So a learned professor of divinity entitles a sermon on John 3:3636He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:36), preached toward the close of last year. There is this inconvenience in noticing it that one does not, cannot, sympathize with the preachers objected to. What can be more offensive or dangerous than crying up grace without righteousness, faith without repentance, pardon without life? The professor may be assured that there are those who, preaching salvation as an actual state, hold also quite as firmly as himself the importance of salvation as a future thing. But they deny that the formularies he seeks to justify express the truth as it is revealed.
It is rather unhappy however that Professor Salmon's second paragraph, the opening of the case, exhibits reasoning and criticism far from exceptionable. For no intelligent Christian doubts that the New Testament speaks of salvation in these two senses, present or future, not to speak of others. But there is neither confusion of the two, nor uncertainty how each is used. In general the line of truth pursued by an inspired writer in a particular book excludes one or other, though there are subjects, and hence books containing them, which admit of both; but in no case is there vagueness for a mind imbued with revealed truth. Thus in Ephesians salvation is viewed exclusively as a thing complete and now enjoyed by the Christian; in Hebrews it is regarded as going on and only consummated in resurrection-glory when Christ appears to those that look for Him. Does Dr. S. make this distinction? or the Prayer-book?
Now I repudiate animosity against the Anglican formularies. My grounds of objection lie far deeper than questions as to any words or forms employed in the Book of Common Prayer; and I am wholly apart from every effort to overthrow the National Establishment in England any more than in Ireland, regarding politics as at best beneath a Christian, and these changes as playing into the hands of infidels or papists, though most of the godly dissenters seem to be beguiled into them.
But in plain straightforwardness it seems indisputable that the petitions, “Ο God, make speed to save us,” “Ο Lord, save thy people,” “Show thy mercy upon us, and grant us thy salvation,” are drawn from the Old Testament, and express the hopes of Israel before the work of redemption and the distinctions it maintains could even exist. The want of seeing this has involved the Reformers, not to speak of the Fathers, and the medieval writers, in great darkness. Has Dr. 9. emerged into light, as far as this momentous matter is concerned any more than his predecessors or his neighbors?
Till Christ died and rose and went to heaven, it could not be said of any, as in Eph. 2:4-104But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:4‑10), “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith be loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved): and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
Nor could Isaiah or Malachi have said of the Jew, as Paul (2 Tim. 1) of Christians, that God “hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought light and immortality [incorruption] to light through the gospel.” So the same apostle adds to Titus, “according to his mercy he saved by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.”
In the Psalms and the Prophets we hear the Holy Ghost, as the Spirit of prophecy, stimulating and guiding the cry of the saints of old before the cross of Christ. It could not be otherwise. They were petitions in due season. To have spoken as Paul did later would have been presumptuous and false. The basis was not yet laid, the Savior not even come. To adopt the language as to this of David or Jeremiah now is ignorance and unbelief; for it is to blot out the infinite work of the Son of God, it is to slight the witness the Spirit of grace is now rendering to its value in God's sight—its efficacy as a present fact for the believer, who cannot worship as he ought unless he know and enjoy it.
It is not only want of knowledge to confound distinctions so momentous, which the accomplishment of atonement has necessarily brought in; but I ask, Is it really meant that we are saved and not saved in the same sense? If this be rejected as absurd, the question is, Do the Anglican formularies, does Dr. S., truly draw the distinction according to the New Testament? I should rejoice to believe that they did: but both appear to be self-evidently at fault here. Dr. S. seeks to justify the Prayer-book's use of these petitions on the ground that they are the words of scripture found in the Psalms. This justification is the best proof that, as the framers of the prayers did not know the real difference introduced by redemption in Christ, so neither has Dr. S. learned it to this day. Indeed it is the lamentable state of Christendom generally. They are like the virgins who, instead of going out to meet the bridegroom, have gone in somewhere to slumber; instead of going forth to Christ bearing His reproach, they go or keep within the camp. Scripture accurately employs the term “save” or “salvation,” for soul and for body, for past, present, and future; the Prayer-book comprises all together, so as to impair if not destroy the peace and joy of believers, leading them to perplexity and producing false hopes in unbelievers: the former never receiving the true, simple, constant fact of salvation, while waiting for its complement at Christ's coming; the others using the same language for their condition, fearing yet hoping, without any adequate sense of utter present ruin, divinely given faith in Christ.
Dr. S. cites Acts 15:1111But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. (Acts 15:11), 1 Thess. 5:88But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. (1 Thessalonians 5:8), Rom. 8:2424For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? (Romans 8:24) (ἐσώθημεν, a curious text for a scholar and divine to cite for future salvation) and Rom. 5:9, 109Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. (Romans 5:9‑10). I will give him another from the same Epistle (13:11, 12), which may help the reader to understand these all the better: “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” Now I ask him or any other competent man: Is it just to mix up New Testament texts which speak of salvation in glory by-and-by (which no Christian questions), with the use men have made of Old Testament passages which merge soul and body together, as all must have done till Christ died for our sins while not yet come to raise or change us? Is it not increasingly plain that Dr. S. defends the liturgy because he is himself in a confusion akin to that of its compilers? He is not entitled to say as he does, “I will not delay to examine the correctness of a theory, according to which the Christian Church has been wrong from its first foundation to the present day, in supposing that whether in its public worship or in the private devotions of generation after generation of its most saintly members, it could find in the Psalms of David adequate expression for its deepest feelings.” (Page 5.) “Wrong from its first foundation!” nay, but since the enemy contrived to Judaize it.
Nor do I think that any Romanist need ask more than Dr. S. here concedes, to land alike episcopalians and presbyterians in the darkness of his own superstition; being fully assured that such a use or rather abuse of the Psalms of David, as the “adequate expression for the deepest feelings” of the church or the Christian, if not derived from Romanism, is traceable to that scarcely better catholic system which preceded the ambitious politics of the papacy. Not one clause in one psalm, I am bold to affirm, expresses the proper and peculiar feelings of the Christian or of the church. There is not one cry of Abba Father; not a hint of drawing within the veil; not an unequivocal expression of membership of Christ; still less of the distinctive love of Christ for the church as His body for which He gave Himself.
Further, I maintain that the Psalms abound with expressions just and proper for Israel of old, and for Israel in the last days, but utterly incongruous and unsuited and improper on any fair interpretation for the Christian or the church ever since its first foundation till now. Does Dr. S. soberly pray that our foot may be dipped in the blood of our enemies, and the tongue of our dogs in the same? Is it the “deepest feeling” of the Christian that God should persecute our enemies with His tempest, that they should be confounded and troubled forever, yea, perish? Would he be happy to take and dash, the little ones of Babylon against the stones?
Not for a moment are those expressions impugned in themselves. They are righteous altogether; and they will express the feelings of the Jewish saints adequately in that day when Jehovah is Himself judging the earth and the quick upon it. But now God is showing the riches of grace and longsuffering, not yet judging the habitable world in righteousness; and we are called to speak to ourselves and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, that is, not in the Psalms, but in Christian compositions of these various characters; as indeed believers are constantly found to do so, and did from the first.
But an opening criticism of Dr. S. was referred to, which must now be noticed. Speaking of the Prayer-book, he says, “It contains the prayer, ‘O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, grant us Thy peace,' whereas it is said [by the preachers he is chastising], Paul teaches us, that being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now it is clear that, if the Prayer-book mean the same peace, it is at issue with Rom. 5, and indeed the general teaching of the New Testament. Does Dr. S. seriously deny that the Epistles contemplate the Christian as having peace with God? Can he say that the Prayer-book does?
I only notice by the way the fact that the liturgies of Rome and England misquote scripture gravely in their reference to John 1:2929The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. (John 1:29), which speaks of” sin,” not sins; and the difference of force is great to anyone familiar with God's word: so great that, while the Gospel expresses perfect truth, the Anglican or other misquotations would imply, if true, that there was nothing more against the world, its sins being gone. Logically they would infer the destructive lie of universalism.
Another point notable is the following: “I may remark in passing that this very text (Rom. 5:11Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (Romans 5:1)), which is one of the main pillars of the system of doctrine which I am considering, is now given by the principal critical editors, in the form, ‘Let us have peace,' according to which reading the text changes sides, and makes Paul guilty of the same error which is reprehended in our church, namely, exhorting his converts to a peace which they had already. I mention this various reading, not that I myself prefer the altered reading, but as the immense preponderance of ancient witnesses, whether manuscripts or early citations, is in favor of it, the example shows how very precarious is the deduction of a doctrine from a single text,” &c. (Page 4.) Does it not show ratio! how precarious is Dr. S.'s critical judgment? For the question between ο and ω is precisely one of that class as to which the ancient manuscripts are least reliable. “Whether we can best account for their frequent lapses in the interchange of these letters by ignorant copyists deceived by the ear may be a question; but the fact that the most ancient and best cannot be depended on in such cases is certain. Compare 1 Cor. 15:4949And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. (1 Corinthians 15:49), Heb. 12:2828Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: (Hebrews 12:28). This explains why the reading of several of the oldest MSS. may be merely a clerical blunder. If Tischendorf is gone over to ἕχωμεν with the uncorrected text of the Sinai, with Vat., Alex., &c, Lachmann abandoned it for ἕχομεν in his maturer edition. There is no deficiency whatever in external authority, for the majority of uncials, and cursives, supports ἕχομεν. The criterion for a spiritual mind under such circumstances is the bearing of the context: and, if so, I have not a doubt that this reading and not ἕχωμεν is required by the scope of the verse and the argument generally. But the odd thing is that Dr. S. himself accepts the reading ἕχομεν, “we have.” If so on solid grounds, why is it precarious to use it? If he have no solid grounds, why “prefer” it?
It is not contended then by any man sound or instructed in the faith, that it is improper to speak of salvation as a future thing. But future salvation in scripture is the close of present temptation, up to the redemption of the body at Christ's coming again. Does this justify the unbelief which overspreads the confessions and theologians of Christendom in their attenuation of that which grace has already given the Christian? or the effort to cover over this consequent ignorance of our actual privileges in Christ, prevalent not merely among the greater national systems but among dissenters generally? An appeal to the Psalms of David seems to be a plain and conclusive proof that this charge is just: where Christ's light is enjoyed, who could doubt it? Again, to cite 2 Thess. 3:1616Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all. (2 Thessalonians 3:16), or Rom. 15:1313Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. (Romans 15:13), does not warrant Christians in asking for peace in the sense of Rom. 5:11Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (Romans 5:1), which they are supposed to have already. Distinguish the nature of the peace, and the argument is powerless; for it assumes the identity of what is quite distinct. Peace with God founded on our soul's submission to His righteousness in Christ is a wholly different thing from practical peace in the midst of the questions apt to agitate believers, then especially so when the association of Jews and Gentiles, for the first time in the history of God's dealings with man, brought up many serious occasions of discord. If those who had peace with God needed (as they surely did and do) peace from Him in these and all other trials, we have the truth of scripture as to this, but no real apology for the feeble and indeed false teaching of the Prayer-book, which habitually (though I am sure moat unwittingly) tends to hinder and deny peace with God.
The reasoning, criticism, and use of scripture by the Professor in page 6 are far from exact. The Bible does not speak of the very admission into the Christian church as an act of salvation; nor does it interchange the terms of being saved and “being added to the church;” nor does τοὺς σωζομένους mean those that were then being saved, but the class destined to salvation, which is fairly enough rendered in our version. There were οι σςζόμενοι in Israel before; now the Lord, instead of leaving them there, was adding them ὲπὶ τὸ αὐτό (if, as seems required by the best evidence, we omit τῆ ἐκκλησίᾳ). But this is in no way to speak interchangeably of their salvation and of their addition together; still less does it speak of their admission as an act of salvation. It rather distinguishes the two things, and makes their being the class destined to salvation the ground for putting them in the new position. Those who believed in Christ were hence to form an assemblage apart; in Acts 4:2323And being let go, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. (Acts 4:23), called “their own company,” in Acts 5:1111And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things. (Acts 5:11) (if not in chap. 2:47), styled “the church” or assembly, according to our Lord's words in Matt. 16:18; 18:1718And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)
17And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. (Matthew 18:17).
As to the stress laid on the participle, it is certainly a mistake; for, though such a form of the word is in itself capable of being so used, it is quite wrong to infer that it necessarily so means. For the participle is equally susceptible of an abstract signification, which expresses simply that the persons are objects of the operation in question without reference to present or past time. For if the point were the present time, such persons could not be said to be σωθέντες or σεσωσμένοι, both of which terms are used or implied of Christians in this life as to salvation, no less than σωζόμενοι. They are used of the godly Jews expressly in the Septuagint, σωζόμενοι being the character, σωθέντες the fact, and σεσωσμένοι the present result of what is past. In no case can this be a question of those that were then being saved; for, if it were, it would be impossible consistently to employ about them the other terms, all referring to the same salvation in a similar sense. For manifestly, if οἱ σωζόμενοι meant those in actual process of salvation, they could not also be described as οἱ σωθέντες, by which nevertheless the same translators describe them in the same book of Isaiah. The conclusion therefore is irresistible that οἱ σωζόμενοι must have been technically employed in its abstract application of a character and class, and not of time present as Professors conceived.
Again, a somewhat similar reasoning applied to his use of 1 Peter 3:2121The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: (1 Peter 3:21). Baptism unquestionably is the well known initiatory sign, the figure of salvation by Christ's death and resurrection; but this is abused, if used, as apparently it is, to weaken the grand truth that according to His mercy He saved (ἕσωσεν) us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. The present tense is frequently used, as here, for a moral fact irrespective of time: if time were emphatic, έ'σωσεν could not be applied to the Christian now. Nor does 2 Peter 2:2121For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. (2 Peter 2:21) modify that truth; for it speaks of the vinous turning away of those who had once confessed Christ, but it carefully avoids all idea that they had ever gone beyond knowledge, nor hints that they had at any time possessed life in Christ. Thus theology has misled Dr. S., and the desire to extenuate the forms of his own religious connection not only fails but throws him, as far as it works, outside the limits of scripture.
Dr. S. justly feels that God's gospel is inseparable from holiness of walk, in contrast with heathenism, which allowed of sin alike in the false gods and in their votaries; as does priestcraft now and of old in Christendom: witness any system of penance, indulgence, and the confessional. The mere revelation of a future life had not of itself, as he says, the power to bring morality and religion into closer union. And no doubt it is delusive to flatter oneself that thinking rightly about God, or paying Him due honor, will stand without practical righteousness. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, and the unrighteousness of men that hold the truth in unrighteousness.” Thus, whatever the self-deceiving thoughts of the Newmans now, or of the Jeromes of old, if there be a difference as there surely is in judgment, their unrighteousness is to Him most offensive, who know most or are most orthodox, for they hold fast the truth in unrighteousness. God is not mocked: as men sow, they reap. Nor is antinomianism confined to Romanists, but as widely found as the unrenewed heart when it adopts a form of godliness. Most freely and fully do I grant that God holds to His principles immutably, as the apostle elaborately insists in the earlier half of Rom. 2. In fine, Christ is life as well as righteousness, and thus holiness is secured no less than justification.
But is it not strange for any one who knows the truth of the gospel to deduce from the truth of God's moral government, however certain and important it may be, the doctrine of salvation, present, future, or any other? “Only embrace that salvation, only join yourself to Christ now, only strive to be like Him through the aid of that Holy Spirit whom He has promised to give you, and you will not have to wait for a future life in order to taste the happiness which is the portion of His people.” Is this Dr. S.'s gospel? It might suit those not too infirm who could step down after the angel's visit into the pool of Bethesda; but how for the lost, for the dead in trespasses and sins? Does he recognize the need of quickening? not merely of a new walk but of a new and divine life? yea, of deliverance from the law of sin, and not only of remission of sins? There is no adequate statement of these things here or anywhere also in the sermon, though it is a discourse on “present salvation.” Nay, what is said seems scarcely consistent with the truth.
On the other hand it may be granted to Dr. S. that there is need to warn souls against self-delusion, for a man's own favorable opinion about his condition in the sight of God must be false, if he rest not on Christ and His work; and it is a wicked and dangerous absurdity to teach that, if a man pronounces himself saved, he is saved. But is it really believed that God justifies freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus? that to him who worketh not but believeth on Him who justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness? that David was inspired to tell us of the blessedness of the man to whom God reckons righteousness without works? It is the Master who says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 1:2424And they which were sent were of the Pharisees. (John 1:24).) It is an inspired servant who says, “Yea, he shall be holden up; for God is able to make him stand.” But why should Dr. S. add, “No matter into what sins he may afterward fall, his acceptance with God remains unshaken, for he has once for all passed from death unto life?” The doctrine for which I contend does not put an arbitrary break between our future portion and our present life: for the Christ we shall have in glory is the Christ we have now in grace. No doctrine so excludes any gap whatever as our Lord's words, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.” (John 10:27-2927My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. (John 10:27‑29).) I complain of Dr. S.'s language, not for its strength but for its weakness. How different the words of the Apostle Paul, with death and judgment before him, when speaking of the power of life in Christ possessed by Christians! “Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we [it is nothing peculiar, but the common expression of Christian feeling] are always confident.” (2 Cor. 5)
Entirely do I accept the statement that faith is in Christ, not in ourselves. True faith sets to its seal that God is true, not that my hopes about my acceptance are well founded. But it is a painful descent from faith, to silence doubts by “those rules of practical probability which are the very guide of our present life.” Do we not read that “whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world” “And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” But it is hard to conceive how on Dr. S.'s showing a young believer, or an upright old one, could have unbroken confidence. His gospel seems to be partly Christ, partly the believer's own conviction that he is saved in detail from his sins in practice. Does not this savor of faith in himself? It is not Paul's gospel.
For my part I see in scripture, a much richer salvation, than that poor evangelicalism which is apparently the object of Dr. S.'s attack. His own statement too seems to be just as meager and otherwise as objectionable. The written word declares that God sent His Son into the world that we might live through Him, and that He might be the propitiation for our sins. Without life in the Son we would not enjoy God; without His expiation we could not be purged so as to have no more conscience of sin. Children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, we have not redemption only but the Spirit of His Son sent into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. We believe in His death for us, and we know that our oil man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. “We have died to sin and live no longer therein. Thus we have by grace not remission of sins only but deliverance from sin—a privilege utterly denied, not ignored merely but denied, by the Prayer-book. But I am compelled to go farther than the Professor, and am assured that it is a most miserable system of theology, which represents the Christian as still tied and bound by the chain of his sins—a dark and enslaving tradition, which ignorantly abuses the latter part of Rom. 7 (the parenthetic discussion of a soul in bondage to the power of sin) to set aside the liberty wherewith the law of the Spirit of life in Christ seta one free as in chapter viii. For we cannot rightly be under both husbands, as this unhappy and unholy scheme supposes (and Dr. S. tells us that holiness and happiness are one); but dead to the law by the body of Christ we are married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
None of our heavenly privileges is here touched on; so that I am not going into what might seem deep. But what sort of theology is it which blinds men even to the meaning of baptism as set forth in Rom. 6? Assuredly the young evangelists are superficial: are the theologians much better? Is it not ominous that both have to learn what their baptism means? and that the wildest Irish evangelist is not so far from this elementary truth as is the Anglican service for baptism?