in that wonderful discourse of Christ,
in the sixth chapter of John, about the spiritual
appropriation of the benefit of His atonement,
by sacramentarians, erroneously interpreted as the reception of the Lord s Supper, Christ explains what "
He
is
signified
by being
that eateth (continuously)
(persistently)
drinketh
my
my
in
Him
flesh,
:
and
blood, abideth in
me, and I in him." Eternal blessedness is in Him, and is imparted to all who by faith con-
ANTINOMIAN FAITH.
is
With such
it.
linually appropriate
119 souls there
a mystical union with Christ, an inter-pene
So long as Jesus abides in
tration of Spirit.
the believer, he abides in the hope of sin.
dissolved.
this
is
If Christ
in the heart
which
sin,"
is
should continue to dwell
persists in a course of vol
He would become what works of the
you
committed, the union
untary transgression of the
minister of
Christ in
"
:
This union excludes wilful
glory."
When
Him
known law
St.
Paul
of God, "
styles,
and not a destroyer
the
of the
devil.
In Mr. Wesley
s
day,
when an
un-Scriptural
view of the doctrine of imputed righteousness was much preached, he not unfrequently met
men who,
while claiming to be
Christ, not in faith
themselves,"
"perfect
affirmed that their
canceled their obligations to
Divine law.
They
claimed, violate
might, as
any or
all
in
obey the
they wickedly
the ten
command
ments without being guilty of sin, so long as they maintained faith in Christ. No wonder
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
120
Mr. Wesley wrote of such men are the first-born children of
The
"
:
Surely, these
Satan."
true doctrine of the result of union with
very truly expressed by Rev. Mr. The atonement Sears, of the Unitarian faith Christ,
is
"
:
brings the believer into such a vital union with Christ as to produce from within, outwardlVj
not a putative, but a genuine,
righteousness."
CHAPTER
VI.
THE PLYMOUTH VIEW OF THE ATONEMENT.
THE
basis of the doctrine of
imputed holiness is that theory of the atonement which represents that Christ Jesus, the sinless Son of God, in
whom He was fied
well pleased, was literally identi
with sin so as to be
therewith, that
"
wholly chargeable
we might be
identified
and
wholly charged with righteousness." This quo tation is from Dr. George S. Bishop, who pro ceeds to say, The atonement which we preach "
is
one of absolute exchange, that Christ took
God regarded and treated Christ as a sinner, and that He regards and treats the believing sinner as Christ. From the moment we believe, God looks upon us as if we were Christ. We then are saved, our place
that
literally
.
.
.
by what the Son of our place. Other consid-
straight through eternity,
God
has done in 121
.
.
.
ANTIKOMIANISM REVIVED.
122
erations have nothing to do with
it.
It matters
nothing what we have been, what we are, or what we shall be. From the moment we believe
on Christ, we are forever, in God s sight, AS CHRIST. Of course it is involved in this that
men
are saved, not by preparing first, that
is, by and and the Bible, repenting, praying, reading and then trusting Christ nor the converse of ;
this, that
is,
by trusting Christ
and then
repentance, reformation,
preparing something
good works
first,
which God
will accept
;
but that
what they are what they have done do by trusting on Christ
sinners are saved irrespective of
how
they feel
what they hope
to
only, that the instant Christ
on, the
soul s eternity,
and regardless
is
seen and rested
by God s
of all character
free promise,
and works,
is
fixed."
We
would
call
attention to the following
points in the above quotation 1.
faith.
Repentance
is
not
;
necessary to saving
PLYMOUTH VIEW OF THE ATONEMENT. 123 2.
Good works,
as the fruit of saving faith,
and proof of its genuineness, have no place in this scheme of salvation, and are distinctly repu diated
;
and well they may
be, since
by the
first
act of faith, as a bare, intellectual, impenitent
apprehension that God punished His Son for our past, present, and future sins, the soul s "
eternal salvation, regardless of conduct acter, is
FIXED."
nothing"
since
Heaven.
St.
scheme
What we
we have
James
of salvation,
be called 3.
"
That
is
and char
shall be matters
a through ticket for
an impertinence in
and
his epistle
may
this
well
"strawy." "
as a sinner
God regarded and
"
;
treated Christ
in other words, that
He
actually
punished His Son because he was guilty of our sins. There was a time in the life of Martin
Luther when he sowed the seeds of
this error,
which produced a sad harvest of antinomianism. He used words which seem not blasphemous, merely "
because
The prophets
the
intention
was wanting.
did foresee in Spirit that Christ
ANTLNOMTANTSM REVIVED.
124
would become the greatest transgressor, mur derer, thief, rebel and blasphemer that ever
was"
or can
"
be."
are Christ s
done them
We
sins I, thou,
and we
done, or shall do hereafter, they
have
shall
Whatsoever
own
He had
sins, as verily as if
Himself."
once heard a layman, an ex-president of M. C. A., assert in a public evan
the Boston Y.
gelistic service that
was
"
Jesus Christ on the cross
the greatest sinner in the universe
"
!
Such
statements are usually attended by the portrayal with terrific distinctness, of the Almighty
Father in the act of hurling His thunderbolts, in blasting shocks,
down upon
the defenceless
head of His shrinking and suffering Son. We indignantly repudiate the monstrous idea that Jesus on the cross was a sinner over
whelmed with the wrath.
What we
and death were
bolts of the Father s personal
do affirm
is
that his sufferings
in no sense a punishment, but a substitute for punishment, answering the same end, the conservation of God s moral govern-
PLYMOUTH VIEW OF THE ATONEMENT. 125 ment and the vindication
He
while
The
of His holy character
pardons penitent believers.
chief proof-text of
the
doctrine
that
Christ on the cross was a gigantic sinner, Cor. v. 21. for us,
the
"
He
For
who knew no "
styled
sin, that
the sublime
guilty of our sins
and His
God
is
The common sense offering for us,
of
of
punishment, forever
of our sin
absolute."
own is
is,
free will a sin-
this is the
This
is
Jesus becomes
henceforth
"
This
exegesis of this text
His
and that
sin in the first clause.
tion
Him."
The exchange
for Christ s righteousness is
became
in
suffers their
righteousness
that Jesus
we might be made
equation."
and
reckoned as ours.
2
hath made him to be sin
of
righteousness
is
meaning
of
the interpreta
Erasmus, (Ecumenius, Vatablus, Cornelius a Lapidis, Piscator,
Augustine,
Bitsche,
Wolf,
Ambrosiaster,
Hammond,
Michaelis,
Raymond, and others. a remarkable fact that the Hebrew word,
Rosenmiiller, Ewald, It is
chattath, is
used in the Old Testament by actual
ANTENOMIANTSM REVIVED.
126
count one hundred and sixty times for
sin,
and
one hundred and twelve times for sin-offering. It is very natural that such a mind as Paul s, saturated with the
Hebrew
Scriptures, should
sometimes use the Greek term for
usage in twice,
Paul
s Epistles,
Rom.
offering
contend that
viii.
is this
that the Revision has
at least, translated this "
sin, liamartia,
So obvious
in the sense of sin-offering.
3
;
Heb.
term by
"sin
11.
We
xiii.
it
should be thus rendered in 2
have
insuperable philosophical and
Cor.v. 21.
We
4.
ethical difficulties in the
way
of receiving the
statement that the guilt of the race was trans Character is personal, and ferred to Christ. not an entity, a substance which can be separated from the sin
cannot be transferred.
Sin
is
ner and be transferred to another and be made
an attribute of his character by such a transfer. Sin
is
the act or state of a sinner, as thought
the act or state of the thinker.
is
Neither can
have an essential existence separate from their
PLYMOUTH VIEW OF THE ATONEMENT. 127 personal subject, any more than any attribute
can exist separate from its substance. 5. If sin cannot exist in the abstract, not be punished in the abstract.
it
can
If it cannot
it cannot be punished man one another, though may voluntarily suffer to save another from punishment.
be transferred to another,
in
Hence we repudiate and
ethical philosophy
in the interest of
following proposition of Dr. Bishop "
sound
clearness of thought, the :
taken
If the sin of the believing sinner is
from
his shoulders
God, then strike
God
laid
upon
the Son of
justice, still following after sin,
through beneath
It is a
and
sin
and the person
of the
must
Son
of
it."
moral axiom that only the guilty can
be rightfully punished.
If
Christ was hoiy,
harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, to punish
Him would
human
law, but
rests.
It is in
be, not only contrary to
would outrage all those God-given moral sentiments on which human
all
law
it
vain that Dr. Bishop seeks for
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
128
analogies to sustain the monstrous injustice of
punishing innocence. He says, When a father commits a crime, his whole family sink in the social scale, though innocent." Here he con "
founds the natural consequences of sin with the punishment of sin. Dr. Bishop should show that
universally hangs the innocent on the same family gibbet with the guilty hus band and father. Then the case would be aiialsociety
agous.
Many
persons use the expression
"
Christ in
the stead of the sinner suffered the punishment of his
sin,"
without subjecting this proposition
to that rigid analysis
requires.
While
He
which theological accuracy
it is
true that Jesus
is
our
our substitute truly and strict substitute, Sin ly only in suffering, not in punishment. and also. be This cannot punished pardoned is
would be a moral contradiction. ditionally
and
died.
Sin
is
con
pardoned because Jesus has suffered There is no punishment of sin ex
cept in the person of the sinner
who
neglects
PLYMOUTH VIEW OF THE ATONEMENT. 129 Sin was not punished on
so great a Saviour.
Calvary was the scene of mercy and love, not of wrath
the Cross.
drous
won and
penalty.
Says Dr. Whedon,
"
Punishment
sense implies the guilt of the
Whenever
correlative.
in the strict
sufferer as its
the sinner arid the suf
ferer are not the same, it is only
by an allow
able inaccuracy that the suffering can be called It follows that it is not strictly
punishment.
accurate to say that Christ was punished, or that he truly suffered the punishment of
But
when
this inaccuracy is it is
made the
no longer
"
sin."
allowable
"
basis of the doctrine of
imputed holiness, which tramples the holy law of God under foot, and flings its obligations to the winds on the plea of an inalienable stand
ing in Christ, in
whom,
in fleshly lusts, I
am
is
despite
my
wallowing
seen to be as holy us
He
ethical difficulties thicken as
we
holy. 6.
But the
continue
om
atonement.
examination of this view of the
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
130
A
LIMITED ATONEMENT
Is the inevitable
outcome of the doctrine that
Whose sin? If it be answered, that of the whole human race, then universalism emerges, for God cannot siri
was punished on the
in justice
punish sin twice.
that the sins
Hence rests
cross.
oi the elect only
upon the tenet
the
is
The
fact that this
not avowed, and that the terminology
such as
"
by
call,"
"perseverance of the "Divine
"
"
special
reprobates,"
grace,"
tion
be, then,
were punished.
of a particular, in distinction
of hyper-predestinarianism, "
must
at the bottom, this system of doctrine
from a universal atonement. basis
It
the
and salva
saints,"
Sovereignty,"
is
elect,"
irresistible
studiously
avoided, makes this system of doctrine more dangerous, because these offensive
ures are concealed
We
cannot
resist
designed, so as to
with the
Jesuitical
still
feat
cunning.
suspicion that this
make
it
educated in the Arminian
palatable to faith, in
is
those
order to
PLYMOUTH VIEW OF THE ATONEMENT. catch
them
with
guile.
Some
131
unreflective
Arminians are thus unawares entrapped into the reception of that unmitigated scheme of
which Christendom
doctrine
is
almost univer
shaking off. In our first interview with Mr. Darby, we asked what was his view of election founded sally
on the foreseen,
free,
acceptance of the condi
toward God, and His reply was that an
tions of salvation, repentance faith in Jesus Christ.
election,
"
grounded upon reasons, would destroy
the sovereignty of God, and that no act of the creature, no foreseen faith in Christ, conditioned election."
CHAPTER
VII.
ETERNAL LIFE NON-FOIIFEITABLE. IN two instances Jesus speaks life
as a present possession
my
(continually)
(John
v. 24)
ingly) on
"
;
me
"
:
of everlasting
He
that heareth
words hath everlasting
He
"
life
that believeth (persever-
hath everlasting
"
life
(John
vi.
47).
The reader
Greek Testament
of the
sees at a
glance the condition expressed in the present tense of the verb If these
inspired
"
heareth
and
"
believeth."
conditions are fulfilled, the
by
the
new
act of evangelical
first
becomes everlasting. view.
"
This
is
the
life
faith
common sense
any point of probation, That everlasting life expires.
If this faith, at
lapses, the
life
once begun can be lost, is no more a contradic tion in terms than the Jew s forfeiture of the land which
God gave
to
them
for
"
an eveiiast-
ETERNAL LIFE NON-FORFEIT ABLE. ing
(Gen.
possession"
xvii. 8),
133
nor the seed of
the everlasting priesthood," Phineas losing nor the Israelites breaking "the everlasting "
covenant vah
s
"
and finding out Jeho
(Is. xxiv. 5),
"breach
of
promise"
Hymeneus and Philetus
ing heritage of believers by of faith
We
and a good
"
life,"
34).
making shipwreck
conscience."
infer, therefore, that
everlasting
xiv.
(Num.
forfeited the everlast
the words
"hath
were never designed as a non an uncondi
forfeitable insurance policy, giving
and inalienable right
tional
Heaven.
They
to the
rewards of
are a compendious expression
for the spiritual life already inspired,
destined to become everlasting are fulfilled through the
A
if its
which
is
conditions
whole of our probation.
SOUL BORN OF GOD CAN NEVER BE
UN
BORN.
An
abuse of figurative language
hold of religious error.
upon
"
the
new
a strong
Antinomianism "
birth,"
is
the being born
seizes
again,"
ANTINOM1ANISM REVIVED.
134 "a
child or son
of
God,"
and presses these
phrases into a proof of an unchangeable accept
ance with God, however grossly sinful the once regenerate person may afterwards become. J. Fletcher thus points out the fallacy in this rea
soning According to the oriental style, a fol lower of wisdom is called a son of wisdom ; "
:
and one that deviates from her path, a son of a wicked man is called a son of Belial, folly ;
a child of the wicked one,
and a child of the
But when he turns from wicked works, by faith, he becomes a child of God. Hence the devil.
passing from the ways of Satan to the ways of
God
was naturally called conversion and a new birth. Hence some divines, who, like Nicodenms, car nalize the expressions new birth, child of Crod, and son of God, assert, that
if
men who once walked in
ways turn back, even into adultery, mur der, and incest, they are still God s dear people
God
s
and pleasant words.
God
They
to-day,
Gospel sense of the Can a man be a child of
children, in the "
ask,
and a child
of the devil
to-morrow ?
ETERNAL LIFE NON-FORFEITABLE. Can lie be born this week, and unborn
the
135
next?"
And
with these questions they as much think they have overthrown the doctrine of holiness, and one-half of the Bible, as honest Nicodemus
supposed he had demolished the doctrine of re generation, and stopped our Lord s mouth, when he
Can a man
"
said,
his
mother
s
enter the second time into
womb and
be born ?
The question would be
"
answered,
easily
if,
mode of speech, they May one who has ceased to do
setting aside the oriental
simply asked,
"
and learned
do well to-day, cease to do well and learn to do evil to-morrow ? To this evil
we could
to
If the
directly reply,
Philippian
jailor,
dying
and multitudes
thief, the
of Jews, in one
day went over from the sons of folly to the sons of wisdom, where is the absurdity of saying they could measure the same
way back
again in one
day, and draw back in the horrid womb of sin as easily as Satan drew back into rebellion,
Adam
into disobedience,
Solomon
into idolatry,
David
into adultery,
Judas into treason, and
136
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
Ananias
and
When
Sapphira
into
covetousness
?
Peter had shown himself a blessed son
wisdom, by confessing Jesus Christ, till the next day to become a
of heavenly
did he even stay
son of folly by following the is
sensual,
earthly,
and
"wisdom
which
Was
devilish"?
not
our Lord directly obliged to rebuke him with utmost severity, by saying, Get thee behind "
me, Satan
"
?
A SHEEP CAN NEVER BECOME A Here
is
GOAT.
another Antinomian abuse of figures. human race stand
In the day of judgment the separate
the sheep and the goats.
that since a sheep can never
It is said
become a
goat, be
cause of the law of the invariability of species, so
one once called by Christ a sheep can never be
come a goat.
But
this logic proves too
much.
Can a goat ever, by any power divine, become a sheep? Can a sinner ever become a saint if it is
impossible for a saint ever to become an incor
rigible
sinner?
Yet multitudes, who
live
in
ETERNAL LIFE 1SON-FOKFEJ.TABLE. open
sin,
build their hopes of heaven upon this
palpable mistake.
herd
s
loived
tism,
voice,"
Once
"
I
heard the Shep
say these apostate souls
"I/0Z-
;
Him, and received His ear-mark, water bap and therefore I was one of His sheep; and
now, though leads
137
me
I
follow the voice of a stranger
into all
manner
of sins, into
adultery
and murder, I am undoubtedly a sheep was never heard that a sheep became a
for it
;
"
A
washed sow
to the writer,
no
is
with an
ness.
Says Fletcher,
serve
that our
hear
His
voice,
Lord and
that of the tempter.
sheep,"
calls
grievous wolf,
little
flock,
conclusive-
those
those
who
who follow
Nor do they consider
Christ s sheep,
His
sheep
goats
against of
goat."
Darby
Such persons do not ob
"
a
Saul,
said Mr.
air of logical
who
that
breathing slaughter
and
could
making havoc
in a
short time be
changed into a sheep and a shepherd
;
David,
a harmless sheep (and shepherd of Israel), could in a short time
commence
a goat with Bathsheba,
and prove a wolf in sheep
s
clothing to her hus-
ANTINOMIAN1SM REVIVED.
138
Fletcher shows the superlative fallacy
band."
by quoting the metaphors of John the Baptist and Jesus, who style the Jews a brood of vipers and serpents." Christ of this style of logic
"
afterwards compares this vipers brood to a Had the vipers become chick brood of a hen To convince the reader that this is ens? !
ANTIXOMIANISM UNADULTERATED,
we quote
the
following from
Tobias Crisp,
D. D., eminent preacher and writer of the An glican Church in the seventeenth century, that our readers
may understand
and immoral tendency trine "
the logical outcome
of this pernicious doc
:
Though a believer does sin, yet he is not to be
reckoned as a sinner
;
his sins are
be taken away from him. sin to be his
;
he reckons
he cannot reckon tify a
it
God reckons not it
Christ
to be his.
person before he believes
lieve that
we may be
reckoned to
justified,
s,
his
therefore
Christ does jus
we do not be but because we ;
ETERNAL LIFE NON-FOUFEITABLE. The
are justified.
before
we
are born.
and the
;
It
latest time is
a received conceit
is
among persons
that our obedience
heaven
must
;
but
I
from eter
elect are justified
death
nity, at Christ s
tell
you,
tion of life is not a jot the
is
the
way
to
all this sanctifica-
way
of that justified
To what purpose do we
person to heaven.
130
pro
by our already become ours
to ourselves the gaining of that
pose
and industry which is before we do one jot? The Lord does nothing
labor
in his people
He
conditions.
upon
intends not
that by our obedience we shall gain something, which in case of our failing we shall miscarry of.
While you labor
to get
by
duties,
from
life
and not
for
Love
life.
and
universal obedience,
you pro
We must work
voke God as much as in you lies.
to the brethren,
other
all
inherent
by which we are to is the modern standing
qualifications, are no signs
"
judge of our state term).
Every
("
elect vessel,
stant of his being,
is
from the charge of
from the
first in
as pure in the eyes of
sin as
God
he shall be in glory.
ATINOMIANISM REVIVED.
140
Though such persons do
act rebellion, yet the
loathsomeness and hatefulness of this rebellion is
laid
on the back of Christ
as well as the
;
He
blame and shame
;
bears the sin,
and God can
dwell with such persons that act the thing, be cause
all
the filthiness of
them upon the back of a lying spirit in
it is
of Christ.
translated from It is the voice
your hearts that says
you
that are believers (as David) have yet sin wast
David indeed
ing your conscience. sins
are gone over
from himself, and
was not
truth.
all
says,
My
but he speaks that he speaks from himself
my
There
head,
is
as
much ground
to be
confident of the pardon of sin to a believer, as soon as he has committed it, as to believe it after
he has performed world. believer
A
all
the humiliation in the
may be
assured of pardon as
soon as he has committed any sin, even adultery and murder. God does no longer stands dis
though a believer do sin often. There no sin that even believers commit that can
pleased, is
possibly do
them any
hurt.
Therefore, as their
ETERNAL, LIFE NONFORFEITABLE. sins
cannot hurt them, so there in
fear
sins
their
141
no cause of
is
Sins are but
committed.
scarecrows and bugbears to frighten ignorant children, but men of understanding see they are counterfeit things.
If
we
tell believers,
except
they walk thus and thus holily, and do
and these good works, God them,
we abuse
the
will
undo what
Scriptures,
Christ has done, injure believers, and lies to
full of
ness
His
face.
;
is
the
the general notion of
man
filtlii-
must be
Spirit s is
God
is filthy,
menstruosity, the highest kind of
volved within that which
"
tell
All our righteousness
even what
these
be angry with
s
in
own, under
doing"
and easy doctrine to bid men sit and believe, as if God would translate
It is a soft
still
them
heaven upon their couches Christ that who those have should expects put grace forth the utmost power thereof in laboring after to
the salvation
!
He has purchased for
work with that
"
them."
earnestness, constancy,
weariuess in well doing, as
if
So
and un-
thy works alone
142
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
were able
to justify
solutely
and save thee
and
;
so ab
depend and rely upon the merits of if thou
Christ for justification and salvation, as
never hadst performed one act of obedience in
thy
This
life.
ence, so to
is
work
as
by our own merits
we were only
if
;
and withal
the merits of Christ, as
to be saved
so to
It is a difficult thing to give to
of these its
due
in practice.
are apt to
When we
each
work,
we
and when we rely on neglect working. But
are apt to neglect Christ
we
on
rest
we had never wrought
if
anything.
Christ
all
the right Gospel frame of obedi
;
that Christian has got the right art of obedience
who can mingle
these two together
with one hand
work the works
yet, at the
same time, lay
of Jesus Christ.
Let
He
of
who can
God,
and
hold on the merit
Antinomian principle the minds of men, that
this
be forever rooted out of our working
fast
;
derogatory to Christ s work. gave himself for us, that He might redeem
us from
is
all iniquity,
peculiar people,
and purify
to Himself a
ZEALOUS OF GOOD WORKS.
"
ETEUNAL LIFE NON-FORFEITABLE.
148
MODERN ANTINOMIANISM.
We
quote from modern writers essentially the same doctrines as those taught by Dr. Crisp, only there
is
apparently a shrinking from
the frank statement of their
rather an attempt to
There
is
those
inferences
which
old
logical outcome.
draw a
vail over
Antinomianism
plainly avowed.
In this particular, the old is less dangerous than the new. We turn to Mclntosh s Notes on various
books of the Bible, a series of diffuse annota esteemed by D. L. Moody and
tions
highly
many
other evangelists
in
which a soul
is
"
:
The very moment
born again,
born from
above, and sealed by the Holy Ghost,
incorporated into the body of Christ.
he
He
is
can
no longer view himself as a solitary individual an independent person an isolated atom; he
is
a
member of a body, just as the hand or member of the human body." There
foot is a
are
two grand links
"
in
Christianity,
which,
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
144
though very intimately connected, are perfectly distinct namely, the link of eternal life, and ;
the link of personal communion.
The former snapped ly anything, the latter can
never can be
be snapped in a moment, by the weight of a It seems that a sin as light as a feather." feather can suspend
communion, while the vio
lation of every one of the ten
commandments,
over and over again, can never snap the link of eternal slider
Comforting indeed to the back His fear that he may at last be filled
life
!
with his
!
own
ways, are groundless.
"
Behold
may find but, as regards our God sees us only in the comeli ness of Christ we are perfect in Him. When God looks at His people, He beholds in them His own workmanship and it is to the glory
ers
many
faults
;
standing, our
;
;
of His holy name,
and
to the praise of
His
sal
vation, that not a blemish should be seen on
those
who
are His
ereign grace, has ter,
those
whom
made His own.
He, in sov His charac
His name, His glory, and the perfection of
ETERNAL LIFE NON-FORFEIT ABLK. His work, are those
Tims in is
involved in the standing of has linked Hi:nself."
all
whom He
with it
145
would seem that David
s
workmanship, making himself an adulterer and a murderer, While in utterly ignored as a blemish.
Uriah
s
bed
absolute.
as perfectly holy
his standing
"We
is
must never measure the stand
ing by the state, but always judge the state by
To lower
the standing. of the state,
progress in
is
to
the standing because
give the death-blow to all
practical
we must never judge
That
Christianity."
is,
the tree by the fruit, but
always the fruit by the tree. If a crab scion, grafted on a golden pippin, still produces crabapples, we must aver that they are golden pip pins,
because the crab has "
standing. in
The
people of
the vision of the
a golden pippin
God
Almighty
are seen only
seen as
He
sees them, without spot or wrinkle, or
thing
all
their deformities hidden
any such from view
His comeliness seen upon them." "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath all
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
146
he seen perverseness in
may
"
say,
There
there all the
is
The enemy
Israel."
iniquity
and perverseness
Yes
but who can make
"
while."
;
Jehovah behold
it,
when He Himself has been
pleased to blot
it
all
His name
s
sake
decision as to
"
?
"
out as a thick cloud for
God will never reverse His
what His people are
as to stand-
ing."
This
is
the
comment on
the shameless licen
tiousness of Israel on the plains of
the
women
Moab, with
of Midian.
the same as
it
Their standing is still was when the prophet stood on
reminds us of the opening and In the former we have close of 2 Cor. xii.
Pisgah.
"It
the positive standing of the Christian latter, the possible state into which he if
not watchful.
Christ
"
dise at
God
That shows us a
;
in the
may fall, man in
"
capable of being caught up into Para
any moment.
This shows us saints of
capable of plunging into folly."
Of course
all
manner
of sin
the plunge into the
ETERNAL LIFE NON-FORFEITABLE. cesspool has not the least
damaging effect on These quota
their clean standing in Christ.
tions are
147
from Mclntosh on Numbers.
CHAPTER
VIII.
HOLINESS IMPUTED.
THERE
is
much confused and
erroneous think
ing and teaching on the subject of imputed righteousness and imputed holiness. Some are confounding the two, and teaching that the
only holiness possible to us in this world is the robe of Christ s righteousness thrown around hearts inherently impure. In the interest of clear
thought and Christian purity, we invite
the reader to a discussion of the radical distinc
between imputed righteousness and im puted holiness. The term "impute," literally tion
reckon one thing be longs to another when it really does not. In the Revision it is superseded by the word "
signifies
to think
to,"
to
"reckon."
We
define righteousness in 148
man
to be
con-
HOLINESS IMPUTED.
A
14J
formity to the Divine law, and holiness con fortuity to the Divine nature.
Jesus
Christ
is
both righteous and
holy.
These qualities are personal, inherent, and un But in addition to His personal transferable.
He
has a mediatorial righteous ness, the merit of His passive obedience, labors, righteousness
sacrifices,
sufferings,
Now, although
intercessions.
"
Christ
s
Christ
of
imputation
death,
imputed
s
and high-priestly the phrase,
righteousness,"
giving His
is
life for
But
or
not found
found in the
Paul unfolded extendedly, and
hinted at in the Gospels
the
righteousness,"
in the Bible, the doctrine itself is epistles of
"
it is
when Jesus speaks
of
the world, or as a ransom for
many. always His mediatorial, and not His personal righteousness. The absolute necessity of this imputation in the scheme of it
is
redemption, arises from the fact that one past sin produces an eternal disconformity to the
Divine law, so that the Lawgiver cannot treat us as if we had never sinned without violating
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
150
the truth of history, and cheating the law of its
Hence pardon and
demands.
salvation
would be impossible under the reign of strict But here conies in the
and unbending law.
mediatorial righteousness of Christ to
plead
it
as the
ground of
all
who
justification, so that
God
can be just and the justifier of him who believeth. In other words, there is a construct ive,
not to say
now
possible
Christ.
fictitious,
conformity, to the law,
through faith in the merits of Otherwise, law would be forever
against us.
The
necessity of this scheme of
imputation lies in the fact that God Himself cannot change the past. It is a record abso lutely inerasible.
But when God wishes
to
make men
holy, or
bring them into conformity to His own nature, there is no such inerasible record in the way. Justification
is
a work done for us, and has
reference to the past
wrought in present.
us,
;
sanctifi cation is
a work
and always has respect
Hence, imputation of holiness
to the is
not
HOLINESS IMPUTED. In
necessary. things,
it is
fact,
the
in
impossible.
151
very nature of
There can be no such
thing as vicarious character, for character is the
sum
total
what we ourselves
of
are.
There
be a vicarious assumption of another s debt there cannot be a vicarious assumption
may
;
of another s character.
Hence, holiness must
be personal, inherent, inwrought and imparted
by the power of the Holy Spirit, procured by the same atonement by which it is possible for us, through faith, to be conformed to the Divine law, or savingly adjusted to an inerasible, sinful record.
IN CHKIST.
The phrase
"
as a proof-text
in Christ
"
is
perpetually quoted
to sustain the doctrine of
im
puted holiness, a quality not imparted to us, being inwrought by the Holy Spirit and ever afterwards existing inherently in the believer but an attribute of Jesus Christ regarded by
;
God
even when they character and wicked in conduct.
as belonging to Christians,
are unholy in
152
AtfTINOMIAXISM REVIVED.
The theory
is
that Jesus Christ
is
standing
to*
day in the presence of the Father as a specimen and representative of glorified humanity, and that faith in
Him
Him, that
His personal excellencies become
all
so intimately unites us with
ours in such a sense as to excuse us
them.
It
is
if
we
lack
said that the first act of faith eter
nally incorporates us into the glorified person of Christ, so that whatever sin
afterwards
we
we may commit
incur no condemnation.
People, it seems, may now Says Fletcher in without be Christ, being new creatures, "
:
new
and
without casting old away. They may be God s children things without God s image and born of the Spirit creatures
;
without
The
the fruit of the Spirit.
fore
is
Rom.
Jesus,"
1
viii.
now no condemnation
Christ
rank
favorite proof-text of this piece of
Antinomianism
"
:
to
There
is
them that
there are in
with special attention called to
the omission by the critical
MSS. and
vised Version, of the limiting
clause
the "
:
Re
who
HOLINESS IMPUTED.
Walk not
Over as
their
after the flesh, but after the
this omission the
if it
153 spirit."
imputationists rejoice,
unanswerably demonstrated the truth of doctrine,
that God, seeing the believer
only in Christ, beholds no sin in him, even when he has wilfully and flagrantly transgressed the
known
law.
They
fail
to
note that the
same limiting clause stands in the fourth verse unquestioned by the
Hence ful state
critics.
their assertion that the flesh is a sin
which does not in the
perfect standing in Christ, in
minded believer Himself. to be
is
as holy as the
It is said that
judged by
least
"
carnally-
Son
the standing
of is
God
never
the state, but the state by the
The New Testament
standing."
damage our
whom the
Scriptures re
on as proofs of this doctrine are those in which our faith is imputed for righteousness. lied
The
error
is
in failing to notice that this refers
to the forgiveness of sins,
and not
to the char
acter after justification.
Another mistake
is
in not distinguishing be-
ANTiXOMIAXISM REVIVED.
154
tween the sum
total
of Christ s merits, called
His mediatorial righteousness, and His own per sonal righteousness, which is not transferable. Character
personal and unimputable.
is
Another constantly recurring Scripture is the - used to in Christ an act *
"-
expression,
prove
We
into His Person.
ual incorporation
take
up our pen to examine these words. They are not found in the four Gospels nor in the Acts of the Apostles.
They
are Pauline, being used
only by Paul, except in 1 Pet. iii. 16 ; v. 14. The words, in the Lord," are peculiar to Paul "
Elsewhere they are found only in Rev. What does Paul mean by these xiv. 13. also.
phrases 1.
?
He
does not
mean
incorporation into the
Person of Christ, for he always (except in 1 Cor. xv. 18 avoids asleep in Jesus
glorified
"
")
His purely personal name, Jesus, never saying in Jesus," but he always adds one of His "
titular *
On
"
names, Christ, or Lord.* truth as
it is
Meyer and Bengei.
in
Jesus,"
see Meyer.
"In
Eph.
Christ,"
Iv. 21.
Quoto
HOLINESS IMPUTED. or
the
"in
must mean, then, some
Lord,"
timate relation to His
What
2.
155
official
in
work.
when we
be seen
this relation is will
observe that while Luke and Peter use the term
Paul never used
"
Christian,"
it,
but uses the
more vivid phrase, in Christ." Let us now ex amine a favorite text of the imputationists 1 "
Cor.
Christ
ment
2
i.
"
:
To them
We
Jesus."
of
"
Meyer,
nineteenth century
that
are
sanctified
heartily endorse the
in
com
the greatest exegete of the
In Christ
namely, in His redemptive work, of which Christians have become, and continue to be, partakers, by
means 10)." "
in
"
":
of justifying faith
In
fourth verse,
the
Christ," is
(Eph.
"
in
i.
4
;
s
Meyer
your fellowship with
His paraphase of the thirtieth verse,
Heb.
x.
note on Christ." "But
of
Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,
u
But
tians,
and
truly
redemption,"
it is
God
s
is
the following:
work that ye
are Chris
and so partakers of the greatest Divine
ANT1NOMIANISM REVIVED.
156
blessings, that
none of you should in any way
boast himself save only in
In Christ before
"
Rom.
xvi.
10; "
says Meyer,
me
"
in
"Approved
the tried
"
;
xvi. 7
Christ"
;
"
If
i.e.,
2 Cor. v.
Christian."
any man is in Christ says the same annotator. 17
Rom.
God."
Christians before me.
a Christian,
Cremer, in his Biblico-Theological Lexicon, enumerates forty-eight texts where this phrase used with the above meaning, such as weak in Christ and babes in Christ," for feeble "
is
"
"
Christians
"
;
growing up in
vancing Christian believer "
fully
"
;
perfect in
sanctified,
phrase foreign to
"
:
an ad for a
words
of
New
"
Holy in Christ is a Testament diction. The "
"
Lord Jesus, the Lord
discipleship to the "
Christ,"
in the
or,
of the words,
general meaning is
for
perfect as a Christian, in respect to the
Meyer, whole Christian nature."
2
Christ,"
which are
in
To be married
ciple of the
in the
Lord Jesus.
as in
"
;
Lord,"
Rom.
1 Cor.
";
Lord
in the
i. e.,
vii.
xvi.
39
to a dis
;
HOLINESS IMPUTED.
The expressions Lord
"
"
are the Pauline
way
Son
ing relation to the
Him by
Christ
in
"
157
and
It is quite
of God, a union with
when
the
probable that St. Paul is
the words of Christ,
ye abide in
If
s
an amplification of
use of this peculiar idiom "
in the
of denoting a sav
faith, a union which ceases
faith decays.
"
in
Me,"
His parable of the true vine, John xv. 1-7.
That He does not here speak of an inseparable and eternal incorporation into His person, is evident from these words
Me
"
:
that beareth not fruit,
That
Every branch
He
taketh
iii
away."
no mere temporary break in the saving relation to Christ, but an eternal cutting off, will be seen by reading the this taking
sixth verse
"
:
away
If a
man
cast forth as a branch
gather them and cast
they are
burned."
language
is
Me,"
or
"
in
is
abide not in Me, he is
This solemn and expressive
utterly meaningless, Christ,"
is
withered, and men them into the fire, and
and
if
the phrase
"in
means an inalienable stand
ing in Christ wholly
independent of one
s real
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
158
Those modern champions of imputed
character. holiness,
and opponents
of
inwrought personal
purity, the castle
Plymouth brethren, find their airrudely swept away when these words of
Jesus are directed against it. A branch in the true vine may die and be sundered and burned.
This is a complete answer to the words of Rev.
John Darby
to the writer, that
parts of the glorified Person
who does
"
believers are
of Jesus Christ,
not walk about in Heaven dropping
His fingers and toes by self-mutilation, but re and particle of His body for
tains every part
The
ever." "
revised version, in Eph. v. 30, omits
of His flesh
moves
and
of
His
bones,"
and thus
re
a seeming proof-text for the incorpora
tion theory. 3.
This paper would not be complete
did not refer to the objective use, of the phrase
"
in
Christ,"
if
we
by St Paul,
as representing, not
the peculiar union of the believing subject, but
the blessings of redemption included in Jesus.
In
this
Apostle
s
writings,
the
idiom,
"in
HOLINESS IMPUTED.
159
Christ,"
has a Godward, or objective meaning,
when he
describes the provisions for salvation
embodied
in the
Person and work of the Son,
and a manward, or subjective meaning, when he speaks of the believer as appropriating those
As a specimen of the objective use, But the free gift of God we quote Rom. vi. 23 provisions.
"
:
is
eternal
life in
See also Rom.
ii.
3,
Phil.
ii.
viii. 2,
39;
Lord
1 Cor.
i.
"
(R. V.).
4 (R. V.)
;
14 (R. V.) 4, Eph. G. 7 (R. V.), iii. 11, iv. 32 (R. V.) In all these passages 5; 2 Tim ii. 10.
2 Cor. v. 19; i.
Christ Jesus our
Gal.
iii.
ii.
;
;
presented as God s treasury of grace and salvation. In examining these texts the reader will be impressed with the superior Jesus Christ
is
precision of the revisors in their translation of
the preposition in
which
11,
en,"
this Pauline
subjective "
"
and the
Alive unto
in.
There are instances
idiom embraces both the
in Christ Jesus
Here the believer appropriates the ists
in Jesus.
Rom.
objective, notably
God
vi.
"
life
(R. V.). that ex
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
160
Writers in classical Greek exemplify only the objective use of
deed "
am
en"
thee
in the
But
Thus Sophocles :
saved wholly
Whether Athens
now in is
"
;
says
Paul
St.
s
;
"
I in
Hesiod
shall be enslaved or freed
"
immortal
thee
in
"
Homer
"
:
:
is
Complete victory
gods."
use of
"in,"
as
expressing
the activity of the subject appropriating Christ,
from the very nature of the
case, has
no verbal
parallels in profane Greek.
In conclusion,
we
aver that
sonable to interpret 1 John v. 19,
world
lieth in the evil
one
ing that the whole world saintly,
one, as lievers
"
is
but by imputation
just as rea
it is
"
The whole
(R. V.), as
mean
in itself inherently
is
wicked
in the evil
to say that the best estate of be on earth is to be inherently impure,
it is
while by imputation they are spotless in Christ.
According
to the testimony of that
tan evangelist,
Wm.
Taylor, imputed holiness,
enrobing cherished vileness, of the
cosmopoli
pagans of India.
is
a favorite fiction
A fakir in his presence
HOLINESS IMPUTED. professing spotless holiness,
crowd
as a liar, a cheat,
161
was rebuked by the
and an adulterer.
mitting the truth of these charges,
Ad
the fakir
I am vile in myself, triumphantly exclaimed in but perfectly holy Vishnu." To be holy with a retention of the old "
:
man, would be an untruth and a tion (Meyer on Eph. iv. 21.)
flat
contradic
CHAPTER
IX.
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY, OK LAST THINGS. THIS school
of theologians dwells at great
length upon the future history of Christianity as it is unrolled to their anointed eyes in proph ecy.
They differ from the ordinary Adventists,
inasmuch
as
they believe in a second and a
third coming of Christ
the
and the second with them. will not appear to
first
for the saints,
In the
first,
utter ignorance ol that great event.
day near
Christ
the world, which will be in
At some
not fixed in the Plymouth scheme, but hand Jesus will come down with
at
noiseless
footfall, like
a thief,
and
raise
the
righteous dead, and change the righteous living, and snatch them all up in the twinkling of an
eye ; and no unbeliever will notice any disturb ance in the graveyard or see his believing wife or child slip out of this world into the glorified 162
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOQY.
He
state.
they
will miss them,
This
are.
"
But
words
there
are
shout,
the voice of
trump
and wonder where
rapture of the saints
told in 1 Thess. iv. 17.
three
163
the
in the
"
explains this little
fore
16th verse a
indicating noise
archangel, and the
But Plymouth exegesis
of God.
is
objection.
easily
Dr. Tyng, the
younger, says the shout is, in the Greek, a com mand, heard only by the living and the dead saints.
The
invisibleness of
the resurrection
and the rapture are argued from Christ s res urrection, and the translation of Enoch and which were unobserved by the
Elijah, all of
wicked world. Again,
all
you know about the burglar is that
your treasures are gone. You did not hear his wool-shod feet you did not see his form while ;
he was gliding about your bed. All that ordi a nary readers have seen in the simile, "as
thief,"
is
the suddenness and unexpectedness of
His advent.
The Plymouth brethren add
perfect secrecy of
the
His coming, work, and de-
AUTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
164
parture, thus
making the comparison teach more
than Christ ever intended.
The
saints caught
up
into the air will be re
viewed by Christ with a view to the distribution It seems of offices under His millennial reign. that the question of patronage meets Christ at
the opening of His
kingdom on
earth, just as
it
vexes every new president of the United States. But Jesus will have no hostile senate to concili
His
appointments will be made according to merit, after a rigid examina In this way the works of the saints, but tion. ate.
civil
service
not their persons, will come to judgment.
The
question of their personal relation to the divine
government was put forth the
first
forever adjusted
when they
act of faith in Christ.
All
the thrones, presidencies, governorships, secre taryships, judgeships, mayoralties, etc.,
down
to
the office of justice of the peace and constable, in all nations, will
then be considered as vacant.
The time occupied by works of the
saints
this
and
inquest into the
their
assignment to
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOQY.
supposed to occupy about seven years.
oilice, is
Then when
the state of the future millennial
administration
is
made up
satisfactorily to all
concerned, the King descends with
nue of
165
all
His
reti
pomp and majesty
saints in all the
of
royalty, impressing every beholder with awe and wonder. Now He appears.
But the world sorry
to
condition.
which
The
He comes
devil
is
in a
and Antichrists
have driven rough-shod over the earth in the absence of the saints, and all the woes of the
book
of Revelation
have been experienced
;
all
the events of that book after the third chapter
take place
the trumpets, the seals, and the
vials.
By
this time the
world
is
sadly in need of a
bring order out of chaos. makes Jesus Jerusalem His capital, and King sends His appointees to their respective coun universal king, to
tries to enter
haps
St.
Britain
Paul
upon
their various offices.
may mount
and the
Indies, or
Per
the throne of Great
become the President
KEVIVED. United States, without the bother of an The Jews are all going to wheel into line by sudden conversion like that of the
electoral college.
of Saul
of Tarsus,
and become Christ
s right-
hand men
the inner circle nearest the throne.
will
become the great missionary agency, through all lands, and preaching
They
travelling
Christ, the iour.
Jews Messiah and the world
s
Sav
Satan will be bound in his prison-house
a thousand years, and the Gospel, which failure for
eighteen hundred years, will
was a
now
begin its real conquest of the world. In fact, it never was Christ s design that the world should be converted through the great commis u Go sion, ye into all the world and preach,"
That was designed only
etc.
to
keep
alive
on
earth a testimony for Christ, not to inaugurate a victory.
In the absence of Satan, and in the presence of
so
many Hebrew
Christian
missionaries
steaming over every sea and traversing all lands, impelled by their new-born zeal for the Naza-
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. rene, the idly,
work
the nations, and the inquiry
have
Christ
treated
At
born in a day.
is
thousand years there
close of the
on very rap
of conversion goes
and a nation
167
s
is
is
the
a review of
made how they Jewish
the
brethren,
not
This review of the nations
evangelists.
judgment, is de scribed in Matt. xxv. 31-46. If you wish to in a general
of individuals
Plymouth brother, ask him
embarrass a
to
expound the whole passage, carrying through it
from beginning
to
and not individuals there judged
brother
s
and
end the idea that nations, of the
human
eternally
family, are
The
sentenced.
embarrassment will be painful, and
his makeshifts will be pitiable.
At
the end of the millennium Satan
for a season
verts
made
He
in his incarceration.
fire,
raises
an
of the saints,
conquered, and, with Antichrist,
the lake of
loosed
and makes sad havoc with the con
army and encompasses the camp is
is
is
cast into
the latter being a living man.
Finally, the wicked
dead are
raised
and
ANTINOMIAKISM REVIVED.
168
judged according to the description of the judg ment of the dead, in Rev. xx. 12-15. To make out that only the wicked dead are judged, the
Book
of Life
ment
is
which
brought into the judg assumed to be blank. This is a very is
violent assumption, as the reader of the passsge will see.
After the sentence of the wicked dead, come the
new heavens and
the
nal abode of the saints,
meaning
of
the
new if
I
earth
the eter
can make out the
Plymouth doctrine
on
this
point.
The
effect of this teaching
the Christian agencies
now
is, first,
to belittle
in operation
by
as
serting that they are inadequate to the conver sion of the world.
Secondly,
it
gives a Jewish
and highly materialistic turn to the kingdom of Christ, and leads to a depreciation of the spir itual manifestation of Christ
in this
life.
Thirdly,
it
by the Comforter
calls off the attention
from the great saving truths of the Gospel, and leads believers to dwell upon airy and baseless
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. speculations,
Fourthly,
changed
argumentation. laws of mind are all
profitless
the
unless
in this generation, \ve predict
history of
mouth
and
169
Adventism
from the
in past ages, that the
Ply
Brethren will soon begin to fix a definite
time for the Advent, which will be followed by
disappointment and
all
the moral and spiritual
disasters of Millerism.
PESSIMISM.
One
of the
most depressing doctrines of the
Pre-Millenarians, especially of the is
"
Brethren,"
the hopelessness of the world under the dis of the
Holy Spirit. They always and everywhere assume that this dispensation pensation
is
a stupendous failure.
the Second parenthesis."
is
Advent I
"From
there
is
the Cross to
nothing but a
shudder at the disrespect which
thus shown to the Paraclete, the personal suc
cessor to the risen
Lord Jesus.
is, moreover, an imputation of a lack of goodness on the part of God to let the world
It
ANTINOMIANISM HEVIVED.
170
wax worse and worse, and generation after gener ation go down to hell, who might have been saved or their existence prevented by the earlier coming of Christ to setup His earthly kingdom, the
converting
Jews
Gentiles in
them, converting the
sheer omnipotence.
way by is
in a day, and,
But
growing better under a purer and
through
a wholesale if
the world
more widely
preached Gospel, there is a merciful reason for the delay of the second coining of Christ to
wind up the period of human history by judg ing the quick and the dead and assigning them to eternal destinies.
THE PAHABLE OF THE LEAVEN. Every one
of the
Plymouth
expositors, with
out exception, attempts, by a wonderful exege sis
of
the parable, to
steadily is
show that the world
and certainly going
the exposition
the Gospel
;
it
"
:
to the bad.
is
Here
The leaven does not mean
everywhere, in the language of
the Spirit of God,
which
is
always beautifully
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
171
itself, means something evil. In twenty places, we have mention of leaven, and it always denotes evil. Into the three
consistent with
measures of meal,
ened
into
lump
mystery
of
not into the
ivorld,
the
iniquity
church is
a
leavenlike
introduced
woman, the seducer, the mother of The very hiding of it looks suspicious. this
mean
be leavened.
been
by
the
harlots.
Could
the public preaching of the Gospel
The whole lump to
not into
no, but into the new, unleav
society at large
"
fulfilled ?
sad announcement!
?
was
Has not this announcement Then follows a dismal picture
of Christianity, painted with a brush dipped in
the blackness of darkness, question,
"Is
ending with
this
there one single Christian here
whose garments are not soiled, in whose heart leaven, in one form or another, is not work ing?"*
Let us now turn to Matt.
xiii.
31-33.
The
mustard seed certainly represents the kingdom *
Eight Lectures on Prophecy.
A1TTINOMIAKISM REVIVED.
172 of
heaven in
one aspect,
this
inherent
its
self-
developing power from a small vital germ. The leaven just as certainly represents, not a for eign, corrupting principle thrust into the king
dom
of heaven, but
another aspect,
its
ilate a foreign
mass.
that
power
kingdom itself in and assim
to penetrate
As
the yeast transforms
the heavy and indigestible dough into light and wholesome bread, so does the Gospel transform
wicked hearts.
For the leaven has
side as well as its bad,
Gospel
is
and
to this
This
compared.
good
good
good use the
the traditional
is
explanation of this parable, which full of
its
is
certainly
sense.
Let us examine the Plymouth view. The meal is the church. This is a pure assumption.
The form
The kingdom
same. seed,
of words, in both
and
is
like leaven.
parables,
like a grain of
the
is
mustard-
If it is like it in its
progress of corruption and deterioration, surely "
there
is,"
as Alford well says,
"
an end of
the blessing and healing influence of the pel on the
world."
all
Gos
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
17
-?
THE GKAIN OF MUSTARD-SEED. Not content with a
pessimistic perversion of
the parable of the leaven, they attempt to foist
new meaning upon the preceding The mustard-plant grows in order to
an entirely parable.
attract to its branches the carrion-eating birds, "
the vulture, the cormorant, the night-owl and
the
bat."
These
unclean birds
"
"
typify the
gross abominations predicted
ing in His Church.
by Christ as nest But what is the proof?
The Lord himself tells us, in or ble, who are the "fowls
the previous para
"
for it
the same
is
u places.
eth
away
"
word that
Then cometh that which
the
birds of the is
wicked one and catch-
was sown
in his
Therefore, the birds which picked
mer
s
air";
used in both
up
heart."
the far
seed scattered on the sidewalk, were not
such as pigeons and Thus doves, but were vultures and owls
clean, grain-eating
birds,
"
!
the
kingdom
of heaven, as it purports to be, or
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
174
nominal, national Christianity, becomes a vast
and monstrous worldly
A
system."
utterly different
meaning
tended by the great Teacher
is
from that
in
read into His
words by a style of reasoning which would pervert and subvert the whole Bible, if it were universally
applied.
Yet
this
who down
eagerly swallowed by those that the world
is
on the
is
sophistry
desire to prove
grade, nearing
the brink of destruction, and the church
crowded with a phethora of sins, and is so gone in wickedness as to be past praying
and deserves nothing but ciation
We
by
all
vilification
true lovers of Christ
do not wonder that
"the
is
far for,
and denun
s
appearing.
Brethren"
are all
come-outers after they have accepted this inter pretation of these two parables.
PROBATION CLOSED IN ADAM
One
FALL.
Plymouth theol made by all the writers human probation closed with fall of Adam. is
surprised, in reading
ogy, by the declaration that
S
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
175
The
idea seems to be that, since legal justifica
tion
is
impossible to the fallen race, that
era of probation has been finally
"
the
foreclosed."
The Holy Spirit," says Dr. R. Anderson, has not come to re-open the question of sin and "
"
righteousness and judgment, but to
convince
the world that
How
ferent
area
is "
!
this
closed
it is
from
St.
Of a truth
I
Him
Peter
s
exordium
perceive that
dif
at Caes-
God
is
no
but in every nation he and worketh righteousness is
respecter of persons
that feareth
forever."
;
accepted with Him." This looks like probation on the plane of natural theology, the religion of the
conscience.
Peter
s
St.
doctrine in
Paul
Rom.
ii.
seems to endorse 6-16.
No one can
study this whole passage without admitting that pagans, without the law, and without the
knowledge of the Gospel, are being put to the test by God to show whether they have the spirit of faith
;
i.
e.,
the disposition to grasp
Christ, the object of faith,
them
;
and the purpose
were
He
revealed to
of righteousness,
i.
.,
ANTINOMIAXISM REVIVED.
176
the disposition to walk disclosed to them.
it
how
do not see
the
theodice,
possible
by the
This I "
perfect law, were call probation.
Brethren
justify
God
I
"
by any
can, for
bringing
countless millions of fallen beings into exist
ence in a state of hopelessness implied in proba tion If
"
forever
foreclosed."
they mean
to say that
Eden
no man since
Adam
s
under the dispensation justice expressed in law, but that all men ever since that sad event have been under expulsion from of
is
mere
tempered by mercy, as revealed in the Gospel, and that they are still on probation but under changed conditions, no one would justice
For
sound theologians reckon the Gospel dispensation as dating from the promise,
object.
"
The seed
pent
s
of the
woman
shall bruise the ser
head."
A little human
all
reflection will
probation
is
is
not on
of
a logical antecedent of the
negation of a general the race
show that the denial
judgment
trial in
of the race.
probation, there
is
If
no
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
177
need for such a day. The two errors are yoke fellows. They stumble and fall together.
But the doctrine
of the general
judgment
the end of the world, strongly implying, as does, that all
men
are
now on
probation,
at it
must
be explained away by the Brethren, for the two doctrines cannot both be true. Let us see how they succeed.
NEVER UNDER CONDEMNATION. The
constant
Brethren a
is,
assertion
the
of
that a person, once
momentary
act of faith,
is
"
in
Plymouth Christ,"
by
forever removed
from the possibility of Divine, judicial disap proval. Let us examine their Scriptural proofs.
Romans
viii. 1,
which omits the as an absolute
as translated in the Revision,
last clause, is frequently cited
and unconditional deliverance
from present and future condemnation.
I
have
elsewhere shown that this exemption is condi tioned on the relative clause, in the fourth "
verse,
who walk not
after the flesh,
but after
ANTiKOMLANISM J1EV3VED.
ITS the
Spirit,"
we walk thus. This con as much force in the fourth
while
i. e.,
ditioning clause has verse as
John not in
it iii.
would have had 18,
condemned."
the
Greek,
in the first.
Him
is
Here the word believeth
is
He
"
in
that believeth on
the
which
tense,
present
He who
denotes a continuous state of
faith.
believes perseveringly
any point
faithful
life,
is
not, at
under condemnation.
The same explanation 33-39. The and "we"
refer,
not to
ers.
In Gal.
all
men, but "
iii.
the curse of the "us"
13,
applies to "us"
Rom.
to persevering believ
The persons included
are fully described in the eleventh
which bears the
just shall live
by
viii.
of this passage
Christ redeemed us from
law."
twelfth verses, those faith
of his
who
constantly live
fruit of obedience.
faith."
"
in
and
by a The
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
179
THE SAINTS WILL NOT BE JUDGED
IN
THE
LAST DAY. This doctrine
is
The word
ceding.
translated
really included in the pre for
"
"
"
24
:
"
Brethren
is
"
is
Verily, verily, I say unto you,
heareth
"
in the Revision.
judgment
great proof-text of the "
condemnation
The
John
He
v.
that
word, and believeth him that sent
my
Me, hath eternal
life,
and cometh not
into judg
ment, but has passed out of death into
Here
(R. V.)
often
the
"judgment"
life.
evidently
means the condemnatory side of the great tri bunal. The life begins with the believing, and continues, and becomes eternal on the condition of faith, persisted in through
As is,
Dean Alford well says
"
:
the possession of eternal
the one remits, the other the faith
and
its
is
is
human probation. Where the faith
life is
;
forfeited.
set before us as
and where
But here
an enduring
faith,
effects described in their completion"
(See Eph.
i.
19, 20.)
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
IbO In
all
of
God
righteous, there is
s is
promises of eternal life to the an implied condition which
sometimes expressed, as in Heb. i. 10, 11, Rev. xxii. 14 (R. V.)
iii.
6, 14,
2
Pet.
The grand reason why the judged,
lies
in the fact
saints will not be
that their
were
sins
judged on the cross, and condemned once for and the believer need not have any concern all ;
about his sins past, present and future, since in the sight of God they are blotted out forever.
Very comforting
doctrine,
this
The
!
future
immoralities of the saints are annihilated by the
blood of Christ;
have a
certificate
and we are the of
saints.
We
our heavenly
standing This is Spirit. insurance policy.
signed and sealed by the Holy
my An
non-forfeiting
paid-up,
occasional outburst of unholy tempers
indulgence in the lusts of the flesh
may
or
becloud
my communion for an hour, but they cannot damage my standing in Christ, or vitiate my title to life
everlasting.
habitual sin,
"
he only
If
one should
sleeps."
not affect the validity of a
man
As
fall into
sleep does
s title-deeds to
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. his farms, so spiritual sleep the
does not damage doctrine in love
!
Who
with
it
my is
at
title to
most profound
the skies.
Precious
so unbelieving as not to fall
first sight,
a periodical Christian,*and
is
especially
if
he be
most of the time
at the aphelion ?
But on what these
is
doctrine built?
this
two words
in
Christ.
On
Let us hear
If any man abide what Jesus Himself says not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them, and cast them "
:
into the
fire,
and they
are
burned."
The mi
nuteness of this description of a branch of the true Vine, once vitalized rial
by its sap ; the picto and impressive portrayal, just before the
apostasy of Judas, of these five particulars, the withering, the cutting
off,
the gathering,
and the burning, have an import of deep and awful solemnity, disclosing, as they do, that the most intimati the casting into the
fire,
unity with Christ, in probation, does not shut out the possibility of a perverse use of our frea agency, entailing eternal perdition.
ATINOMIANISM REVIVED.
182
A JUDGMENT
OF PERSONS AND A JUDGMENT OF WORKS.
Before leaving this topic, the of
distinction
Plymouth persons and
a
we should
notice
between a judgment
judgment
works.
of
They
teach that the persons of believers were judged
and they were acquitted once for Their works are to be reviewed by Christ,
at the cross, all.
not to determine
the question
heaven or
but to decide on each one
amount
of
rewards.
This,
make no such
destiny to
they say,
is
s
not
But the Scrip
called a judgment.
properly tures
to hell,
of
distinction.
We
are to be
judged and assigned to a destiny of bliss or woe, according to the deeds done in the body.
When
a criminal act
inal actor
is
is
condemned.
condemned, the crim
Human
courts
know
nothing of a fancied judgment of works aside from the worker. The purpose for which they administer law
judgments.
is
to reach
persons by their
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
A
radical error in
183
ethics seems to
Plymouth
be a forgetfulness that a moral agent
a unit
is
incapable of division into parts, as the old
man
and the new man, the person and the works, one of which segments may be innocent, and the other guilty.
This error
in the discussion of the
we have
refuted
two natures.
THE GENERAL JUDGMENT DENIED. The General Judgment
the last day
at
is
Brethren," as may very stoutly denied by the If the be inferred from the last paragraph. reader wishes to confound them and make them "
writhe in pain, ask them to explain St. Paul
words
in
Rom. xiv. 10-12
"
:
For we
stand before the judgment seat of Christ
Rev. Ver.)
For
it is
s
shall all
(God
written, as I live, saith
me
every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each one of us shall give account of himself to the
Lord, to
God."
Here the
"
Brethren
"
must choose one
of the three horns of the following trilemma
:
ANTINOMIAXISM REVIVED.
184
The words
each one of
"
all,"
must mean
"every,"
and
we
"
(1),
sinners, or (2), the saints only, or (3), the
wicked only.
the
of
either
If
first
chosen, the saints will be judged. third
is
that
St.
("
us,"
mankind, saints
all
we
"
chosen,
Paul
and
"
constant habit referring to all ers.
how do you account
There
is
us is
among
")
But
if
is
the
for the fact
himself
includes
deliberately
two
the wicked
to use these
His
?
either
pronouns men, more commonly to believ no instance of his classif}dng
himself with unbelievers.
The same reasoning applies to 2 Cor. v. 10, with the addition of the fact that Paul here analyzes the words
"
we
"
all
into
two
classes,
good, arid those who have This unanswerably demonstrates that the saints are not on the judgment seat as those
who have done
done
evil.
associate
bunal.
In Heb.
men once it is
judges, but
to die,
ix.
27
before that august "
but after
It is
tri
appointed unto
this the
manifest that the judgment
"
judgment is
co-exten-
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. and
sive with death,
on character.
judgment
after
no way conditioned
is in
Hence the
185
saints will
come
The strength
death.
of
into this
immediately perceived by the argument Greek scholar when he sees that the word for is
"
men
is
anthropoi, a term so broad as to
prehend the whole race.
Then
to
make
com
surety
by what grammari doubly ans call the generic article," which must often be left untranslated in English, but means all sure, it is preceded "
the
human
We
race (Hadley, 529). could hardly keep from laughing in the
face of the venerable Christian scholar, when, at
my
request,
Mr Darby gave an exposition of What pitiable make-shifts
Matt. xxv. 31-46. to explain
away
passage in the final
this
most solemn and awful
Holy Scriptures
"
!
It
was not
and universal judgment, but a review
the Gentile nations.
a of
Individuals are not here
judged, but nations other than the Jews. The point to be determined is, how these nations
have
treated
the
Christianized
Jews
whom
ANTiNOMIANISM REVIVED.
186
Christ will send forth to convert the Gentiles
His coming and setting up of His visible kingdom on the earth. My brethren are after
Jews. a
Jesus never called anybodjr brother but
But when pressed
Jew."
to explain
more
particularly the sheep and the goats, and the final sentence, the
wriggling and floundering of
was something wonderful never see another man, mani
this great evangelist
to behold. festly
of so
pelled
to
There
May
I
great genius and learning, com crawl through orifices so small.
something very depressing to a gen erous mind to witness such an intellectual is
humiliation in the attempt to save a baseless
dogma from
a manifest overthrow.
St. Paul, a thorough student of the Old Tes tament prophecies, and illumined by plenary inspiration, never interprets the Old Testament
as predicting the
He
literal
return of the Jews.
spiritualizes the seed of
rifices,
Abraham, the sac the circumcision, and Jerusalem, and he
distinctly foretells the spiritual salvation of the
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGV. Hebrews, not before tiles xi.
be come
25).
The
in,"
the fulness of the
"
Him tle,
Gen
but after that event (Rom. world receiv
faith of the Gentile
ing Jesus as their Saviour will unbelief of
187
drown out the
the Jews, and they
as their Messiah.
Is
will
receive
not this great Apos
writing under the inspiration of the Holy
more accurate interpreter of the proph ets than any uninspired man, or class of men, in modern times? Spirit, a
The
universal
Church
of Christ,
from the be
ginning to the present hour, has never formu lated
pre-Milleiiarianism
ments of Christian truth.
in
its
They
creed all
state
speak of
judge the quick and but never to set dead," up an outward and visi with Jerusalem for the centre of ble kingdom Christ as coming
"to
"
worship and of
mary
blessing."
Examine that sum
of Christian faith, the Apostles creed, so-
called,
not because
oecnuse
it
is
a
it
was made by them, but
compend
of
their
doctrines,
and you will find no trace of Chiliasm contained
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
188
The
therein.
judicious Bishop Pearson, in his
Exposition of the Creed, says, for
which He
He
shall
all
those which shall then be
shall come,
That the end
"
and the action which
perform when He cometh,
which ever
to
is
judge
and
alive,
all
lived."
The Nicene Creed,
better
known and more
generally recognized than any other, except the
Apostles
,
teaches exactly the
same doctrine
with respect to the purpose of Christ advent,
There
s
to judge the quick and the even a verbal agreement.
second
"
is
The next most important symbol
dead."
of
the
early church, the Athanasian Creed, has these
Whence He shall come to judge the quick and dead. At whose coming all men
words
"
:
shall rise again
with their bodies, and shall give
account of their
works."
All these three great creeds agree in four points
:
1.
That Christ
2.
The
will
object of
come
again.
His advent will be
"
to judge
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. the quick
and the
189
This they testify
dead."
with one voice, and as preliminary, the resurrection of the dead,
all
meaning
confess all
the
dead.
All imply what the Athanasian distinctly
3.
and judgment
states, that this resurrection
will
be at His coming. 4. All are silent about any pre-millennial
coming, or personal reign, or any of the pecu liar tenets
Now
of millenarians.
universally received,
in
these creeds
ancient and
modern
by Roman, Greek, and Protestant churches, must be presumed to accord with the times,
Divine Word.
The Augsburg "
It is
Confession, A. D. 1530, says
of the world to sit in judgment, will
raise
all
;
but wicked
demn, and they end."
and that He
the dead, and will give to the
righteous and elect eternal joys
:
taught that Christ will appear at the end
men and shall
life
devils
and endless
He
will con
be tormented without
ANTINOMIA^ISM ItEVIVED.
190
adds this significant item
It
also
Others are
"
:
condemned, who are now scattering Jewish
notions, that prior to the resurrection the right
eous will possess a temporal kingdom, and the wicked will be exterminated." Substantially the same clause,
"
all
to judge the
quick and the dead," is found in the Metropoli Second Basle, 1536 tan, 1530 Basle, 1534 ;
;
;
Second Helvetic, 1564 Heidelburg, 1562 BelScotch, 1560 Anglican, 1551-1562 gic, 1562 ;
;
;
;
Westminster, 1643-48
;
;
Catechism
of
Trent,
and Orthodox Confession, 1642. This array of creeds, ancient and modern, Protestant, Papal, and Greek, teaches a doc 1566
trine
;
wholly irreconcilable with the
ples of millenarianism, or
ventism.
If it is true that all
than one man,
more correct
it
is
first
princi
modern Second Ad-
true that
men
all
in a doctrine held in
are wiser
churches are
common
than
one small sect which sets up a doctrine incon sistent with it.
The
prophecies
adduced
as
teaching
the
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
191
return of the Jews, and the temporal reign of Christ at Jerusalem, present a view of Chris tianity so grossly
materialistic
irreconcilable
lutely
with
kingdom.
Isaiah xiv. 1,
proof-text
for
the
2,
as to
Christ
s
be abso spiritual
a commonly-quoted
restoration
of
the
declares that they will be slave-holders.
Jews, "
The
house of Israel shall possess them (strangers) in the land of the Lord, for servants and hand After the spirit of philanthropy, kin dled in men s hearts by the Gospel, has led maids."
them
sweep every form of involuntary servi tude from the earth, it is utterly repugnant to to
our ideas of moral, not to say of Christian progress, to read that chattel slavery, the pos all
session of slaves, will be
re-established under
the eye of Jesus, the visibly enthroned King.
What
a moral absurdity
!
Again, Zech. xiv. 21, teaches that the re turned Jews will offer animal sacrifices in Jeru salem, and boil the flesh in pots.
How can
this
be reconciled with the abolition of the Levitical
AoSTTINOMlANISM REVIVED.
192
law, as taught
What would
significance
of
after
the
sufficient
by Paul? and efficacy
Lamb
of
God
be the
bloody sacrifices has been slain as a
atonement for sin ?
CHAPTER
X.
THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE REVIEWED. CONSPECTUS OF
THE author
ITS DOCTRINES.
has thought that he could give the best Plymouth Eschatology by a republica-
refutation of the
tion of his review of in
New York in
1878.
"
The Prophetic Conference," held was published in Ziori s Herald,
It
soon afterward, in a series of eight
articles.
The recent Prophetic Conference
New
in
York, for the setting forth and advocacy of the general outline of the Plymouth scheme of last things,
is
the effect of causes which the writer
has watched for several years with the deepest interest.
mouth
It is the natural fruitage of the
literature
recommended
to
Ply from brought England and American Christians by cer
tain popular evangelists in their sermons, Bible
readings,
and evangelical conferences.
evangelists, though they discard the 103
These
name
of
ANTINOMIAinSM REVIVED.
194
Plymouth Brethren, have sown broadcast their doctrines, with a zeal and earnestness rivaling the Brethren themselves.
The Conference was
for the purpose of
advo
cating the doctrine that the second coming of Christ
is
not, as is
commonly
believed, to raise
the dead, judge the living and the dead, and
wind up the history
of the
human
race on the
earth, but to raise the righteous dead, to set up
a visible kingdom, and to reign in person on the earth during a thousand years. called Chiliasm, from the Greek,
anism, from the Latin,
But the more exact term
word is
This
is
and Millenari-
for a thousand.
pre-millennialism
a term which describes the second advent as occurring before the thousand years.
It
may
be interesting, before discussing its teachings, to look for a moment at the denominational
complexion of the Prophetic Conference, which
was composed
of
ministers and laymen, the
former greatly preponderating; one Lutheran, one Dutch Reformed, one Reformed, ten Con-
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. fifteen
gregational,
195
twenty-seven
Episcopal,
Baptist, forty-three Presbyterian, seven
Meth
odist, and ten undenominational, which, we suppose, means Plymouth.
The mind
first
impression which this makes on the
of a Methodist is
that his
Church has
relatively the least stock in this concern.
If
we had been numerically represented, we would have had nearly a hundred. But this is not a matter which we are disposed to cry over. It indicates that Methodists are
in
too close a
grapple with this present wicked world to
down and waste time future.
in speculating
It indicates that as a
upon Church we
sit
the are
by no means so discouraged with the progress pronounce the dispensation of the Holy Spirit as inadequate to the con quest of the world for Christ. We shall see, of the Gospel as to
as
we review
the strong Calvinism involved in
the pre-millennial scheme, that there are theo logical reasons for the cold shoulder of
odism.
Eighty-one were from
Meth
Calvinist
and
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
196
twenty-two from Arminian Churches. Of the papers on special topics read at the Conference, twelve were by Calvinists and three by Arminians.
not our purpose to go into a review of these papers in detail, but to outline the doc It
is
trines,
way
and point out some
difficulties in
the
of our assent.
In nearly every paper and address there was a declaration that the world will never be con
quered by the agencies now in the field not because of any failure on the part of the Church ;
to co-work with the Spirit, but because Christ
never designed that the present dispensation should enthrone Him over the world. This is a merely preparatory dispensation to the future kingdom. The Church is not the kingdom, but a temporary institution
people tiles till
whom
Christ
for Himself.
the
King
is
pagan powers by
is
for
the
training of a
taking out of the
The kingdom cannot
Gen exist
present in person, destroying force,
and converting the peo-
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
197
by the wholesale, by the majesty of His Yet this presence is to be glorious presence.
pie
localized at Jerusalem
the Jews are to rally
;
around His uplifted standard, and to be con verted immediately after His mounting the throne of David, and they, with all the zeal of
young
and preach
converts, are to go forth
Christ to the Gentiles with marvellous success.
One
of the speakers in the Conference assures
us that everybody will then be converted.
how
free
agency
is
to
adjusted
this
Just state
ment the speaker did not tell us, though we are aching with a desire to know. But we suppose Dr. Imbrie would say that
by
irresistible
tion is
are to be saved
all
Hear him:
grace.
"Regenera
a glorious change in reference to this
earth and the race
upon
It
it.
comprehends
the appearing of the Saviour to accomplish the resurrection
by Him
and the rapture (catching up) saints to
(holding
it
;
of His departed saints, of His
living
take part in His acts of dominion offices
under Him)
;
the overthrow of
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
198
forms of evil on the earth the repentance and restoration of Israel the outpouring of the all
;
;
Spirit far
on
all flesh
more than
;
the renewal of the earth to
its original
beauty before the
the entire renewal of every child therein
curse
;
born,
and thus the atonement
availing
and applied
of Jesus
made
to perpetual generations
;
the removal of all physical evils as well as moral"
The parantheses and cannot see
why
We
italics are ours.
moral freedom in
this
scheme
is
not to be crushed out by almightiness, and con verts to Christ are not to be made by sheer
power, as the Pope converted tribes in northern
Europe on the alternative of the sword or bap tism. To our Arminian eye we see no differ In the present dispensation men are converted by the suasion of the truth under
ence.
the gentle Spirit.
But
and
resistible
influences
of
the
in the future glorious regeneration
of the earth, the Spirit, will drop the
sword
we
are left to suppose,
of the truth
which
failed
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. before,
and
-will
199
come down upon the sinner
with the trip-hammer of Omnipotence, crush ing him into the die of sainthood in a twink ling.
But here comes the
wonder
greatest
of all
;
cannot a power, which irresistibly and
why
infallibly converts, infallibly
keep the soul in a
Dr. Imbrie insists that every body will be converted in the millennium, or world s regeneration, but admits that when
gracious state ?
Satan
is
unchained, a countless host of these
converts will so thoroughly backslide that Satan will deceive
Christ in
them
into enlisting in a war against
numbers
"
as the sand of the
sea,"
going up on the breadth of the earth and com passing the will
camp
of the saints about,
come down from God out
devour them (Rev. xx. 7-9).
of
and
fire
heaven and
So there will be
a possibility of total apostasy under the glori
ous reign of the Person of King Jesus, while there is, according to Dr. Imbrie s Calvinism,
no such possibility under the dispensation of
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
^00 the
Holy
But
to us it is
Spirit.
This
a wonder, indeed.
is
no surprise that machine-made fail when once the hand of
Christians should
almighty coercive power is removed from them. Converts made by force must be kept by force ; those
made by
the suasion of truth
may be kept
by the same means, though Satan constantly roars along their path. Hence we believe that is
the most favorable
the development and
growth of virtue see, and that
the present dispensation for
which
this
world
ever
will
the future dispensation which exists in the
dreams of Chiliasts
the personal
reign of
Christ in bodily form on the earth, cowing the
wicked into subjection by the awe of His will not afford majestic and glorious presence the
conditions requisite
to
a fair probation.
When
free agency is overpowered by some motive of overwhelming weight, as in death bed repentances, we are always on the lookout
for
spurious
difficult to
conversions.
make a virtuous
It
is
exceedingly
choice under such a
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. Hence we
preponderance of terror.
sinners not to defer submission to
201 all
exhort
Christ
till
the hour of death. the second
Now,
coming of Christ is always more awful than
represented as a thousand-fold
He
death.
will
be revealed in flaming
fire,
with the holy angels, on the throne of His If He sets up that throne, not as a glory.
judgment tribunal
for the
day of doom, but as
a permanent government for a thousand years,
He
have destroyed the very genius and of the Gospel, which is the sway of
will
spirit
human
hearts
by truth and
love,
and
He
will
have inaugurated the reign of force instead. This will be stripping Christianity of its essen tial
glory,
the
"grace
and truth
by Jesus
Christ," and going back to the iron system of law which came by Moses. It will put the mount that quaked and burned with fire in the
Calvary from be a public confession that a fallen world cannot be restored by the
foreground, completely hiding the sinner s eye.
It will
ANTINOMTAXISM REVIVED.
202
moral power of truth and love under the sua
and a resort
sion of the Paraclete,
to force for
the triumph of His kingdom.
We who
can see
old-fashioned Calvinist,
believes in irresistible grace, can accept
this doctrine
to
how an but
;
how an Arminian,
magnify human freedom and
power
trained
the suasive
of Gospel motives for the renovation of
the will,
through the Holy Spirit
applying
truth assented to by the intellect, and taught to
reject
salvation
accept the
by mere sovereignty, can
Millenarian idea of the universal
triumph of Christ, surpasses our poor under standing.
But
there
is
a greater wonder.
If the
world
be subdued to Christ by a stroke of His omnipotence, and not by the slow process of
is to
the story of the Cross told redeeming love o er and o er in ever-widening circles down the generations, till every creature has heard the
glad evangel
now,
or, rather,
of years ago ?
why why
does not that stroke did
If the
it
world
not is
fall
fall
thousands
growing worse
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. and worse, and there
is
no hope for
203 its
tion under the present Gospel agencies,
salva it
can
not be that the second coming of Christ to set up His kingdom is delayed through the Divine
compassion and long-suffering
;
for these
would
prompt God to interpose immediately, or rather, it would have prompted Him to interpose long ago to prevent the race drifting
down Christ
But
is to
the coming of
institute the general
judgment and
doom
execute the eternal
and there
hopelessly
if
to inevitable ruin.
is
of
the incorrigible,
a remedial system gradually ex
tending through all the earth, we have a good reason for the delay of Christ, the merciful Intercessor, to
ble Judge.
assume the
But
failure of the
if
He
office of
an inexora
foresees the inevitable
gradual triumph of the Spirit,
His purpose to discard this mode of saving men, and to disentangle Himself entirely from it, and to institute His kingdom by down
and
if it is
right omnipotence, saving the race
why
does
He
delay
?
The
give no satisfactory answer.
by
force,
pre-millenarian can
CHAPTER XL DIFFICULTIES OF LITERALISM.
IN our attempt this
body
of
to accept the
good men, we
teachings of
find an insuperable
obstacle in their literal exegesis of Scriptures
which are manifestly figurative. By way of will examine we their method of illustration, In proof of the person
explaining Zech. xiv. al reign of Christ at
Jerusalem, no Scripture
is
quoted more frequently and more confidently than portions of this chapter, especially the fourth
Lord
and ninth verses
"
:
And
His
(the
s) feet shall stand in that
mount
of
"
Olives."
day upon the the Lord shall be
And
king over all the earth ; in that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one." Now, we lay
down
as a
canon of interpretation, that a
homogeneous passage
of
God
expounded homogeneously 204
;
s
Word must
that
is, it
be
must be
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
205
entirely literal or entirely symbolical.
It will
not do to mix these methods and dodge an ab surd literalism by resorting to a figurative in terpretation where the passage
ous unit.
is
a
homogene
In the light of this principle
go through
this chapter,
applying a
let
literal
us
exe
gesis.
In verse 2
"
all
representatives,
nations
but
This
is,
gather against
(not some, or the
all
"
globe)
"
of course, to be as real
Waterloo
or
Gettysburg,
and
by
of the
nations
Jerusalem to
all
battle."
visible as
only a myriad-fold
more bloody. Jesus Christ is to be in the field in bodily form as really as General Grant was in the battle of the Wilderness.
Prince of Peace will
Whether the "
"go
forth"
singly
and
when He fought a general in com
fight against those nations, as
day of battle," or as mand of an army, is a question which
in the
is
deter
mined by the fifth and fourteenth verses, in which we find the Jewish brigade in the field and
"
all
the saints
"
with the Lord.
ANTQTOMIAOTSM REVIVED.
206
The
inference
idle spectators,
is,
the saints will not stand as
but will
have a hand in the
all
These saints are the righteous dead of past ages, raised from their graves, and the
fight. all
living
who were
believers,
meet the Lord in the
Him at
with
reward
dom.
air,
caught up to and who descended all
His appearing after receiving their
some office in the millennial king This scene brings vividly to mind the
Homeric
battles
before the walls of
where bloodless immortals sword
Troy, gods and demi
mingled in the gory But a battles of the Greeks and Trojans.
gods
in hand,
Hebrew
Bible develops another
And Judah
also shall fight against
scrutiny of our "
difficulty
:
Jerusalem,"
cates matters
verted,
not at Jerusalem. ;
for the
Jews have
and have become Christ
s
This compli all been con foremost ad
That they should turn against the city of their Messiah King, after He had
herents. capital
gathered them to the land of their fathers, is something very mysterious. Will some Chiliast rise
and explain
?
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. But, in addition to ture
all
207
these difficulties, na
be convulsed, the mount of Olives to
is to
be cleft asunder, and a great valley to take its place, running eastward to the Dead Sea,
through which a stream of water is to run, and another stream is to run westward to the Mediterranean, possibly, making a sea-port of Christ
s
The convenience
capital.
of this ar
rangement will be seen when we read that every one that is left of all the nations which come against Jerusalem, shall even go up, year year, to worship the King, the
and
to
keep the
"
feast of
Lord
by
of hosts,
tabernacles."
This
going up of the whole world annually to Jeru salem, which, according to the Levitical law,
must be done by families and not by proxy, would be quite impracticable for the Western nations, with the present difficult landing at
Joppa, and a horse-back ride over the the
Holy
City.
How many ships
would take
whole human family, counting out say 700,000,000
to carry, every year, the
or one half
it
hills to
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
208
the children, the very aged, and
enough
to
those near
Jerusalem to go by land,
to the pre-millennial arithmeticians.
we
leave
It
would
be safe to predict that the ocean-carrying busi ness would be exceedingly lively, and that
American shipping would not be
so depressed
been since the great Rebellion. In answer to the question how these annual
as it has
pilgrims to the capital of the millennial king
dom
are to be fed,
world
s
agriculture,
of Papias (A.
and who
is
we have
D. 100), the
to carry
on the
at
hand the reply
first
great millena-
In like manner a grain of wheat will produce ten thousand heads, and each head will rian
"
:
bear ten thousand grains, and each grain will yield ten pounds of clear white flour er seeds will yield seeds
same
proportion."
reduces the
number
;
and oth
and herbage
in the
This fecundity of nature
difficulty
to that of
of harvesters, millers
a sufficient
and bakers.
We
infer
from the statement of Irenaus that there
may
be some difficulty in securing the grape
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. The days
"
crop
;
"will
209
come when vines
shall
grow, each bearing ten thousand branches, and on each branch there will be ten thousand
and on each twig ten thousand clusters of grapes, and each grape, when expressed, will twigs,
yield twenty-five metratai of wine
two hundred and nine gallons).
(i. e.,
about
And when
any one of the saints shall take hold of a clus ter, another cluster will cry out, I am a better cluster, take
me, and on
unto the Lord.
"
my account give
We
infer that
thanks
when each
grape-vine will produce wine to the amount of
one hundred and eighty thousand billions of gallons, there will be plenty of work for Gough,
Murphy, Dr. Re} noldsand Frances E. Willard, r
during the thousand years of the good time coming for even the saints may be in danger ;
of
repeating the folly, in
But
regenerated
renewed world, the sinners were drowned.
earth, that after all
Noah
their
let
did, in
his
us return from this digression to our
literal exposition.
What
are the
human
family
ANTIKOMIANISM REVIVED.
210 to
do after they have
Palestine
?
They They are
nacles.
of the city
been transported to
all
are to keep the feast of taber to build booths in the streets
and on the house-tops. This will more space than Palestine
require considerable
can afford
itself
ous picnic
it
;
for
when
spirit of the occasion to
like Africans in the
But
people are on a joy
will not be in
harmony with the crowd them together
hold of a slave-ship.
this difficulty ot literalism
by, and inquire into the kind
vice these pilgrims are
We find that in
we must
pass
of religious ser
expected
render.
to
everything except circumcision
They must they are commanded to be Jews. a as did attend localized worship the Jews ; they must keep one of the great Jewish feasts, under pains and penalties
Lord
s
be the
house "
"
bowls
will be standing, "
"
literally,
for blood-sprinkling,
and the
ing the peace-offerings. "they
disobedience
for
that sacrifice
and there
shall
the will
sprinkling bowls " "
pots
In short,
"
"
;
"
for seeth
it is
said that
come and take
of
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. them and seethe spoken
of,
and
therein.
whole ritual
its
The
plied as obligatory. of animals at the
house
is
"
Lord
The is
altar
and
spoken of undeniably.
"
is
im
certainly
sacrificial
s altar
211
slaughter
in the
What
Lord
s
will be
the significance of these animal sacrifices after
the one and sufficient sacrifice of the
God?
Will
some
literalist
who
Lamb
insists
of
that
Jesus will set up His throne at Jerusalem, be so kind as to tell us ? alize
It will
the sacrifice unless
not do to spiritu
you
spiritualize the
whole chapter.
Our explanation would convey
is
to the
very simple.
When God
Jews the idea that
human
in
would be wor
future time
all
shippers of
Him, he condescended to their
the
race
own namely, com
narrow notions of true worship, ing to Jerusalem and offering sacrifice. whole chapter
some
is
The
to be interpreted spiritually.
The waters going eastward and westward sym bolize a spiritual Christianity going forth
from
Jerusalem to refresh and save the world.
The
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
212
rending of the mountain to make way for the stream is the prophetic imagery in which is couched the prediction of the providential
removal of obstacles in the way of the spread Thus most of the difficulties of of the Gospel. this
obscure chapter vanish
when we take
a
spiritual view.
Other
difficulties press
pretation of this one.
If
upon the
chapter.
We
literal inter
mention only up to Jeru
people refuse to go
any
salem, they are threatened with drought
and
Here both moral and natural
evil,
the plague.
or suffering in consequence of sin, are treated as possibilities, in the very millennium.
Dr. Imbrie, both
according to
moral
evil will
be excluded.
this discrepancy
Who
favorite prophecy
advise
him
must be
to
and
will relieve
in this their
?
any reader of Zech. xiv.
the language
But,
between millenarian teaching
and the threatened punishments If
natural
still
insists that
literally interpreted,
we
read the eighteenth Psalm, in
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGT. which David describes
his deliverance
from his
Can
the same
enemies by divine interposition. reader
believe
Jehovah nostrils,
that
213
it
is
true
literally
of
There went np a smoke out of His and fire out of His mouth devoured; "
coals were kindled
by
reader turn to Joel
it,"
ii.
Then
etc. ?
let the
28-32, and read the
graphic account which will convulse all nature, if understood Then read Peter s literally. exegesis of this Scripture as descriptive of the
coming of the Paraclete (Acts
ii.
17).
We
venture to say that if Peter s exegesis were not on record, the modern pre-millenialists
would stoutly
assert that
no event in past his
tory corresponds to this picture of
and
terrible
of
the
Lord
"
"
the great
and they some future
day would be applying the passage to upheaval of nature and miraculous revolution ;
of society, whereas it related only to the
com
ing and gentle sway of the Holy Spirit over be lievers
and His work of couvicting
shiners.
CHAPTER
XII.
PREDESTINARIAN BASIS.
WE cannot receive the teachings of phetic Conference by reason of
pronounced
This
Calvinism.
its
the Pro
quite clearly-
is
not a non-
scheme lugged in by the predestinarian essayists, but is fundamental in essential part of the
the system. the
Holy
The design
of the dispensation of
Spirit is not to save all
men, but
to
take out of the Gentiles a people for Christ
name.
These constitute His chosen Bride.
meets her for the to
first
time in the
have special honors ever
after.
air.
A
s
He
She
is
large mil
may spring from her, but they are inferior in dignity and privilege to the
lennial family
Bride, the
Lamb
s
wife.
Here we have an
attempt to revive the moribund doctrine of unconditional election, by detaching and sup pressing the twin tenet, unconditional reproba tion.
214
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. Rev. Dr. A.
215
Gordon, in his attempt to disprove the simultaneous resurrection of the human race at the second advent, and in his J.
advocacy of the resurrection of the righteous, as "special and eclectic," a thousand years before the rising of the wicked, speaks thus "
The
doctrine of election, which
hold, should not be a
ology, an
profess to
mere abstraction of the
of faith
article
we
:
which we find
it
necessary to adopt in order to insure a con sistent
we
and Scriptural body
ignore
its
of divinity, while
practical application.
haps, the most solemn
and awful of
It all
is,
per
Scriptu
can only be dis cussed and preached effectively by us in those
ral revelations.
rare states of
It certainly
mind where the
has been reached of the
exquisite balance
between tender
adoration
sovereignty and holiness of God, and
sympathy with the helplessness and sinfulness of man. While, therefore, it is the
pathetic
instinct of the
truest piety to
leave
God
to
carry out what belongs wholly to the domain
216
ANTDJOMIANISM REVIVED.
of His will,
should be equally the care of an exact and loyal theology to note the application of
this
it
principle
at
the
various
redemption, and speak accordingly.
stages
of
Thus we
speak very constantly of our missionary enter prises as destined to convert the heathen nations to Christ.
God
The Holy
has visited the Gentiles,
them a people
for
He
first disciples
will say,
we
*
to take out of
We
His name.
the world being converted.
His
Spirit says that
speak about
The Lord
what He says
to us,
said to
and what
believe, to the last that shall be
converted under this dispensation Ye are not of this world, but I have chosen you out of the :
world.
We
speak of Christ s coming at the last day to a race that has been redeemed and saved under the preaching of the Gospel. Christ, in speaking of that event, says that
Son
of
Man
will
*
the
send His angels to gather
together his elect, etc.
We
speak of
all
men
being raised up together at the appearance of the Lord to be judged. Clirist speaks of those
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. who
shall
age and dead.
217
*
accounted worthy to obtain that the resurrection from among the
be
"
In this long quotation the reader will note a we say," in the use of quiet rebuke for what "
terms which indicate the universality of the divine regards, and of the redemptive plan, and he will observe a narrowing of it down to the elect, the selection of
the domain of
God s
whom
will."
belongs wholly to
"
Thus
it
seems that
we modern
Christians, theologians and mission ary boards, have become broader in our views and aims than our great Founder, Christ Him
He
self.
To be
to
while the Holy Spirit,
once said something about preaching His gospel to every creature, but He intended that it should be only a common call all,
sure,
who had looked
into the depths of the Father s secret will,
had seen the names
number
elect
and
a definite
written there, would infallibly give
these a special grace.
of the
Hence
accompanied by irresistible was absolutely certain before
call, it
ANTINOMIANISM EEVIVED.
218
the foundation of the world that every person
whose name was on that precious register, hidden in the bosom of God, would be found arrayed in white at the descent of His Son, the
Bridegroom. Dr. Gordon
s resurrection for
the elect only,
needs only an atonement for the elect alone to
put a very handsome finish upon the system, making it symmetrical and beautiful. This lacking ornament
is
supplied by Rev. H.
The Present Age and Hear him Anti-Christ."
Parsons, in his paper on the Development of "Each
assigned
own
age
:
(religious
work
age has
M.
"
dispensation)
had
in the recovery of heaven. It is
its section.
to gather
its
Our from
out the nations (Gentiles) the redeemed people of God." Here is plainly taught the doctrine that the Gentiles are not redeemed, but only a
people scattered
The
old
doctrine
preached in
now
among them of
a
are
limited
New England
redeemed. atonement,
a century ago, but
almost universally banished by the pres-
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGT.
219
ence of a biblical Arminianism, creeps forth again into the light of day in this convention
Hear the peroration of Mr. Brethren and friends, we are called
of the prophets.
Parsons
"
:
to preach the Gospel to every creature during
from every nation, and tongue, and people, the Lord Jesus may gather in His dear Bride." We have always supposed that
this age, that
our commission was to every creature because Jesus Christ tasted death for every man. But according to Calvinian Millenarianism, we are preach to every creature only because Christ omitted to put a chalk-mark on His Bride. If to
mark had been made, it would have simpli fied our work, and we could pass by those whom Christ did not intend to woo and to wed, and this
devote
all
whom He
our efforts to the affianced ones, on has set His heart.
What
a pity that
preachers should be required to waste so labor
much
I
Many
things in the paper of Dr. James H.
Brooks were to us a means of grace, especially
ANTDTOMIANISM KEViVED.
220
and exhaustive presentation of the bearing of the coming of Christ on the But we found fidelity and purity of believers.
his vigorous
no nutriment to our
spiritual life
following sentence
the
of our
"
:
Lord alone
coming honor and sovereignty.
Those who
the Gospel by representing the
work
that
it is
to
of the
it
Holy
But a moment it
it
disparages
as a failure,
Spirit,
by intimating the
s reflection is sufficient
of
the
it
was designed
Holy
strating that lie saves all
Spirit
He
the present dispensation"
we have
and
exalts the Gospel by proving
accomplishes all
and the work
during
it
reject the
inadequate to the conversion of
show that
that
pre-millennial
indicates the divine
constantly affirm that
doctrine,
world.
The
when we read
to
effect,
by demon
intended If the
to
save
words
exalt the Gospel," they blacken the character of its Author certainly with a heartless indifference to the well-being of a portion of our race while pretending a italicized
"
deep interest in their salvation, and in mockery
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. offering
them everlasting
life
221
which they could
not appropriate without the assistance of the Whittier tells us that the indignant Spirit.
women
Marblehead
of
"tarred
and feathered
the sea captain, Floyd Ireson, and rode a cart
raft at
That he did not intend
tress.
him on
some poor fellows on a sea when he saw their signals of dis for not saving
"
to save
them
crime against humanity, which out raged the moral sense and philanthropic in It would have stincts of these plucky women.
was
his
made the
case no better, but rather worse,
had changed
that seaman
the wreck, taken off
and then
sailed
all
his
if
course, gone to
that he intended to,
away, with abundant room in
his cabin and provisions in his larder for those
whom It
he had
left to
perish on the raft.
certainly be an alleviation of Dr.
would
Brooks
doctrine, to
scheme
of
Barbour,
whom
the
attach to
restorationism
of
it
advocated by Mr.
Rochester, by which
Holy
the grand
all
those
Spirit did not intend to save
222
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
under the present dispensation, will be raised from the dead and have a tion in the millennial age. in
this
theodicy
is
fair
chance for salva
The only
difficulty
the fact that the wicked
dead must remain in their graves, and not be raised till after the millennium is past, when they will be raised, judged, and cast into the lake of fire. So our suggested alleviation is an
adjustment which cannot be applied. class of millenarians, not represented in
A
the report of the Prophetic Conference, have
found out just the number that the Holy Spirit intends to save and to present to Christ as His 144,000. By scrupulously keeping the seventh day, and abstaining from meats cere monially unclean, they are endeavoring to be
bride
among that number. They are the dolefulest we ever met. We think they should be
saints
despondent, with such a slender hope of salva tion.
CHAPTER EXEGETICAL ABSUKDITIE8.
The
birth of Christ, the
King of the Tews.
ii. 2.
t
A D
The death and
resurrection of Christ
Ascension of Christ. Acts i. 9. Descent of the Holy Ghost. Acts
ii.
Matt
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
224
Church
Mystical body of Christ
(Eph. i. 22, 23; 24-27; 1 Cor. xii. 12-27,) and the Brido of Christ. Eph. v. 21-23. Descent of the Lord (1 Thess. iv. 14) to receive His Bride. John xiv. 3. iii.
Rom.
3-6;
xii. 4, 5;
Col.
i.
De R
Resurrection of the just. Luke xiv. 14; Acts 1 Thess. iv. 15, 16; and change of living be
xxiv. 15;
Cor. xv. 23, 51, 52. Translation of the saints are caught up to meet Christ in the air. lievers.
1
Rapture
M
iv.
who 1
(like
Enoch)
Thess.
iv. 17.
The meeting Eph.
17;
of Christ and His Bride. 1 Thess. 21-32; 2 Cor. xi. 2. Thus the Church
v.
escapes the tribulation.
Luke
xxi. 30; 2 Peter
ii.
9;
Rev.
iii. 10.
T
Period of unequalled tribulation to the world Matt. xxiv. 21; Luke xxi. 25, 26) during which the Church having been taken out God begins to deal with Israel again (Acts xv. 16, 17; Psa. li. 18; (Dan.
cii.
xii. 1;
16,)
and
will restore
them
to their
own
land.
Isa.
Jer. xxx. 3; xxxi; xxxii. 36-44; Amos ix. 15; Anti-Christ will be revealed. Zech. viii. 3-8; Rom. xi. xi. 11-16;
2 Thess.
ii.
The
8.
vials of
God
s
wvath poured out,
But men 1-5; Rev. vi. 16, 17; Rev. xiv. 10; xvi. only blaspheme God. Rev. xvi. 11, 21. Israel accepts Psa.
ii.
Christ (Zech. xii. 10-14; xiii. 6,) and are brought through Matt. the fire. Zech. xiii. 9. They pass not away. xxiv. 34; Psa, xxi i. 30. Rev The revelation of Christ and His saints (Col. iit. 4; 1 Thess iii. 13) in flaming lire (2 Thess. i. 7-10) to execute judgment on the earth. Judo 14, 15. This is Christ s second coming to the earth. Acts i. 11; Deut. xxxiii. 2;
J
Zech
xiv. 4, 5; Matt. xvi. 27;
Judgment
xxiv. 29, 30.
of the nations, or tho quick.
Matt. xxv.
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 32-40; xix. 28; Acts x. 42; 1 Peter iv. 5. 2 Thess. ii. 8. The Beast destroyed.
xx. 1-3; R. L.
Rev. xix. 20. Ezek. xxxviii. xxxix. ;
Rom.
Anti-Christ
is
and the False Gog and His allies are Satan is bound. Rev.
Prophet are taken. smitten.
225
xvi. 20.
Resurrection of the Tribulation Saints, which completes the First Resurrection. Rev. xx. 4-6. The Millennium. Christ s glorious reign on Mill earth for 1,000 years (Rev. xx. 4) with His bride. 2 Tim. xi. 1-12; xxv. G-9; Isa. ii. 12; Rev. v. 10; Isa. ii. 2-5; iv. Ixv. 18-25; Mic. iv. 1^1; Zeph. iii. 14-20; Zech. viii. 3-S,
m
;
20-23; xiv. 10-21.
S
Satan loosed for a
little
season, and destroyed with
Gog and Magog. Rev. xx. 7-10; Hcb. ii. 14. Res. The Resurrection of Judgment. Rev. John
15;
v. 29;
Dan.
xx. 12-
xii. 2.
W.
T. Judgment at the Great White Throne of the remaining dead. Rev. xx. 11-15. Death and Hell destroyed. Rev. xx. 14; 1 Cor. xv. 26. J.
all
E. E.
Isa. Ivii. 15.
Eternity.
taken from a pamcirculated at the Conference with the
[THE above diagram plilet
endorsement of in a
its
book entitled
is
president.
It is also
"
Maranatha,"
by Rev.
found J.
H.
Brooks, one of the speakers in the Conference, and the first signer of the call. It is the basis of
most of the papers as reported
bune.]
in the
Tri
ANTINOMIANISM EEVT7ED.
226
The most vulnerable point arian theory
its
of this pre-millen-
found in the exegesis
The
xxv. 31-46. quire
is
of Matt.
necessities of the theory re
advocates to do violence to this most
solemn utterance of the Son of the earth.
God
while on
He
discloses
It is indisputable that
four facts in this passage
(1)
:
The judgment
general, including the whole
will be
human
race. (2) The righteous and the wicked will be simultaneously judged and sentenced. (3) The judgment will be individual, and not
national
;
each person will be rewarded or to his treatment of Jesus
condemned according
Christ in the persons of His brethren, either believers or
day
of
human is
beings generally.
judgment man on the
history of
(4) This
a finality, a winding-up of the
Henceforth
earth.
kind will be found in only two conditions everlasting punishment or in
life
eternal
man in
with
the intimation that the former is a place prepared for the devil
and
his angels.
rian, finding it impossible to
The
wedge
pre-millena-
in
an earthly
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
227
reign of Christ, called the millennium, between
Man
the coming of the Son of
and His
and
final sentence,
"
in
His Glory
Come, ye blessed
"
!
"
deliberately goes to Depart, ye cursed work to pervert these awful words by whittling "
!
them down
to a review of living nations, ending
in the infliction of certain temporal punishments
which do not sweep them from the earth, but leave them still living, to be converted or held
by millennial
hi check,
This
is
We
ence.
agencies.
the teaching of the Prophetic Confer call
this
the willful perversion of
the plain words of Jesus
Christ, the
If the reader will
eternal.
Judge
look at the above
diagram, he will find the letter J descriptive of the place which the judgment in Matt. xxv. 31-46, occupies in the Chiliast stead of being the end of
s
eschatology. In
man on
the earth,
it is
about the middle point of his earthly history,
and he eternal Ixv.
will be found, after
the sentence
doom, begetting children
23),
black-smithing
(Isa.
of
(Isa. xi. 6, 8 ii.
4),
;
house-
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
228
building and vine-planting (Isa. Ixv. 21), the old man with his staff in hand for very age,
and the boys and viii.
(Zech.
4,
girls
5)
;
playing in the streets
while others shall suffer
from plagues inflicted on them and their cattle, and still others will go to battle and gather great spoil (Zech. xiv. 13-15). are those which
One
of
the
accompany
Dr.
essayists,
The
references
the diagram. J.
T. Cooper,
argued that only the Gentiles are judged in Matt.
xxv. 31-46, and
According
exempt.
Plymouth
teachers
s
the Jews were
to this writer,
generally, this
turns upon the question treated Christ
that
and the
judgment
how each
nation has
brethren, the Jews.
Let the
reader peruse this whole passage, putting nations, or Gentiles, after the pronouns
and for
of
in place of
"
them,"
"my brethren,"
the
Chiliasm
monstrous is
"
"ye
and
"you,"
and substitute Jews
and he
will get
some idea
misinterpretation
which
forced to put upon this plain pas
sage, in defiance of
common
sense.
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOQY.
By making two
last
(?)
days, or
229
judgment
one for the living and one for the dead
days
a space is gained for the (Rev. xx. 11-15) millennium after the Second Advent. It is
nothing to these expositors that the words, the quick and the dead," in Acts x. 42 2 Tim. "
"
"
;
iv.
1
;
1 Peter
iv.
5, are thus violently riven
asunder by thrusting in a thousand years be tween them. Jesus says: "For the hour is
coming shall
in the
which
all
that are in their graves
hear His voice, and shall come forth;
they that have done
good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." Here Dr. Gordon finds
no
difficulty,
by stretching
"
the
make two resurrections, a thousand The millenarians find no difficulty
hour,"
to
years apart! in splitting
the judgment day into fragments, locating one in the air before the
Epiphany, or appearing of on another the earth after that event, Christ,
and
still
another after a thousand years.
The
Plymouth Brethren add a fourth judgment day,
230
ANTINOMIANISM HEVIVED.
when the
sins of believers
Cross
were judged on the
the only judgment of their persons as
But
distinguished from their works. resurrection
is
always
intimately
since the
connected
with the judgment, this theory easily invents as
resurrections as are requisite to its
many
demands.
Hence
we have
a resurrection of
the saints, to meet Christ before to the earth
;
He
descends
then the resurrection of the mar
who by some unaccountable agency have been converted and beheaded while Christ was tyrs,
reviewing the saints in the soul was left on the earth,
and not a holy but Antichrist was air,
and perhaps centuries, riding rough shod over the God-forsaken earth, and all the
for years,
woes and
vials of the
Apocalypse were being
poured upon the human race, amid the crash of all the regular governments and the horrors of anarchy. that of
Then we have a third the wicked
after a
resurrection
thousand years
plus the period in which Satan is loosed, whicli may be ten thousand years more. For all
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
231
and judgments Scripture proofs are quoted with great profusion and perfect confidence, although the Church from resurrections
these
the beginning
till
the present day has believed
and one judgment
in one resurrection
of the
whole human family.
But
still
greater difficulties, not to say ab
encountered when
surdities, are
we examine
the mixed state of tilings on the earth after the judgment of quick."
the living
Here we
find living side
the millennium the remnant the judgment, and are the saints
nations, or
by
"the
side in
who have survived
still
flesh
and blood;
who were changed when
the Judge and the righteous dead who have been raised and endowed with spiritual
reached the \
I
bodies.
air
How
;
these three sorts of folks are to
have intercourse
mortals and immortals thus
mixed
is
together
inconceivable.
children are to be born, social
problems
arise.
still
more
But
There will be a
capable of marriage, because they are
as
difficult
class
still
in
ANflNOMIANISM REVIVED.
232 the flesh
;
a class incapable of that estate, be
cause they are
"
in the resurrection
class of
whom we
changed
saints.
of society
is
are
"
;
and a
doubtful, namely, the
This exceeding complex state entirely out of analogy with the
constitution and course of nature,
and
is
en
abnormal and incongruous. of such a world by the second Person of the Trinity in person will
tirely
The moral government
be one continued wholly unadapted
reign
of
supernaturalism,
to the purposes of probation.
The change will be so great that there will be need of a new Bible, for the new state of things will render the
Noah
s
guished
Holy Scriptures
almanac.
This
is
pre-millenarians.
as obsolete as
admitted by distin
One
of
quoted by Bickersteth as saying Scriptures of the
New
them that
"
is
the
Testament, written for
a tempted and suffering Church, are unapplicable to this state of "
things."
It is obvious that, in
Dr. McNeile says
:
the passage from our
present state to a state of universal holiness,
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. these characteristic sayings of the
ment must become If the
233
New
Testa
cease to have any application,
obsolete, not to say
human
gated throng]
i
race
is
and
false."
to be continually propa
a thousand, or, as some assert,
through three hundred and sixty-live thousand years, and none die, the world would soon be so uncomfortably
crowded that there would not
be standing room. But if death does his work of depletion then as now, only after a longer the child dying an hun average longevity dred years old there must be another resur rection distinct from that of the
accommodation saints.
on
difficulties
millennial
thicken as
we dwell
this theory of the personal reign of Christ
on earth before the "
deceased
This will make four resurrections in
Thus the
all.
of these
wicked for the
another
last day,
from
"
gospel
which
that
is
certainly
which
Paul
preached.
To
the people of
judgment
of nations
the
by the
United States test of
this
our national
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
234
one which we may approach with greater boldness than any other nation of modern civilization, for we have never treatmemt of the Jews,
is
discriminated against the Hebrews,
"
these
my
though we have abused the African, the Indian, and the China
brethren,"
in our legislation,
man, who are not supposed to be so closely related
to
Jesus
Christ.
Hence the great
American Republic stands a good chance to be the dominant nation in the regeneration, or millennial age, which begins immediately after
the award to the nations of eternal lasting punishment.
life
or ever
CHAPTER
XIV.
DIFFICULTIES IN THE THOUSAND YEARS.
WE object to the it is
grounded
millemirian scheme, because
chiefly
on those portions of the
Bible which are symbolic, and enigmatic, and difficult to
be understood.
The personal
reign
thousand years is not found in the nor in the Acts of the Apostles, nor Gospels,
of Christ a
in the Epistles of Paul, Peter,
James or John,
but only in the Apocalypse, which est book in the New Testament.
is
the dark
Its striking
and gorgeous imagery impress the The imagination and awaken the feelings. symbols
visitor
in
London
will
find
thousand commentaries on
in
one library a
this book, all pro
fessing to unfold its mysteries, all differing, so
that only one of
them can be
true.
These
writers have tried to interpret the apocalyptic
numbers, and they have signally 236
failed.
From
ANTESTOMIANISM REVIVED.
236
Ben gel
down
s
date of the binding of Satan in 183C
to
the present time, the years fixed for Christ have passed away, and
the coming of the expositors
who have
survived their disap
pointment have courageously tried again, by their
shifting
ground into the
safer
future.
There are three great schools of interpreters of the Revelation
who
The
(1)
:
Prseterists,
or those
teach that the whole, or by far the greater
part, has
been
Some
fulfiled.
of the most emi
nent German expositors, as Ewald, De "Wette, Lucke, and Dusterdieck, belong to this school
;
also
Dr.
Davidson
in
Stuart in America.
(2)
England, and Moses
The
who
Historicals,
hold that the Revelation embraces the whole history of the
(3) after
The
Church
Futurists,
third
the
future events. chapters, and
to the
who
chapter,
Some assert
end of the world.
insist that this
relates
include the
book,
entirely to first
that they refer
to
three
the
future also.
This
is
the grand outline of opinions held by
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. men
equally learned and honest
;
237
yet on a book
whose interpretation is in so great dispute, the doctrine of a thousand years personal reign of Christ on the earth before the last judgment
is
grounded by those who would interpret the plain and the literal teachings respecting the
by the symbolic and
last things
typical, thus
inverting an acknowledged canon of interpre
The twentieth chapter
tation.
tion
is
of
the Revela
Let us
the basis of pre-millenarianism.
now examine
this chapter,
and see what
is
not
proved by its testimony. 1. There is no mention of the second advent of Christ
before
the
thousand
years.
The
opens with the vision of an angel descending from heaven with a chain in his chapter
This angel can never be proved to be Christ. Angelas^ in this book, Says Alford
hand.
"
:
an angel; never our Lord" Thus far in the Apocalypse there is not the slightest intimation
is
that
He
form.
has
made His second advent
In chapter xix. 11-21,
in visible
He wars
against
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
238
the beast, and the kings of the earth and their
armies
;
but the assumption that this is a literal on the earth by Jesus in person,
battle fought
riding on a white horse, with a sharp sword
going out of His mouth, is a literalism which cannot be endured, besides being a begging of the very question in dispute.
John saw the
things in the opened heaven, and he saw
armies which were in
unanimous
are
in
making
abode of Christ, until
mankind
heaven."
He
The
"
the
Scriptures
heaven the fixed
shall
come
to judge
at the last day.
John saw only the souls of the martyrs. He makes no mention of their bodies. There 2.
is is
a grave doubt whether a bodily resurrection
here intended
;
but we are inclined to the
literal resurrection of these v. 25,
we have
in verse 28
martyrs.
a resurrection of souls, followed
by a bodily resurrection.
the opinion of many, explains the
first
second resurrections in this chapter. sage
is
tations.
In John
This, in
and the
The pas
obscure, admitting of different interpre
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. There
3.
is
239
here no proof of the resurrec
tion of all the righteous dead, but only of
beheaded martyrs
;
the
so that allowing the literal
resurrection of these does not prove that
Every man
the saints rise at this time. rise in his
own
Some
order.
rection of Christ,
is
all
to
arose at the resur
and doubtless were His con
voy to heaven. It may be that a special honor and blessedness await the beheaded martyrs in the fact of their resurrection and translation to
heaven before the
rest of the
dead saints
one star differeth from another star in
"
:
for
glory."
This does not preclude these from standing
with Enoch and Elijah, in holy boldness, before the
judgment
seat of
Christ in the last day.
explain Paul s aim at a martyr s the resurrection of the beheaded and death
This
may
"
(Phil.
iii.
hath no in a
10, 11).
power."
manner
On such
The dying
the second death of these martyrs,
so heroic, utterly vanquished the
mighty enemy. An early restoration from the dominion of death, suffered prematurely for
ANTINOMIANISM KEVIVED.
240 Christ, "
is
an eminently appropriate reward: is lie that hath part in the
Holy and blessed
first resurrection."
4.
There
is
in this chapter a total absence
of proof that these raised martyrs reigned with
The
Christ on the earth.
visions thus far have
been located in heaven.
Consistency with the whole context requires that they should reign with Christ in heaven, and not that Christ
should reign with them on earth.
Wesley, Moses Stuart, and many heaven and not on the earth."
Bengel,
others, say,
"in
5.
There
is
no evidence here that a single
is spoken of. The best scholars, and among them Bengel, Wesley, and Dr. Owen, assert that there are two distinct periods
millennium
of a thousand
The Greek
years spoken of in verses 1-7.
article sustains this view.
The
first
period extends through the repression of Satan
which, Bengel says, indicates the great pros The second is the reign perity of the Church. of martyrs.
Both
of
these periods are before
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOQY.
241
Christ. Thus Beugel and Wesley, instead of being pre-millenarians, were, in fact, what most modern Methodists
the second coming of
Beugel styles those who confound these two distinct millennial periods, are, post-millenarians.
"
pseudo-Chiliasts."
thus
He
falls
The Prophetic Conference
under Bengel s censure as pseudos. Whilst Satan is loosed from his
"
says
:
imprisonment of a thousand years, the martyrs live and reign, not on the earth, but with Christ
;
then the coming of Christ in glory at
length takes place at the last day there
the
is
new
Christ
is
the
new heaven,
Jerusalem."
is
this.
then, next,
;
new
Thus the
two thousand years plus a
after the binding of Satan.
Chiliasm
the
earth,
coming of little
A harmless "
Says Bengel
:
and
season sort of
The con
of
the two millennial periods has
It is a
very important point for the milthat the judgment of the
founding long ago produced many errors, and has made the name of Chiliasm hateful and suspected." 6.
lenarian to prove,
ANTLNOMIANISM KEVIVED.
242
dead before the great white Throne
But
the wicked dead only.
not proven by this chapter.
Book
that of
is
this vital point is
In
fact, the
bring
into the lake of fire of
and the casting those whose names are
not written
imply that some were
ing forth of the
therein,
found inscribed. this
Book
of Life
"
Dr. Brooks
declaration that
a blank book,
is
This
assumption.
of Life
is
words here stand, we
make
the rest
Says so
etc.
not,"
eminent a Greek scholar as Dr.
great violence,
a baseless
not proved by the words,
the rest of the dead lived
as the
is
Owen
:
u
Yet
cannot, without (in
Greek) em
brace any other than the class of the pious dead, from which the martyr saints have been
previously
taken
to
participate
in
the
first
We quote Dr. Owen, not to endorse him, but to show the difficulty of prov
resurrection."
ing that this
is
a judgment of the wicked dead
alone.
We
believe that
it is
the general judgment
of the race described in Matt. xxv. 31-40,
and
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. that
"
human
the rest of the dead
"
243
include
all
the
dead, both righteous and wicked, except
the martyr saints, and that the good and the
bad
will be raised in the general resurrection
and sentenced 7.
We
in the general judgment.
look in vain, in this account of the
millennium, or millenniums, for any reference to the Jews as being gathered to Jerusalem.
The Revelation strangely omits them with either of these chiliads.
to
associate
In chapter seven, the angels seal exactly twelve thousand of each of the twelve tribes, but there is no hint of the restoration of to their
own
doom, the
land.
the
Hebrew
nation
After the day of general
last great day, there
descends a
new
Jerusalem into the new earth which has no
more is
sea.
with
Even then
men,"
"
the tabernacle of
God
not with the Jews.
Considering the fact that the old Testament prophecies are constantly quoted by the millenarians in proof of the personal reign of Christ
on
earth, with the
porters,
it is
to us
Jews as His most loyal sup an insuperable objection to
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
244
the doctrine, that the book of Revelation omits to
place
Hebrew
the restored
nation in any
such relation to Christ, either in the old or the
new Jerusalem. be a personal reign of Christ on the earth, during a thousand years, to sub If there is to
due the nations,
now
as a substitute for the
being made by the Holy
remarkable
that
these
conquest
Spirit,
it
is
seven esseniial facts
should be absent from the only account in the whole Bible where the millennial period is
spoken of. These important items are culled from dark prophecies, often violently wrenched from the context, and are fitted together on the pedestal of
this chapter of
inexplicable
enigma
the Christian ages.
a
book which has been an to the scholarship of all
This style of interpretation
may be satisfactory and who accept imagery for
convincing to those
doctrine, symbol for and for but there are rhetoric substance, logic Christian minds which have an unconquerable aversion to stitching together selections from ;
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
245
the symbolry of the prophets, literalizing the
whole patchwork, and holding it up to the world as God s truth. Yet this is what the rire
pre-millcnarians
opened
They
perpetually doing.
with the dis
their recent Conference
claimer that they had not brought their ascen
But such
sion robes with them. fascination of their ies,
method
is
the perilous
of prophetic stud
that they will soon be attracted to
an
numbers and
interpretation of the apocalyptic
a determination of the year and day when, in
the language of Mr. Barbour, as
we
say of an express train.
repeats
itself.
Christ
"
their
due,"
History always
This has been the outcome of
The leaders
every great millenarian movement.
may keep
is
own
intellectual balance quite
well, but by deluging Christendom with their literature, they will soon shake the minds of
Christians of less steadiness
bringing to the
next
who
will insist
Prophetic
Conference
their arithmetical charts of Daniel s animals,
not their ascension robes.
1843
know
the sequel.
We
on
who
if
survived
CHAPTER XV. THE CHURCH NOT THE KINGDOM.
WE cause
object to the pre-rnillenarian theory be definition of the
its
makes
an institution
it
kingdom
of Christ
altogether different
from the Church, and entirely in the future. A glance at the diagram will show the church as
coming to an end on the earth before the king
dom
is
in
Chiliast represents the
coming only at the descent of the person, and as then set up suddenly by as
kingdom King
The
set up.
almightiness without the aid of
But when we look find
into the
no such difference
"Church "and
established
gradually ation to
terms
They seem
to be
The kingdom it is
ultimate triumph.
whom John 216
in the use of the
by preaching, and
till its
agency.
New Testament, we
"kingdom."
used interchangeably.
human
the
is
to
to be
develop
The gener
Baptist and
Christ
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
247
preached, were
kingdom
of
urged to repent because the heaven was at hand. We fail to
see the cogency of this motive
was not to be
up
till
kingdom
after 1,800 or 18,000
St.
gratitude to the Father
us into the
kingdom
himself spoke of the or
the
Paul writes a thanksgiving epistle the Colossians in which he expresses his
years. to
set
if
"who
hath translated
of His dear
Son."
Christ
kingdom of God as within, The disciples were
among, His hearers.
taught to pray for earth.
its
complete triumph on the its slow progress,
Parables illustrative of
but ultimate universality, were spoken. The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustardseed,
which becomes a
tree so great that the
birds lodge in the branches.
development of
Christ
s
kingdom from small
beginnings through long ages taught.
The astonishing is
It is perfectly puerile to
here plainly
assume that
these birds are foul birds of prey, symbolizing
the
gigantic
Church!
corruptions
of
the
Christian
Yet we have again and again met
ANTIKOMTANISM REVIVED.
248
with this exegesis in the writings of modern millenarians.
In Christ
comparison of the kingdom to He intended to
s
leaven deposited in the meal,
teach the gradual diffusion, the pervasive and assimilative power, of the
kingdom
and the universal prevalence
of heaven.
Every unprejudiced
reader, even in the infant Sunday-school, sees this
in
meaning
the parable.
How
Chiliasts dispose of this parable ?
do the
The wise
ones do as the Scotch preacher did with a pas sage which he could not harmonize with pre destination My brethren, let us look this "
:
verse square in the face
and pass
But
on."
some millennarians are not wise enough
to
follow so good an example, but confidently ex
pound
it
thus
"
:
Leaven
Bible to represent evil or
is
always used in the
Hence
corruption."
The language of Rev. H. M. Parsons parable of the leaven represents the results in the
which
"
:
will be manifested in the
same kingdom
during the age from the corruptions introduced
PLYMOUTH
249
ESCHATO-L-uGY.
by those who are within the Church. The meal will be leavened with heresies and perver sions during all this
dispensation."
Well may Dean Alford say
"
:
It will
be seen
moment but much less when
that such an interpretation cannot for a stand, on its
own ground
;
we connect it with the parable of the mustardseed. The two are intimately related. The was of the
latter
power a heaven as seed kingdom containing itself the principle of expansion the former
of the in
inherent, self-developing
of
;
(the leaven) represents the power which sesses of penetrating
mass,
till all
it
pos
and assimilating a foreign
be taken up into
it.
This gifted
annotator, a strong Chiliast, but not run
mad
with millenarian vagaries, proceeds at length to show the power of the Gospel leaven (1) to penetrate the whole mass of humanity, and (2) the transforming
power
of the
on the whole being of individuals.
"new leaven"
Says Trench: In fact, the parable does nothing less than set forth to us the mystery of regeneration, both in "
ANTINOMIANISM BEVIVED.
250
which can be but once, as the leaven but once hidden and also in the consequent
its first act, is
;
renewal of the Holy
Spirit,
which, as the ulte
working of the leaven,
rior
Thus we array
progressive."
continual and
is
these scholarly
and sober expositors against the strange and erroneous exegesis of millenarians so intent on removing a they
foist
difficult text
upon
it
out of their
way
that
a meaning never intended by
make Him
Christ, in order to
teach their dole
church is becoming more and more corrupt, the world is hopelessly ship wrecked, and the pentecostal dispensation is a ful doctrine, that the
stupendous
failure.
From such
a dismal view
and from such a misinterpreta tion of a plain parable, giving a hopeful view of the expansion and universal prevalence of of Christianity,
the
kingdom
we beg
We of
of heaven established
by
Christ,
to be delivered.
believe with
Neander that the
the Church to the
kingdom
is
relation
that of a
species to a genus, or of a part to a whole.
The Church
is
the
kingdom begun.
PLYMOUTH ESGHATOLOGY. The millenarian conception kingdom
251
of the
earthly
of Christ, entirely different from His
present spiritual reign in the Church,
Jewish idea
ingly like the
kingdom, founded on a the prophecies.
of
is
strik
the Messianic
literal interpretation of
If their gross
literalism is at
be realized in an earthly and visible kingdom, we do not see the culpability of the last to
Jews
in rejecting the Nazarene,
who
failed to
exhibit those signs of Messiahship which their
own prophets had taught them
to expect
when
His kingdom should be set up. For it has been well said that there is no perspective in proph ecy.
the
Hence Jews
it
was absolutely impossible for between Christ s first
to discriminate
coming to found His Church, and His second advent to found His kingdom. The brightness of the earthly colorless,
the
kingdom
spiritual
Hebrew
so entirely eclipsed the
kingdom, or Church, that
nation seems to be justified in dis
carding the spiritual kingship of Jesus Christ, who was attended by no such signs of world-
ANTINOMIAOTSM REVIVED.
252
wide temporal
now
find
But there
in is
dominion as the millenarians
Old Testament prophecies. no such vindication of the Jews the
possible, because their culpability lies in the fact that while there is but one kingdom of
Christ on earth, and that
is spiritual,
they were,
as a nation, not dwelling in those spiritual alti
tudes which would have enabled them to view the Star of Bethlehem in
undimmed by worldliness.
its
true character,
clouds of sensuality and
the
Hence, on the commonly-received
view that the Church
is
the spiritual
kingdom
and the only kingdom which He will establish on earth, the ancient and modern Jews of Christ,
have no excuse.
On
the theory of the Chiliast,
they have an excuse for rejecting to
Him who came
them without the prophetic insignia of a king.
No MOTIVE FOR A JEW TO BELIEVE
IK
CHRIST.
Another very curious fact in the millenarian scheme is that the nearer the Second Advent,
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. the less influential
is it
to induce in the
Let
submission to Christ. point to
My
:
me
is
me
Jew
amplify this
to preach the
Gospel This includes the Jews.
creature.
every
Let
commission
253
suppose that I have a congregation of I wish to lead to Christ. My
Hebrews whom first
effort
would be
to gain
an intellectual
assent to the proposition that Jesus
is
the true
Messiah, by reasoning with them in Pauline style out of the Scriptures.
an intellectual conviction, to
sway
of
the
their wills to
I
Having produced should next proceed
an immediate acceptance
Nazarene as their personal Saviour. The be my great argument ?
What would Lord Jesus
"
shall be revealed
from heaven, with
His mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking ven geance on them that know not God and that
obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruc tion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His terror,
ask
me
if
power."
My
this is a final
Israelites,
and
in
irreversible
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
254
sentence for disobedience
them, with
power
tears, that
Christ.
to
even
it is
so.
of the Spirit attending the
I
tell
Under the Word, some
bow the knee to Christ cru who had been a stumbling-block to them
are constrained to cified all
their
Lord, I
the terrors of the
Knowing
lives,
But suppose
have saved some.
called in a millenarian to
do
of presenting motives to
sway
Jewish wills
this critical
I
had
work
their stubborn
His course of argument would
?
Repent of your sins, and receive Jesus as your Saviour and Lord because He is
be thus
:
soon coming to set up a kingdom, gathering the Jews, at least a third of them, to Jerusalem,
where they will all be suddenly converted and be the chief promoters of His kingdom among How long," ask they, before the Gentiles. "
"
this great
event
"
?
"
the signs indicate that "
If this
is so,
It
we think
occur to-day ; all near," is the answer.
may
it is
that
ourselves to the inconvenience
we
will not put
and suffering
of
the persecution of our brethren for embracing
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. Jesus.
We
255
and take our chances
will wait
of
being alive and of being converted en masse when Jesus comes. This will be easier, and will be attended by no persecution by a stubborn re mainder."
the less
Thus the nearer the Second Advent,
is its
motive power for the Jew to be
lieve in Christ.
Can such
a system of doctrine be true which
thus weakens the grand motive to evangelical faith?
The common,
or othodox, view of the
second coming of Christ to pass
final
sentence
upon the race, affords just as great inducements to repent to the Jew as to the Gentile, and the motive in both cases
approach of the
is
Judge
intensified
eternal.
by the near
CHAPTER
XVI.
ELECT NUMBER OF THE GENTILES.
HAVING shown
that
the
personal reign of
Christ for a thousand years before the general
judgment is not found in Rev. xx., we proceed to examine other passages in the New Testa
ment perpetually quoted Matt. xix. 28 asts,
as proofs of Chiliasm.
is literally
and the
Chili-
expounded by "
"
regeneration
is
explained as
new
order of things on the earth after Christ has set up a visible throne. Then the
the
twelve apostles are to have inferior thrones, or governorships, over the twelve tribes of Israel.
In answer to
this
we cannot do
better than to
condense the comment of Dr. Whedon, one of the ripest Greek scholars in America, and second to
none as an exegete "
regeneration tations
"
:
The words
are in contrast with
"
in the parallel passage in 256
in
"
in the
my temp
Luke
xxii.
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. The contrasted
23-30.
257
periods are before His
death and after His ascension,
when
the Church
was renewed and regenerated from the old the new dispensation. Then Jesus would on the throne of
the Majesty on high throne,
hand
his glory at the right
descend
He
till
to
judge
shall,
the
to sit
of
on the same world.
The
twelve apostles were to receive twelve apostolnot thrones of glory ates, or thrones sym bolizing the fact that Christ
and that the
is
King over
Israel,
New
Testament kingdom is only another form of the Old Testament Church.
Then
verse
follows, in
hundred-fold
now
29, a
promise of the
in this time
(Mark
x. 30),
with persecutions, showing that the time spoken of when the twelve should enjoy their apostol-
on their spiritual thrones, is during their present lives, after which they will receive ates, or sit
life
everlasting.
regeneration, or
Hence we
new
are
living in the
dispensation.
Another
quoted in nearly every paper read in the Prophetic Conference, as a proof that the whole
text,
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
258
not to be converted under the dispen sation of the Holy Spirit, but only a definite
world
is
number
the Bride of Christ
The word the
"
fullness,"
millenarians
who
"
Rom.
xi. 25.
"
elect
the
as
generally, interpret
completion of the definite the Gentiles
is
Dr. E. R. Craven, and
number
are to be saved
;
of
but a
if
thousand, then the nine hundred and ninetynine saved persons lack but one to complete the fullness.
of the
Since quite a parade has been
made
great scholarship of the millenarians,
we, in Pauline style, in self-defense, wish to
magnify the scholarship on our
Our note.
limits forbid giving
We insert only his
side.
Meyer
extended
s
conclusion
"
:
A part
of Israel is hardened, until the Gentiles collec tively shall
have come
have taken place, then
in,
and when that
all Israel will
be saved.
The conversion
of the Gentiles ensues
cessive stages
but when their
;
shall
by suc
totality shall be
converted, then the conversion of the Jews in their totality will ensue
;
so that Paul sees the
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
259
(which up to that epoch certainly also advances gradually in individual cases) ensuing, after the full conversion of the Gentiles, as the latter
event completing the assemblage of the Church
and
accomplishing itself, probably, in rapid development. All this, therefore, is before the
Parousia (personal coming), not by means of
The
it."
Robinson
italics are s
Turning to Dr. him defining
Meyer s.
Lexicon, we
find
pleroma (fullness), in his text, as titude of the
may
Gentiles."
But
lest
"
all
the
mul
Dr. Robinson
be considered obsolete, we turn to Cremer
s
Biblico-Theological Lexicon, 1878, fresh from the living totality
author.
His
the rendering is, or completeness of the Gentiles," under "
the same sub-heading of definitions as fullness of the all that
latest
G-od
God-head
is."
" "
the
sum
"the
total of
After this presentation of the
and most erudite researches into the
meaning
of this text, the challenge of the
Pro
produce one proof-text phetic Conference for the conversion of the entire world under to
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
260
the present dispensation, does not exhibit an
acquaintance with the best sacred scholarship of the age.
RESTITUTION OP ALL THINGS. Another
supposed beyond all dispute to contain an unanswerable proof of Chiliasm, is
Acts
iii.
text,
We
21.
of all things
"
is
are told that
"
the restitution
the renovation of the earth at
the second coming of Christ.
But how can
all
things be restored so long as the vast majority of the dead are in their graves during a thou
sand years ? The word in the restitution Greek is found nowhere else in the New Testa "
"
ment.
It
is,
therefore, of doubtful meaning.
But the cognate verb is used in Matt. xvii. 11 Elias shall first come and restore all tilings"
:
"
Christ declares that
But did he
"
Elias has already
come."
restore all things in the sense thrust
upon the derivative noun by millenarians ? John the Baptist as the forerunner of Christ fulfiled all things spoken concerning him by
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. the prophets.
Now
read Acts
plete
is
how
the sense and
with the next verse
how com
see
perfect the
Whom
"
:
21, substitut
iii.
and
ing fulfilment for restitution,
261
harmony must
the heaven
receive until the times of the fulfilment of all
things spoken of
by the mouth
of all his holy
prophets since the world began. For Moses Whatever is truly said unto the fathers," etc. the meaning of the word "restitution," the work must be completed before Christ comes,
not by His coming. times set in
which
:
Before the
things will
be restored,
Says Meyer all
Christ comes not from heaven.
the age to
Consequently
come cannot be meant; but
such times as
shall precede the
by the emergence that the
"
of
Parousia
which
shall
it
T
onl}
Parousia, and is
ensue."
conditioned "Christ
s
this is the reception into heaven continues until the moral corruption idea of the apostle
of the people of
God
is
removed, and the thor
ough renovation of all their relations have ensued." Even Bengel can find no
shall
foot-
262
ANTINOMJANISM REVIVED.
hold for millenarianism in this speech of Peter. Peter comprises the whole course of the times "
of the
New
of the
Lord and His Advent
Testament between the Ascension in glory, times in
which that apostolic age shines forth pre-emi nent (ver. 24), as also corresponding to the condition of the Church, which was to be con stituted of
Jonas says, received
Jews and Gentiles together. Christ
heaven,
that King,
is
reigning in
Justas
who has now
the
meantime
through the Gospel in the Spirit until all things be restored, i. e., until the remainder of the Jews and Gentiles be converted. gel seems to endorse
teaches that the world the Advent, and not
WHY Now
let
Jonas. is
by
"
Ben-
This certainly
to be converted before it.
CHKIST DELAYS His COMING. us turn to the third chapter of the
second epistle of Peter for a commentary on He gives in this his meaning in Acts iii. 21. chapter an answer to the scoffers
who
say,
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. "
Where "
ing ?
is
He
263
com
the (fulfiled) promise of His
then gives two reasons for Christ
s
coming to burn up the earth and the works therein, namely (1) The different con ception of time in the divine Mind, a thousand delay in
:
years being as one day
God
fering of
repentance. inference
is
;
and (2) the long-suf
in affording a further space for
From
this
irresistible
second
reason
that there will
the
be no
chance for repentance unto salvation after the Christ s advent. If this be so, what becomes of the theory that
He
will
come
to supersede
the dispensation of the Paraclete by the estab lishment of a dispensation in which Jews and
Gentiles will be converted in a wholesale
way ?
thousand people were perishing on an ocean steamer wrecked at the entrance of the If a
harbor of
New
York, and a small dory were at a time while a well-
rescuing two or three
equipped, life-saving government steamer was lying in sight of the wreck, could it be believed that the
commander delayed
to hasten to help
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
264
the unfortunate, through his excessive compas sion for
them?
This
is
the exact attitude of
Christ towards a perishing world according to millenarianism, purposing to institute a dispen sation lost
more favorable
the salvation of the
to
world, and delaying out
When we coming
ask
to set
salvation,
we
why
of pity
!
does Christ delay His
up a more
effective
scheme of
are told that this question
did not
God
is like
create the
the conundrum,
why
world sooner?
But Peter has answered our
question in a to powder.
way which
He
grinds millenarianism delays through a long-suffering
which implies that He will come, not to save, but to condemn not to set up a visible king dom on the earth, but to wind up His media ;
and deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father. This is what St. Paul avers torial reign
done at the second advent (1 Cor. xv. Also contrast John iii. 16, 17 ; xii. 23, 24). 2 Tliess. i. 6-10.. 47, with Matt. xxv. 31-46 will be
;
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
265
CONCLUSION. I
have discussed
duty the
my
to
general
this subject
fellow-Christians.
prevalence
would be disastrous
of
from a sense I
of
believe that
pre-millenialism
to the best interests of the
now being
spread over the earth by the joint agency of the Holy Spirit and consecrated believers. The command,
Kingdom
of Christ,
cannot be fully kept by any person whose theories belittle His effi ciency in the work of His office. Nor can any "
Grieve not the
man put
Spirit,"
forth his best endeavors
while dis
trusting the agency with which he co-works and looking for a superior one soon to appear.
Against
all
the disclaimers of diminished zeal
whole world, put forth by pessimists of the Second Advent for the evangelization of the
school, they fail to convince
me
that men,
how
ever good, will ever exert themselves to the
utmost to
prove themselves
false
prophets.
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
266
This
is
contrary to
highest
state
of
human
grace.
nature even in
Gen.
have failed to conquer Gen. Lee, lieved
it
impossible.
its
Grant would if
he had be