Love enthroned; essays on evangelical perfection

Preface

ANOTHER book on the higher Christian life ! Why should it be written ? For the same reason that I should preach another Gospel sermon. Why should you read it ? For the same reason that you should hear again " the old, old story of Jesus and his love." How strange it is that every one who receives full salvation gets hold of a pen as soon as he can, and blazons it abroad to all the world ! It is no more wonderful than the loosened tongue of the young convert. It argues the genuineness of the blessing found. The very fact that persons who hate hobbies become, when thus anointed of the Holy Ghost, men of one idea, and henceforth push this specialty with tongue and pen as if in the grasp of an all-absorbing passion, ought to demonstrate to doubters that there is here a great Gospel truth struggling to reveal itself to the Church. Reader, do not be afraid of the multiplication of books on advanced Christian experience. The light grain will drift off into the chaff, while the full corn will drop into the bushel and feed the famishing. It takes many men to explore a continent, many pens to portray the unsearchable riches of Christ. Believers could have been saved by one gospel — one photograph of the Nazarene. But God chose four evangelists to hold up to the Son of Man their mirrors, in order to reflect his bright image upon our dark world. Who shall be the limners of his great Successor, the blessed Comforter, but they in whom he abides, with whom he communes, and on whom he has wrought his transfiguration? The work of each of these spiritual artists may fix some wandering eye in a long and earnest gaze till transformed from glory to glory by the Spirit of God.

The venerable Bishop Janes, whose zeal for Christ, and abundant labors, are almost apostolic, in commending to the Christian public a book on this high theme by one now associated with him in the episcopal office, uses the following eloquent language : u Every man has his circle of influence. Each author on this subject will secure some readers that would not give attention to the writings of others. Here is a power for good that ought not to be Iost ; Verily, if there is any subject on which we need precept upon precept, and line upon line, the theme of this book is that subject. If there is any religious truth that should be urged upon the disciples of Jesus with the sweetness of his constraining love, and the solemnity of his Divine authority, it is the truth that Christians may and ought to be holy. O that tens of thousands of individuals, filled with its bliss, and inspired by its power, were telling of its charms, and inviting to its pursuit ! O that tens of thousands of spiritual limners, the Holy Ghost guiding their pencils, were actively and ceaselessly engaged in portraying the glories of this subject to the vision of the Church until every member of it, ravished by its beauties, and impelled by its attractions, would aspire to its attainment, by faith enter into its enjoyment, and then join in labors to spread it ! "

These considerations, together with the urgency of many friends — one of whom, from his office of bishop of the greatest of our American Churches, is enabled to give an accurate description of the wants of the Chris* tian public— have induced me to attempt a more permanent contribution to the literature of this high theme than can be attained through the medium of religious periodicals.

It is not the purpose of the author to bewilder his readers with pages of speculation, however strong the temptation may be, but to keep as near as possible to the teachings of the Scriptures, to his own experience, and to the testimony of others on whom the Holy Spirit has poured his illumination. It is the design of the writer, in true Pauline style, " To testify unto you the Gospel of the grace of God." He may not often use the pronoun in the first person singular. But he wishes it to be understood that his arguments have been forged on the anvil of his own experience. St. Paul's argumentative epistles are his experience expressed in logical form.

It is with much sorrow of heart that the writer confesses one unenviable similarity to the apostle to the Gentiles, in the fact that he now preaches that part of the Gospel which he once destroyed. Before his eyes were anointed he saw not, in the provisions of the atone-

Preface. *j

ment, the blessing of the fullness of Christ as a sharply defined transition in Christian experience — an instantaneous work of the Spirit by faith only, as taught by Wesley. Embracing the plausible theory of a gradual unfolding of the spiritual life without any sudden uplift by the power of the Spirit, he criticised, without the charity that is kind, the professors of this grace, magnifying their imperfections, stigmatizing them as fanatics and "pluperfects," and judging them all by an occasional glaring hypocrisy or by the extravagances of some unbalanced mind. Thus he ran into the shallow fallacy of those sinners who feast on the failings of the saints — ex uno disce omnes — who from one learn the character of all.

In unfolding his thoughts on this subject, the author has deemed it best to simply sketch the scheme of soteriology, or doctrine of salvation by Jesus Christ, and to elaborate only that which relates to the privileges of advanced believers. This will account for the apparent lack of symmetry in the treatment of the whole question of human salvation. Although the author has addressed special classes of his readers in the concluding chapters, he

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has not restrained himself from occasional exhortation in the process of his argument. Whenever the temperature rose to a white heat, he has thought it wise " to strike while the iron was hot." It may not forestall criticism to confess, in advance, to this violation of the strict rules of logical development. The purpose of the writer has not been so much to create for himself a high reputation as a dialectician, as to lead willing souls unto " the blessing of the fullness of Christ" by the shortest path. It is our devout prayer that these utterances of a soul filled with "joy unspeakable," and sometimes almost " intolerable,"* may contribute to the fulfilling of the Pauline petition, " That ye may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Dr. Payson thus beautifully illustrates the relation of various classes of Christians to Christ. He conceives them as ranged in concentric circles around the radiant form of our Immanuel: "Some value the presence of their Saviour so highly that they cannot bear to be at any remove from him. Even their work they will bring up, and do it in the light of

* " The Still Hour."— Prof, Phelps, his countenance, and while engaged in it will be seen constantly raising their eyes to him, as if fearful of losing one beam of his light. Others, who, to be sure, would not be content to live out of his presence, are yet less wholly absorbed by it than these, and may be seen a little further off, engaged here and there in their various callings, their eyes generally upon their work, but often looking up to the light which they love. A third class, beyond these, but yet within the life-giving rays, includes a doubtful multitude, many of whom are so much engaged in their worldly schemes that they may be seen standing sidewise to Christ, looking mostly the other way, and only now and then turning their faces toward the light."

To induce those who are in the second and third circles to yield to the drawings of the Son of God, and gladly enter into the inner circle, and ever abide in the joyful presence of the crucified Lamb of God, is the motive of the writer, who, amid his pastoral and pulpit labors, and the more exhausting studies in preparing a commentary on a portion of the Pentateuch, has found refreshment in setting io Preface

up along the path of his own experience a few guide-boards for the benefit of those who may wish to walk in the same path. The writer cannot dismiss his book without invoking upon his readers the Pauline blessing, as translated by Bishop Ellicott, " Abstain from every form of evil. But may the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly ; and may your spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved entire, without blame, in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it."

DEFINITIONS.

Much controversy on the subject of Christian Perfection has arisen from the use of terms having various meanings. It is our purpose to notify the reader whenever we pass from one signification of a term to another.

I. Holy, i) Set apart to the service of God. Applied to persons and things.

2) Morally pure, free from all stain of sin. Persons.

3) In the New Testament the original Greek word is used technically to designate all justified believers, and is translated by the word " saints " or holy ones.

Preface. ii

2. Holiness. The state of. i) Consecration to God.

2) Moral purity.

3. Sanctify, i) To hallow, to consecrate to religious

uses. u I sanctify myself." — Jesus.

2) To make pure, to cleanse from moral defilement. "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly." — St. Paul.

3) Sanctified — In the New Testament used technicially to designate the justified.

4. Sanctification. Holiness : the act of making holy.

5. The Moral Law. i) Unwritten ; the sense of moral

obligation felt within. 2) Written ; the Decalogue, with its (1) Prohibitions ; (2) Precepts. Also the two tables, prescribing (1) Duties to God ; (2) Duties to man.

6. SlN. i) Actual. A willful transgression of the known

law of God. Sin of commission, disobedience to a prohibition. Sin of omission, neglect of a precept. " Sin is the transgression of the law." — St. John.

Sin, (2) Original or inbred — often without any adjective, and always in the singular number — a state, not an act. Native corruption of the moral nature derived from Adam's apostasy. A lack of conformity to the moral law. Under the remedial dispensation it involves no guilt till approved by the free agent and its remedy is rejected. It is intensified by acts of sin of which it is the source. "All unrighteousness is sin."— St John.

7. Perfection. As applied to man. 1) Legal or Adam* ic. Entire conformity to the moral law* " I have seen an end of all perfection, (for) thy law is exceeding broad." — David.

2) Celestial. The complete restoration of both soul and body in the glorified state after the resurrection. " Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect." — St. Paul.

3) Ideal or Absolute. The combination of all conceivable excellences in the highest degree. Ascribed only to God, and not to beings capable of endless progress. " I am perfect." — God. " If I say I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse." -Job.

4) Evangelical or Christian, The loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves, with the complete exclusion of every feeling contrary to pure love. " Love is the fulfilling of the law." — St. Paul. " The bond of perfectness ;" the sum total of the virtues. — St. Paul translated by Bengel. " There is a twofold perfection, the perfection of the work, and that of the workman." — -Bishop Hopkins. The former is legal, the latter is evangelical perfection, which is nothing but inward sincerity, and uprightness of heart toward God ; although there may be many irr perfections and defects intermingled.

Contents

OttAPTM PABB

I. Love Revealed - 15

II. Love Militant . 22

Chapter I. Love Revealed

\ X THAT a mystery is love! We cannot * * define it ; we can only indicate it by describing the occasion on which it arises in the soul. If human love is inexplicable, Divine love is an ocean too deep for the plummet of man or archangel; too broad to be bounded by the thought of the loftiest intelligence in the universe. He who knows not in his inmost consciousness the love of God, will find this book sealed to his understanding. It can only be unlocked by the key of experience. Love is not a product of the reason. It is the free play of the spiritual sensibilities in the possession of its object. God is not only love, but he is love revealed. The perfect love of God toward man is designed to call forth perfect love toward God in man's bosom. Though the mirror on which that love is reflected is broken into uneven planes and reflects a distorted image, — though the human soul at its best earthly estate under grace is shattered by infirmities and incurable imperfections, — yet the love which man cherishes toward God may flow with all the united force of his being. The history of God's intercourse with men is the chronicle of his love. This is the only history which will outlive time itself, and escape the conflagration which will burn up the world and all the works therein. This will be our text-book forever. We can contemplate no more sublime and ennobling theme. The brightness of the material universe pales before the splendors of the Divine character — that central fire which kindles the souls of seraphs in heaven and melts the hearts of sinners on earth. Thus is the science of the divine Heart infinitely above the science of the almighty Hand.

In love revealed there are ceaseless wonders. Our surprise is ever new when we discover that God so loves our entire race that he gave his well-beloved Son to the humiliation of the manger, the mockery of Gabbatha,

Love Revealed. if

the agonies of Gethsemane, and the ignominy of Calvary. But this was but the beginning of his beneficence. Since the Son of God has gone up to be glorified and worshiped by all the celestial orders, the loving Father has bestowed an abiding gift, the Holy Spirit, to whisper in the ear of spiritual death the words of life, to pardon penitence, and fully restore the lost image of God. The greatest marvels of the gospel scheme are not in the facts of Christ's earthly life, death, and resurrection, but in the wondrous transformation wrought by the Holy Spirit in the soul of the believer who apprehends the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe. A less surprise is the fact that the eternal Logos should inseparably unite himself with a spotless human body and soul than that the Holy Spirit, co-equal with the Father and the Son, should first completely cleanse a polluted man, and then change his heart from a " cage of unclean birds " into " a holy temple " and make it the habitation of God. This is a mystery of mysteries with all who have experienced the love of God perfectly shed abroad in their hearts.

The age of miracles is not past. Jesus changed unresisting water into wine, but the Holy Ghost transfigures the sinful soul bristling with antagonisms, transforming depravity to purity by the mighty alchemy of love. The power to effect such revolutions in character constitutes the standing miracle of Christianity. " Instead of the thorn shall come up the firtree" — tenderness instead of cruelty — " instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree " — the gentle graces instead of stinging hatreds — " and it shall be to the Lord for a name," indicating his nature, and " for an everlasting sign, that shall not be cut off." The Holy Ghost, holding up to the gaze of the world specimens of his sanctifying power in the form of purified characters and inspired activities for Christ, is the ceaseless miracle-worker attesting Christian truth in an age of intense materialism, selfishness, and unbelief.

God has begun to save every human soul. He has already saved the entire race from the extinction threatened in the instantaneous execution of the death penalty upon Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden in the moment of their first transgression. The remedial dispensation began with the promise that the Seed

Love Revealed, 19

of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. The children of the pair banished from Eden, and fallen from their high estate, are born in the likeness of their sinful parents, with tremendous proclivities toward sin in the strength of their passions and the bent of their wills. Yet they come into being under the dispensation of mercy. They have a gracious ability to repent. They are saved from that complete moral inability which paralyses the will of the fallen angels in the direction of obedience to the moral law. This ability to resist the downward tendency of their nature, and to turn from sin, is, through the influences of the Holy Spirit, procured by Jesus Christ for all the race. " He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment/' Through the atonement every soul is in a salvable state. By assenting to the facts and truths of the Gospel, and by relying solely on its Author, every penitent sinner may be saved from the guilt of sin. If any one fails to submit to the Divine plan of salvation, the merciful purpose of God is defeated, and the initial salvation never becomes actual and final. Through an abuse of the godlike attribute of freedom man may withstand all the suasives of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and create for himself a destiny of endless sorrow. The human will is an independent fountain of causation, itself uncaused in all its moral volitions. " Whatever the good man is, he is through God and his own will ; the evil man, however, is so only through his own will, for evil is falling away from God." Hence the following theological axiom of Fletcher : " All damnation flows from man, all salvation flows from God." He saves all that he can without a violation of the sacred prerogative of freedom. " Turn ye, turn ye — why will ye die ? " Thus love is revealed as dominant over this world ; not a fondling sentimentalism, but a holy principle, ever acting in accordance with wisdom and justice ; saving the penitent, persevering believer, and consuming with flaming fire all who, by incorrigible disobedience, thrust from themselves the cover of the atoning blood.

The extent of this conquest of love over the believing soul in the present world, is a theme which has elicited intense interest through all the Christian ages. At times the grace of God has been magnified, and many

Love Revealed. 21

have proved that he can do " exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think ;" while at other times this great Christian privilege of evangelical perfection, or perfect love, has gone into an eclipse, partial or total, and the Church has groped in the darkness, benumbed by the chilling cold.

Chapter II. Love Militant

SO long as sin is in the world love must make war against it. Jesus came forth from the bosom of the Father's love to send a sword upon the earth. The cross is a center of forces hostile to sin. The sinful soul is a fortress filled with armed enemies to Immanuel. The successive approaches of love to its conquest and complete possession are —

I. The offer of pardon through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.

Justification, or the pardon of sin through faith in Jesus Christ, is an act which takes place in the mind of the Moral Governor of the universe, whereby he removes guilt, or severs the link between sin and punishment, and accounts the penitent believer in Christ as if he had never sinned. It does not change the nature from wicked to just, as its Latin etymology— -Justus and facia — would signify. It is a work wrought for the soul, and wholly external to it, and is by faith only. No member of the human family, Jesus excepted, can successfully plead that he has perfectly kept the law of God, and is in consequence of his good works worthy of His approval. " By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified." From making this plea " every mouth is stopped." We are in no sense of the term acquitted. We are, after conviction and condemnation, pardoned through executive clemency, induced by the mediation of the Son of God.

But a pardoned criminal is not necessarily a good citizen. Pardon has changed his relation to the law, but not his hostility toward the governor. A change must take place within him. He must be reconstructed. We now come to the second step in the conquest of the soul by love divine.

2. Regeneration, or the New Birth, is a change wrought within the soul by the power of the Holy Ghost, creating within the soul a new spiritual life, a life of loyalty and love.

By nature men are the children of wrath. They are spiritually dead. The faith faculty exists, but is in a paralysis so far as spiritual objects are concerned. The divine life begins with the seed of God implanted in the soul. This is the new principle of love. " For the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost." The phrase " love of God " may signify either God's love to me or my love to God. In this quotation it has the former meaning. The Scriptures teach us that God is love. But this is not enough to give me assurance of his favor so long as I read that he is angry with the wicked every day. Therefore, so long as I have a tormenting sense of guilt, I must be filled with painful forebodings till I have a positive and personal assurance that I am taken out of the class of the condemned, and am reconciled to God, who loves me, even me. This is the witness of the Spirit, the third advance toward the complete conquest. He is styled the Spirit of Adoption, because as such his chief message is to attest to the believer his pardon and sonship. When this glad evangel resounds within, love to God springs up responsive to his great love to me. This is a new motive power. It reinforces the ethical feeling, the sense of obligation to right action. The bare perception of right, with no strong impulse toward it, while the appetites and passions are drawing in the opposite direction, constitutes the painful warfare between the flesh and the spirit, entailing upon the latter the sense of degrading bondage.

44 1 see the right, and I approve it too ; I see the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue. '

But this new motive makes it easy to obey the law, because we love the Lawgiver. Hence love is the fulfilling of the law ; not as a substitute for keeping the precepts and abstaining from the prohibitions of the moral law, but as an inspiration of the very spirit of obedience. But this new principle is spoken of by St. John as only a^seed when first implanted. It implies future germination, growth, and fruitage. It is to spread its branches till it fills the heart, and by absorbing all the fertility of the soil, and by completely overshadowing all other plants, destroys their life. Till this maturity of the seed, the moral condition of the heart will be mixed ; good and evil will struggle for the ascendency. Nevertheless, if faith in Christ — the weapon of victory — continues, the actions will be right, though the result of painful effort to keep the moribund evil within from breaking out into manifestation. For manifestation is the tendency of every principle. After the maturity of love, the Divine seed, all its antagonists will be excluded. Evil will still be presented to the choice, but from no foothold within. Perfect love will cast out, not only fear, but all the hateful progeny of depravity. This is entire sanctification. It began with the seed-grain of holiness sown in regeneration.

There is no new principle involved. The oak is only the acorn unfolded. Yet regeneration, completed in sanctification, is not the highest up-reaching of the Divine life in the soul. It is only the beginning of its wholeness. All the forces of the soul, for the first time, move Godward. "Unite my heart," says the Psalmist, " to fear thy name." He prayed for perfection in Divine love, when every warring foe shall be removed and all the powers be subsidized for the service of God. Up to this point the old nature, though dying, has lingered and mingled with the new. Dying unto sin and living unto God have co-existed. The destructive and the reconstructive processes have gone on side by side. There is an absolute end to the former when there is nothing more to be destroyed : there is no end to the latter. The negative work must of necessity end when sin is dead ; the positive work of spiritual adornment, strength, and growth, must go on so long as the soul is capable of advancement.

It becomes necessary at this point to indicate the salient points of difference between the new birth and that maturity of Christian character which St. Paul denominates the " measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

The relation of regeneration to entire sanctification is that of a part to a whole. There are other specific differences.

1.) In the state of mind preceding each. In the one case the eye is fixed on the past sins, and a sense of guilt and repentance fills the bitter cup ; in the other, the soul looks inward upon itself, and self-abhorrence for the unlovely qualities disclosed to the anointed eye is the dominant feeling, without, however, a sense of Divine wrath.

2.) In the object for which the soul strives— pardon in the first case, and purity in the second.

3.) In the manner of attaining these blessings. Both are by faith; but the penitent sinner lays hold of Jesus dying on the cross, while the regenerated aspirant after a clean heart more distinctly apprehends Jesus living on the throne. The one thinks of his mercy, the other of his almightiness. There is a difference in the submission of the will. The sinner, thinking chiefly of his own salvation, surrenders, grounding his weapons like a conquered rebel. The regenerate soul, like a patriot seeking the salvation of his country, gladly pours all his possessions into the treasury, a free-will offering, and counts it a privilege to enlist, soul and body, in the army. The one cries, "God be merciful to me a sinner ;" the other prays, "Father, glorify thyself in me." The consecration of the latter is far more intelligent, deliberate, and in detail, because of his superior self-knowledge under the illumination of the Holy Spirit. His eager cry is,

"Welcome, welcome, dear Redeemer, Welcome to this heart of mine.

Lord, I make a full surrender,

Every thought and power be thine,

Thine entirely, through eternal ages thine."

4.) But the greatest difference is in the blessings received. Regeneration is a great and glorious change. It is the beginning of the new life. The regenerate man is a new creature in Christ Jesus. To him all things have become new. New heavens are above, and a new earth is beneath. He has been translated out of darkness into a marvelous light. The angel of mercy has descended and rolled away the stone from the sepulcher, and the dead soul has come forth. The great Emancipator has descended to the prison-door with the trump of jubilee at his lips and the key of deliverance in his right hand. Regeneration is a wonderful change — a new creation, an emergence out of darkness — a manumission from the most abject slavery, a resurrection from the dead. Yea, more than all this. By adoption he becomes a son of God, an heir, a joint heir with Christ. Like Joseph, he goes from the prison to the throne. Yet like Joseph, he is still in Egypt. A wilderness intervenes between him and the Land of Promise. Toward that Canaan he turns a wistful eye, for to him it is

11 A land of corn, an d wine, and oil, Favored with God's peculiar smile, With every blessing blessed."

He longs for that rest, and looks for the Joshua who shall lead him in, conquer his foes, and allot him his portion on the mountain of God. The justified state, glorious though it be, is eclipsed by the outbeaming splendors of a more excellent glory yet unattained. There is a sense of vacuity still in the soul, and a feeling that there is an attainable fullness in Christ correlated to this felt want. As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so pants

this unfilled soul after God. Unrest, hungerings and thirstings after righteousness, gratitude for the stream, and a longing to follow it up to the fountain, characterize the justified state. The marvelous light sometimes fades away into twilight ; clouds often overcast the sky; and there are times when neither sun nor stars appear. O for an abode on some mountain summit, which lifts its head above the clouds into the eternal sunshine ! a dwelling-place in the land of Beulah, where the sun shines day and night all the year round !