The Gospel Restored: A Discourse of the True Gospel of Jesus Christ

Preface

Tlio professors of our holv religion having unhappily strayed from the scriptures and true Christianity, there seemed to be no remedy in any thing but a return to original ground. This suggested itself to many, in different places, almost simultaneously, about the beginning of the present conturv, and numerous churches were formed about that time, both in Europe and America, resembling, more or leSb, the churches planted by the Apostles, or the church of Jerusalem instituted by the Lord Jesus himself.

These churches, with few exceptions, adopted the holy scriputres as their exclusive guide in religion, and rejected the dangerous creeds and confessions of Christendom, which have operated so fatally on tho unity of the church. This formed the first positive step towards that return to original ground, for which the present century is distinguished.

In 1823 a plea fora particular ecclesiastical order was put forth publicly, by Brother Alexander Campbell. Thisfor distinction's sake was called the ancient order. Others had, before this time, taken the scriptures alone; but this maslcr-stroke gave a fresh impulse to religious inquiry, and, by asingleexprcssion, ‘‘Ancient Order, "limited that inquiry to a very important branch of our religion as a first step.

Presiding, at that time, over a church which had already attained the ancient order, oral least as much of it as seems even now to be attained, the guspcl, or rather a uniform authoritative plan of preaching it, became more the object cf my attention, as may be seen from a few cssavs published in the C. Baptist, cut short, however, by the then limited knowledge of the extraordinary topic which had been selected ; in 1827 tho True Gospel was restored. For distinction's sake it was styled the Ancient Gospel.

The present century, then, is characterized by these three successive steps, which the loversof our Lord Jesus have been enabled to make, in tbeir return to the original institution. First the Bible was adopted

Entered according to act of Congren, in the year 1836, BY WALTER SCOTT,

In the Clerk's Office for the District Coon of Otife.

Printed by Ormeby ft. Donogh, N. W. comer of Coon and Main Cincinnati.

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PREFACE.

* . as sole authority in qfir assemblies, to the exclusioo of all other books. Nextthe Apostolic order was proposed. Finally the True Goepel was restored.

The above very general notice of the progress and order of the present reformation, is deemed sufficient to make the reader feel whither it is wc desire tobring him by this discourse, namely, to the gospel ; and not to a plea for any particular order, or to any discussion of the previous question concerning the supreme and exclusive authority of the holy scriptures.

A volume of unbroken discourse of the true gospel is< still a. desideratum. Since 1827, it has floated through our periodicals in essays and fragments of essays very unlike the living orations in which it was then set forth to the public for, acceptance Those are scattered over a wide field, and necessarily apart from each other; so that when a disciple would iuvite a friend, or fellow professor, or relative, to a perusal ofwliat has been learned and written of the gospel since that time, lie must needs invite him to the review of numerous volumes, n task by no means acceptable to readers in general.

In the tenth number of the Millenial Harbinger, for 1831, the restoration of the true goepel is referred to, in the following manner: “Brother Walter Scott, who, in the fall of 1827, arranged the several items of faith, repentance, baptism, remission of sins, the Holy Spirit, and eternal life, restored them in this order to the church, under the title of ancient gospel, and preached it successfully to the world — has written a discourse, 1 ’ die. In the Evangelist for 1832 the following paragraph,

• of the connection between the above elements and sin which they are intended to destroy, occurs. “In rcgnrd to sinners and sin, six things are to htTconsidercd — the lovo of it, the practice of it, the state ofit,tbcguiltofit,thepowerofit,and the punishment of it. The first three relate to the sinner; the last three to sin. Now faith, repentance, and liaptism, refer to the first three, the love, and practice, and state of sin; while remission, the Holy Spirit, and the resurrection relate to the last three, the guilt, and power, and punishment of sin. In other words, brethren, to make us see the beauty and perfection of the goapcl theory as devised by God; faith is to destroy the love of sin, repentance to destroy the practice of it, baptism the state of it, remission the guilt of it, the Spirit the power of it, and the resurrection to destroy the punishment of sin; so that the last enemy, death, will be destroyed.”

On the original arrangement of the elements of the gospel then and on the analysis of sin contained in the preceding paragraph, the

A DISCOURSE OF THE TRUE GOSPEL.

SEOTIOlf FTBBT. — nCTBOPUOTOKT.

The Fall of Our First Parents and their Expulsion from Paradise Considered.

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Chap. 1

The fall of man, and his recovery by Jesus Christ our Lord form a great drama, of which God is the author. The chief personage is the Messiah, and his mighty and subtle antagonist is an archangel in arms. The parties arc demons and angels, the theatre is the universe, the stage the world, and its government the subject in debate. The plot lies in bringing good out of evil • happiness out of misery, almighty power from feminine weakness, light out of darkness, glory from the grave. The catastrophe consists of the seizure and perdition of the traitor angel with all his powers, and of the final triumph of the son of mat. with all his saints.

On this system of things, characterized by such splendid points and splendid personages, enriched by such an endless variety of under-plot and interlude, and played olf on a stage boundless as die great globe itself, observations and reflections uninteresting would supercede apology, for they would adr.iit of none. If. therefore, the present discourse has faults, and who can doubt it. they arc to be attributed to the writer and not to his subject.— He confesses it, they arc to be attributed to die writer.

CHAP. II. Of the Three States of Man

The Scriptures describe man as having existed in three states, a natural, a preternatural state, and a state of respite.

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The first is describe/ as good, the second as evil, and the third as partaking of both good and eviL The good is that in which man existed before the fall; the evil, that into which he was plunged by the fall; and the state of respite is that in which he now exists. — —

The first was a natural state, because it was that in which he was created; and we style it the good, because it is so denominated in the scriptures, — thus, And God saw ever}- thing that he had made, and behold it was very good.

The preternatural state is so named, because it lay beyond man's natural condition, and because in it every thing, guilt, condemnation, -sliqine, fear, death, was wholly ulterior to his nature. We designate it the evil state, because all its points arc evil ;md only evil.

The state of respite is so named, because in it man is vouchsafed a respite for life, the present life. It is of a mixed nature partaking of both good and evil; it is inferior to the first or natural state, and superior to the second or preternatural state; it possesses neither the goods of the former, nor the evils of the latter; it is a condition in which man my cither improve, or abuse, the life which has been lent him by his good, and wise, and all-benevolent Creator. Revealed religion is the means by which he may improve life, and become what God would have him to be; and to contemn or reject this, is to insult God and abuse the life w hich he has lent us.

The first and the last of these states arc of God. and on tliat account they may be styled divine. In the former man was admitted to personal and sensible intercourse with his Creator; in the latter this is denied him; in this, faith is substituted for knowledge; and in it, of man, when he has reached his highest attainment, it can only be said, he walks “as if seeing him that is invisible." The second state originated with Satan, and may, therefore, well be styled the state of evil.

But let us inquire more particularly into the history of man in these three states. We shall begin with the first or natural, in which every thing was pronounced, by the Creator, to be very good.

THE GOSPEL RESTORED.

CHAP. III. Of the First State in General

The great points, or prominent features in this original constitution of things, are our first parents themselves, their pfcculiar privileges, their innocence, their capacity for knowledge, duty, and happiness, their trial, and temptation, their fall, and expulsion, and the time they continued in Paradise. Though their temptation, fall, and expulsion may be deemed by the reader to belong more properly to the state of evil inasmuch as they were of Satan rather than of God. But the state of the case 1 is this, they were tempted by Satin, they fell of themselves, and were expelled by God. The good and evil states seem here to run into each other; for the temptation, which was an evil, occurred in the good state, while the expulsion, which was a real good, took place in the evil state, the fall being the point at which both states in reality touched one another.

I • CHAP. IV.

Of the superiority of the Religion Principle of the Fir't State.

Man's mental acquisitions by his own experience is called knowledge, his acquisitions by the experience of others is styled faith, tlie total of his acquisitions, therefore, consists of knowledge and faith. \V hat man knew ot the existence of the Deity in his natural state, was knowledge; in the present state of respite.it is faith.

Faith may be increased indefinitely without being exalted to know ledge. A man may vouch to me the existence of an object, and his testimony may be confirmed by tliat of two, or two thousand more; and this, again, by that of an indefinite number of other witnesses; still my belief, however strengthened, is not exalted to knowledge; I am still compelled in the case to trust to the experience of others; and till 1 have a sensible experience of my own, of the existence ofThc object in question, mv acquisition is not knowledge but faith. This continuous and idefinitc approach of faith to knowledge, appears a little paradoxical:

but it is certainly no less obvious than that in Mathematics one line may be made to approach another forever without the possibility of touching it. And this is absolutely true. It is so with knowledge and faith, which, however near they! approach each other, arc, notwithstanding, never the same.

In this point of -view the revealed religion of the present state is inferior to the order of things in man’s primitive condition, in which he was, on account of his innocence, admitted to sensible communion with' the Deity. But this defectiveness in the principle of our religion, is to be done away at the return of the Messiah, when the pure in heart shall be permitted again to see God, and man once more be honoured with face to face intercourse with his Creator. '

It was, therefore, a distinguished and exalted privilege of the natural state of man, that in it he was admitted to sensible communion with his Maker. The divine existence was, therefore, not a matter of faith to him, as it is to men now. — He enjoyed a sensible proof of this, the grand fundamental of all religion. " e possess this only as faith. When, therefore, man fell from his natural condition, knowledge yielded to faith, and a state of things, in which man knew there was a God, was bartered away for that out of which he could be delivered only by the principle of believing that there is a God. Instead of enjoying his own experience on this point, he has now to trust to the experience of others, that is, he has to depend on particular revelations granted through the ministrations of particulacmen, as Adam, Enoch, Noah, Ahrnhnm, Moses, David, Isaiah, Daniel. Malachi, John the Baptist, and Our Lord and Saviour, who declares, that he had seen the Father. * Meanwhile, faith is the only remaining organ of communion with God, found in the constitution of man ; anti hence the propriety of that saying of the Apostle. “Without faith it is impossible to please God; r because besides this, there is in us no other foundation for either knowledge or duty in relation to the Deity.

It is worthy of observation, that, in harmony with the preceding remarks, the scriptures never speak of Adam's faith. Samuel, and David, and Sampson, and Gideon, and Jeptha, and

• John, 6 Chap, 40 t.

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THE GOSPEL RESTORED. ft

Moses, and Joseph, ^nd Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham, and Noah, and Enoch, and even Abel, Adam’s son, are all celebrated in scripture for their faith, and for their noble deeds of righteoustl new rendcrcd to God 00 ^ principle ; but here the chain ends, or rather begins; and Adam who enjoyed knowledge of the

dime existence, is, in regard to faith, passed over in profound

silence.