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, 78 & 80 KING STREET EAST.
MONTREAL: C. W. COAXES. HALIFAX: S. F. HUESTIS.
6X
Sft7 "' ^.^B379
EMAAANUEl
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887
BY MCDONALD, GILL & co.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
CONTENTS.
PAOT?.
INTRODUCTION TO CANADIAN READKRS ... 3
INTRODUCTION 5
PREFACE 23
CHAPTER I.
ANTINOMIANISM DKFINED 81
CHAPTER II.
ANTING MI ANISM. — HISTORICAL SKETCH 37
CHAPTER III.
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN 52
CHAPTER IV.
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN (Continued) . . 77
CHAPTER V.
ANTING MIAN FAITH IOC
CHAPTER VI.
THE PLYMOUTH VIEW OF THE ATONEMENT 121
CHAPTER VII.
ETERNAL LIFE XON-FORFEITABLE 132
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VII!.
HOLINESS IMPUTED 148
CHAPTER IX.
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY, on LAST THINGS . 162
CHAPTER X.
THE PROPHETIC: CONFIDENCE REVIEWED . 193
CHAPTER XI.
DIFFICULTIES OF LITERALISM 204
CHAPTER XII.
PREDESTINAUIAN BASIS 214
CHAPTER XIII.
EXEQETICAL ABSURDITIES . . . , . 223
CHAPTER XIV.
DIFFICULTIES IN THE THOUSAND YEARS . . 2%
CHAPTER XV.
THE CHURCH NOT THE KINGDOM . 246
CHAPTER XVI.
ELECT NUMBER OF THE GENTILES 256
Introduction to Canadian Readers.
THIS work, by the Rev. DANIEL STEELE, D.D.,
Professor of Didactic Theology in Boston University,
is a very timely book. An Antinomian view of the
Atonement, an Antinomian definition of faith, and
an equally Antinomian view of the agencies by
which the Kingdom of Christ is to be advanced to
its final glory, are the curse of a large part of our
modern evangelization. Dr. Steele has well named
this error " Antinomianism Revived," for in every
century since the Reformation it has made its ap
pearance. It constituted the chief enemy of true
religion with which Wesley and Fletcher were called
to contend, thwarting more than any other the
mission of Methodism to spread Scriptural Holiness
over the land. In the work before us Dr. Steele
has, in a very popular style, and with the clearest
and most trenchant logic, set before us, (1) The
4 INTRODUCTION TO CANADIAN READERS.
nature of this error ; (2) A comprehensive and valu
able sketch of its past history ; (3) A very full exposi
tion of its modern organized form as Plymouthism ;
(4) A careful examination of its three fundamental
errors as to Faith, the 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 ; and finally, (6) a very
complete discussion of the Eschatology, or Second
Advent Doctrine, which accompanies this Gospel,
falsely so called. We regard this entire system of
teaching as one of the greatest enemies with which
Christianity is called to contend to-day, inasmuch as
it creates weakness from within, which is far more
dangerous than can be any attack from without. In
combating this heresy, our younger ministry will find
in Dr. Steele's book 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 by the
so-called Plymouth Brethren. We shall attempt
little more, in this introduction 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 Breth
ren," etc. They originated in England nearly
sixty years ago, under the leadership of Mr.
John Darby.
Mr. Darby was born in England, of wealthy
parents. He was educated for the law, and
commenced its practice. But his subsequent
conversion changed his whole course of life.
He was impressed that it was his duty to enter
5
6 INTRODUCTION.
the ministry. His father, learning of his pur
pose, became violently opposed to it, and not
being able to dissuade him from it, actually dis
inherited him. But a wealthy uncle adopted
him, and at his 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 his connection with what he
regarded an apostate church, 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. 7
they confidently anticipated would speedily
occur. The first band of this faith was formed
in Ireland. But it was in Plymouth, England,
that the Brethren met with the greatest favor.
Here their members soon numbered some fifteen
hundred. So marked was their success in Ply
mouth, that they were called " Plymouth Breth
ren." It is proper to say, that they have never
assumed this name, nor, in fact, any other,
except " Brethren." Nor do we know that
they seriously object to it.
Great success attended the labors of the
" Brethren," and bands were formed in London,
Exeter, and several other places. Many per
sons of wealth united with them, and contrib
uted considerable sums of money to aid in
spreading the new faith.
About this time they established their first
periodical, entitled the Christian Witness, Mr.
Darby being its chief contributor.
It was not long before their violent attacks
on the church drew upon them the opposition
8 INTRODUCTION.
of the English clergy. And 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 left
England for the Continent. He first visited
Paris, where he remained for a time, without
seeing much fruit of his labor. But in Switz
erland, which he next visited, he found a more
inviting field.
Some time before Mr. Darby's visit to Switz
erland, the Wesleyan Methodists had com
menced successful operations in Lausanne, and
quite a number of the members of the State
Church had withdrawn and united with them,
creating no little stir among the people.
Among the new proselytes to Methodism were
some who 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. 9
doctrine of predestination, and 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
faith, an influential member of the State Church
at Lausanne, invited Mr. Darby to come there
and fight the Methodists. He went, and by
his preaching, and the publication of a book
entitled, The Doctrine of the Wesley ans Regard
ing Perfection, and their use of the Holy Scrip
tures, he succeeded in so far bewildering the
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 still more in his
plan. He 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.
largely attended, and produced a profound im
pression upon all classes. They were subse
quently published in French, German, and
English, and may be found in Mr. Darby's
published works. In the estimation of the
author, at least, they lifted the veil which had
long covered the prophecies.
Mr. Darby's influence with the people is said
to have been so great that the regular ministry
was almost entirely ignored, and he became
the accepted prophet. In fact, his publications
had the effect to turn the people, as a whole,,
from the ministry.
It was his custom to administer the sacra
ment every Sabbath indiscriminately to church
men and dissenters, which practice earned for
him the reputation of being a large-hearted
Christian, anxious to 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. 11
Church its best members, and unite them with
others, and 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 this end, a series of " fly-
sheets," or tracts, were issued at Geneva and
Lausanne, which clearly revealed Mr. Darby's
plan. In one of these tracts, entitled, "Aposta-
cy of the Economy," he laid the axe at the root
of the tree, leaving the whole Christian Church,
so far as he was able, a shapeless wreck. In an
other tract, " On the Foundation of the Church,"
he attacked the Dissenters, denying the right
to form a church. In still another, " Liberty to
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 to an end,
the ordained ministry, or priesthood, went with
it. No man, nor body of men, Mr. Darby
claimed, had any right to such an office, and to
12 INTRODUCTION.
,, »
assume any such right was proof of the corrup
tion and ruin of the whole system. In another
tract, entitled " The Promise of the Lord,"
based on Matt, xviii. 20, is given the shibboleth
of the Darbyite gatherings. Finally, a tract
entitled, " Schism " was 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 new
one, no matter how good it might be. 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 spread into
France, and gathered, after a time, several con-
INTRODUCTION. 13
gregations iii Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, and oth
er places. A French periodical was established
for the propagation of their principles, and a
land of seminary was started for training Mis
sionaries.
That secessions should occur where no orga
nizations exist, and where all organizations are
utterly repudiated, seems strange. But it was
not possible for persons, who could readily ac
cept such radical views as Mr. Darby enunci
ated, to be long held by them. This is pre
eminently true of the Plymouth Brethren.
A division soon took place under the leader
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
nestly repelled by most of the Darby ites, and
the obnoxious Newton was formally expelled
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
14 INTRODUCTION.
and utterly repudiated all organizations. The
Newton heresy extended into Vevay, where
considerable trouble followed. The " Breth
ren " there split into two factions ; 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 living they went so far as to represent
him as a second " Diotrephes, who loveth to
have the pre-eminence " (3 John 9). They
insinuated that Mr. Darby, the father of them
all, had very far fallen from original Dar-
byism; at least, this would be naturally in
ferred from the manner in which they treated
him. We have in Boston, and other places,
two classes, or schools, of the Plymouth Breth
ren.
INTRODUCTION. 15
The religious views of the Plymouth Breth
ren are fully set forth, by Dr. Steele, in the fol
lowing pages. They are Antinomians of the
straitest sect. Everything but pure Darbyism
belongs to this world. There is nobody right
but themselves. The church is fallen, and can
not be reformed, and our only duty is to go out
of her. Anything which looks like church pros
perity is, with the Plymouth Brethren, a delu
sion. "The year-books of Christianity," says
Mr. Darby, " are the year-books of hell."
One of their writers, speaking of the church,
says : " It is a corrupt mysterious mixture, a
spiritual malformation, the master-piece of
Satan, the corrupter of the truth of God." " It
is that thing which Satan has made of profess
ing Christianity. It is worse, by far, than Ju
daism ; worse by far than all 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
16 INTRODUCTION.
things from the old — has his own customs,
wishes, aims, feelings and necessities — and
these are spiritual, heavenly, 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,
to the end of life. In response to a question
we once put to Mr. Darby, he said, his nature,
or old man, had been growing worse and worse
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. One of their number puts
it thus : " The believer's state can never corres
pond with his standing." The seventh and
eighth of Romans exist in the same heart, and
at the same time.
Mr. Mclntosh, their most venerated authority,
says : " Flesh is flesh, nor can it ever be made
aught else but flesh. The Holy Ghost did not
come down on the day of Pentecost to improve
INTRODUCTION. 17
nature, or do away the fact of 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, is one
and the same with justification. It is, or was,
a finished work of God. It is in no sense per
sonal in ourselves, but in Christ, and accom
plished when He died on the cross. It can
never be diminished nor increased. No sin
committed by a justified person can in the least
affect his justification. The soul's standing
must ever remain as pure as Christ Himself.
He may get drunk like Noah, commit murder
and adultery like David, curse like Peter, or
lie like Ananias and Sapphira, and his standing
is no more affected by it than was Stephen's
when under a shower of stones, with his face
shining like that of an angel.
One of their writers gives the following de
scription of a good man : —
" The good man feels that when he is pre
senting to God his prayer and his praises and
18 INTRODUCTION.
other holy things, that many vain and foolish
thoughts often come unbidden, as the unclean
fowls came down upon the sacrifice which Abra
ham had laid in order to be offered to God
(Gen. xv. 11) ; and he feels that his sacrifice is
sadly spoiled ; and he asks, ' Can the pure God
accept such 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
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 vile effu
sions of our own corrupt heart. And we 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
foul waters of the abyss of despair to run
through." This is the best thing the Gospel of
the Plymouth Brethren can do for poor, fallen,
human nature. And yet, strange to say, this
same man, who is filled with the " horrible filth
of hell," and is a " sewer for the foul waters of
the abyss of despair to run through," is, at the
same time, pure as Christ is pure. Here are
his words : —
"He who is 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,
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 is pure. God looks at our rep
resentative, and He sees us in Him. We are
complete in Him who is our spotless and glori
ous Head."
Here is full-fledged Antinomianism.
The Plymouth Brethren profess to have no
creed but the Bible. They condemn all who
avow a creed, as putting human opinions in thg
20 INTRODUCTION.
place of the Word of God. And yet they
seem to have a well-defined creed, and put it
forth with great persistency.* They denounce
all commentaries on the Scriptures as mislead
ing ; and yet Mr. Darby has written commenta
ries quite extensively on the Bible, to say noth
ing of Mr. Mclntosh, whom they regard as
nearly, if not quite, inspired.
They do not labor for sinners, but for the
members of the various churches, as if they
were in more peril than the outside world.
They may be seen around revival meetings with
tracts in hand, containing antagonistic senti
ments, to be placed in the hands of new con
verts, for the purpose of mystifying them, and
drawing them away from Christ and salvation,
•To find out whether they were a sect, that is, a fragment cutting
itself off 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. Da1 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.
INTRODUCTION. 21
and in this way make proselytes to their faith,
not from the world, but from the churches.
We bid all a hearty God-speed who are work
ing for the salvation of souls. And did we be
lieve that souls are made better by accepting
the dogmas of the Plymouth Brethren, we
should most heartily say : " Go on, and the
Lord bless you." But so far as we can see,
their teachings are evil, and only evil. It
makes chaos of order, and deceives souls by
assuring them that they are in Christ, while
they are full of corruption.
Dr. Steele has done a valuable service for all
the churches; for Plymouthism successful,
means the churches depleted. While they may
hold some views in common with some of the
evangelical churches, their main purpose is to
undermine the churches, and foster a spirit that
would lay waste every church in Christendom.
We firmly believe that this book will greatly
aid in arresting tliis growing tide of error.
W. MCDONALD.
PREFACE.
IT is no secret that the author of this book
believes in a large Gospel, an evangel co-exten
sive with the present needs of the depraved
offspring^ of Adam ; yea, more : he believes
that where sin hath abounded, grace doth here
and now much more abound to those believers
who insist that Christ is a perfect Saviour from
inbred sin, through the efficacy of His blood, in
procuring the indwelling Comforter and Sancti-
fier. 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 is real
and inwrought, and not a stainless robe, con
cealing unspeakable moral filthiness and lep
rosy. He believes with St. John against the
Gnostics, that if any man asserts that he has
23
24
by nature no defiling taint of depravity, no
bent toward acts of sin, and hence, that he
does not need the blood of atonement, that he
is self- deceived, and the truth is not in him;
but if he will confess his lost condition, God is
faithful and just, not only to forgive, but also
to cleanse from all sin, " actual and original "
(Bengel). He is bold to assert that we are
living in the days when Ezekiel's prophecy is
fulfilled: "I will sprinkle clean water upon
you, and ye shall be clean; from ALL your
filthiness and from ALL your idols I will
cleanse you ; I will put my spirit within you,
and cause you to walk in my statutes," — a
case of evangelical legalism, — " and ye 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 : " The Lord thy God
will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy
seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine
PREFACE. 25
heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest
live." He finds St. Paul's inspired unfoldings
of the Gospel germs, dropped by Christ, to be
the exact fulfilment and realization of these
predictions, when the Apostle asserts that " our
old man is crucified with him " — that is, in the
same manner, and with as deadly an 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 is confident that the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus does now "make us free
from the law of sin and death," although it
does not, this side of the grave, deliver us from
errors, ignorances, and such innocent infirmities
as St. Paul gloried in without detriment to his
saintly character. 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
26 PREFACE.
which cannot be used " without raising the pity
or indignation of 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
in an imaginary perfect and inalienable stand
ing in Christ wholly independent of moral con
duct and character, the outcome of which must
inevitably be, in many cases, the rejection of
God's law as the rule of life, and a sad lower
ing of the standard of Christian morality. It
is an evil omen when Christian teachers make
eloquent pleas for the flesh, and fallaciously
construct ingenious Scriptural arguments for
indwelling sin. So long as the believer dwells
in the body, such preaching, instead of inspiring
unspeakable abhorrence for sin, deadens men's
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. 27
down their sinful nature only to apologize for
their sinful practices ; or to appear great profi
cients in self-knowledge, and court the praise
due to genuine humility."
We have noted the fact that a school of pop
ular evangelists have espoused the doctrines
which lie at the base of Antinomianism, and
that they are zealously inculcating these pecu
liar tenets in Young Men's Christian Associa
tions and summer schools. We have done what
we could, by articles in our Christian periodi
cals, to warn the public of the certain evil re
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
tudes of weak believers who may be ensnared
to their moral ruin by the pleasing doctrine
that one act of faith in Christ secures a perpet
ual exemption from condemnation, and a life
long license for walking in the flesh.
Some teachers of this doctrine may live in
28 PREFACE.
harmony with the purest ethical precepts of
Christ, under what Joseph Cook calls " heredi
tary momentum," and a personal experience of
salvation in former years, before embracing
their present theological errors. But what 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
forebode many shipwrecks of moral character.
Men generally live below their creeds ; few rise
above them. Illustration: A 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 language, and
warned him as a transgressor of the law of God.
" Oh," said the man, " it is not by works, it is by
faith, and I believe in Jesus Christ, and of
course I shall be saved." Here is a man, a
sample of myriads, who are living in wilful sin,
dreaming 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 sea-
serpent.
The fatal mistake is in ignoring the Scrip
tural test of saving faith, evangelical works. It
is true that the penitent believer seeking the
pardon of sin is justified by faith only. But it
is also true that in the day of Judgment the
same person will be judged by works only,
works which attest the genuineness of his faith
(Jer. xvii. 10 ; xxxii. 19 ; Ezek. vii. 3, 27 ; xviii.
20, 30 ; 1 Cor. iii. 8, 13-15 ; 2 Cor. v. 10 ; Gal.
vi. 5-8; especially Matt. xxv. 31-46).
It is due to the Christian public that I should
acknowledge my sense of incompetency for the
proper handling of this subject. I have long
waited for some eminent theologian to lift up
his voice in refutation of a system of error
which is industriously promoted by persons
whose zeal is worthy of a better cause. At
30 PREFACE.
length I have yielded to the importunity of
many Christian men to expose the character
and tendencies of that system of doctrines
against which this book is prayerfully directed.
I have made a free use of that great armory
of weapons — " Fletcher's Checks to Antino-
mianism." Sometimes I have quoted sentences
unchanged, noting them with quotation marks.
But frequently these marks could not be used
by reason of the alterations which I have made,
either to abridge, to modernize, or to eliminate
some personal allusion.
In my 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 friends may be
grieved, I trust that the great day will reveal
that truth has not been wounded, but rather
cleared of errors and set forth in the robes of
her native beauty.
ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
CHAPTER I.
ANTINOMIANISM DEFINED.
REV. J. FLETCHER says, " An Antinomian is
a professor of Christianity, who is antinomos,
against the law of Christ, as well as against the
law of Moses. He allows Christ's law to be a
rule of life, but not a rule of judgment for
believers, and thus he destroys that law at a
stroke, as a law ; it being evident that a rule
by the personal observance or non-observance
of which Christ's subjects can never be acquit
ted or condemned, is not a law for them.
Hence he asserts that Christians shall no more
be justified before God by their personal obedi-
32 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
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
perpetually break Christ's law ; that nobody
ever kept it but Christ Himself ; and that we
shall be justified or condemned before God, in
the great day, not as we shall personally be
found to have finally kept or broken Christ's
law, but as God shall be found to have, before
the foundation of the world, arbitrarily laid, or
not laid, to our account, the merit of Christ's
keeping His own law. Thus he hopes to stand
in the great day, merely by what he calls/
'Christ's imputed righteousness'; excluding
with abhorrence, from our final justification,
the evangelical worthiness of our own personal,
sincere obedience of repentance and faith, — a
precious obedience this which he calls ' dung,
dross, and filthy rags-' just as if it were the
insincere obedience of self-righteous pride, and
Pharisaic hypocrisy. Nevertheless, though he
thus excludes the evangelical, derived worthi-
ANTINOMIAN1SM DEFINED. 83
ness of the works of faith, from our eternal
justification and salvation, he himself does
good works, if he is in other respects a good
man. Nay, in this case, he piques himself on
doing them, thinking he is peculiarly obliged to
make people believe that, immoral as his senti
ments are, they draw after them the greatest
benevolence and the strictest morality." This
reminds us of the testimony of a Univer-
salist woman, " That she had come three miles
to attend this prayer-meeting, so as to show
that the Universalists are as pious as the
Orthodox."
But there are multitudes carelessly following
the stream of corrupt nature who are crying
out, not against the unholiness, but against the
" legality, of their wicked hearts, which still
suggest that they must do something, in order
to attain eternal life." They decry that evan
gelical legality which all true Christians are in
love with — a cleaving to Christ by that kind
of faith which works righteousness — a follow-
34 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
ing Him as He went about doing good, and a
showing by St. James' works that we have St.
Paul's faith.
The consistent Antinomian — that is, one
whose practice accords with his theory — is
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
duct, character, or works. His salvation is so
finished that no sins can ever blot his name
out of the Book of Life. He thinks that the
Son of 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
filling it, according to our capacity. He has
no sympathy with David's confession : " I love
Thy commandments above gold and precious
stones : I will always keep Thy law, yea, for
ever and ever : I will walk at LIBERTY, for [
seek Thy precepts."
AJSTINOMIANISM DEFINED. 35
In short, the creed of the Antinoraian is this :
I was justified when Christ died, and my
faith is simply a waking up to the fact that I
have always been saved — a realization of what
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, however great sins they com
mit ; that by God's laying our iniquities upon
Christ, He became as completely sinful as I,
and I as completely righteous as Christ. More
over, I believe that no sin can do a believer any
ultimate harm, although it may temporarily
interrupt communion with God. I must not
do any duty for my own salvation. This is
included in the new covenant, which is all of
it a promise, having no condition on my part.
It is a paid up, non-forfeitable, eternal-life in
surance policy. Since the new covenant is not
properly made with us, but with Christ for us,
the conditions, repentance, faith, and obedience.
36 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
are not on our side, but on Christ's side, who
repented, believed, and obeyed, in such a way
as to relieve us from these unpleasant acts.
Hence it is folly to search for inward marks of
grace, and it is a fundamental error to make
sanctification an indispensable evidence of justi
fication — an error which dampens the joys of
him who takes Christ for his sanctification, and
plunges him into needless alarms and distresses."
CHAPTER II.
ANTINOMIANISM. — HISTORICAL SKETCH.
THEOLOGICAL errors move in cycles, some
times of very long periods. They resemble
those comets of unknown orbits which occa
sionally dash into our solar system ; but they
are not as harmless. Often they leave moral
ruin in their track. Since all Christian truth
is practical, and aims at the moral transforma
tion of men, all negations of that truth are
deleterious; they not only obscure the truth
and obstruct its purifying effect, but they
positively corrupt and destroy souls. This is
specially true of errors which release men from
obligation to the 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
38 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
a faith in Christ which works by love and
purifies the heart, there started up a class of
teachers who drew from Paul's teachings the
fallacious inference that the law of God is
abolished in the case of the believer, who is
henceforth delivered from its authority as the
rule of life. Hence they became, what Luther
first styled, 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
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
Antinomianism, which Wesley defines as " the
doctrine which makes void the law through
faith." Those who aver that ultra-Calvinism
is 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 pushed to that
conclusion. It is also true that other forms of
doctrine which emphasize faith in Jesus Christ,
as the sole ground of acceptance with God, are
more or less liable to have the tares of Antino-
mianism spring up in their field.
The root of this error lies in a false view of
the mediatorial work of Christ, that He per
forms for men the obedience which they ought
to perform, and that God can justly demand
nothing further from the delinquents. It is
claimed that Christ's perfect virtues are reck
oned to the believer in such a way as to excuse
him for their absence ; 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's standing us
righteous before God.
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
of His substitutional work. The germ of
Antinomianism is found in the inclusion of the
latter in the atonement. It is true that the
God-man was actively obedient to the Father's
will, but this obedience was personal, and not
mediatorial. Hence, every one justified through
faith in the shed blood of Christ, is under obli
gation to render personal obedience to God's
law. In this respect Jesus cannot be his proxy
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
law. He obeyed the law as a covenant of
works — we only as a rule of righteousness."
It should be said that the Gnostic sects were
HISTORICAL SKETCH. 4.1
Antinomian on other grounds. They held that
their spiritual natures could not contract moral
pollution, whatever their moral conduct might
be, sin inhering only in matter. As a piece of
gold retains its purity while 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
fessed faith in Christ. It was adopted by all
who held that all evil inheres in • uncreated
matter.
Modern Universalism is only another form of
Antinomianism. It is the expectation of salva
tion through Christ, without obedience to either
the law or the Gospel.
Christianity was very early disfigured by an-
tinomianism, a doctrinal and practical error
which opposes itself to God's law even in the
evangelical form in which it was defined by His
adorable Son, " Thou shalt love God with all
thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." This
had been the burden of Christ's preaching, with
42 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
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. It is hard to
say which excite men most tQ/ believe and
obey, their seraphic sermons or their saintly
lives. Success crowned their labors. Both Ju
daism and paganism heard the thunder of their
words of faith and fell prostrate beneath the
lightning of their works of love. But before
all is lost, Satan hastens to " transform himself
into an angel of light." In this disguise he in
stills speculativ e faith, instead of a saving faith
which works by love, purifies the heart, and
overcomes the world ; he pleads for loose living,
puts the badge of contempt upon the daily
cross, and gets multitudes of Laodiceans and
Gnostics into his snare. Sad and sure is the
result. Genuine works of faith are neglected ;
idle works of men's invention are substituted
HISTORICAL SKETCH. 43
for those of God's commandments ; and fallen
churches, gliding downward through the smooth
way of antinomianism, return to the covert way
of Phariseeism, or to the broad way of infidel-
ity.
Such was the distressing outlook upon the
church when Luther arose. True faith was de
throned by superstitious fancy, and works were
will nigh choked by the thorns of this baneful
error. Luther swung the sharp scythe of re
form over northern Europe, and he might have
mowed a broad swath through Italy and Rome
itself, if he had not at the same time scattered
the dragons teeth of antinomianism, which
sprang up around his German home an army
of armed men. The balance of evangelical
precepts had not been preserved in preaching
the forgiveness of sins by faith only, without
adding that this faith is 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
to the devil, and poor bewildered Protestants
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 God, reasoning
thus : " First, the earth belongs to the saints,
and, secondly, we are the saints." All things
HISTORICAL SKETCH. 45
were theirs. They were complete in Christ,
and absolutely sure of salvation by reason of
their standing in Him. They went about in
religious mobs to deliver people from legal
bondage, and bring them into G-ospel liberty,—
a liberty to despise all laws, Divine and human,
and to do every one what was right in his own
eyes. Luther was alarmed and shocked. He
hastened from his concealment in the castle of
the Wartburg, to check a movement which was
disgracing the Reformation. But the mischief
was done : the thistle-seed had been broadcast
over Germany. The only proper remedy he
did riot 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.
Nevertheless, Luther learned wisdom enough
to abandon the root of the mischief when he
46 ATINOMIANISM REVIVED.
drew up, or, rather, indorsed, the Augsburg
Confession, in which are these remarkable
words : " We teach touching repentance, that
those who have sinned after baptism may ob
tain the forgiveness of sins as often as they are
converted," etc. Again : " We condemn the
Anabaptists, who say that those who have been
once justified can no more lose the Holy
Spirit."
This antidote of Gospel truth, clearly and
frequently enforced, might have stopped the
spread of Antinomianism. But Luther did not
insist upon it , vascillated, and sometimes
seemed even to contradict it. When Calvin
arose, though he seldom went the length of
some of his followers in the next century in
speculative Antinomianism, yet he laid excel
lent foundations for it 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. 47
its cycles in the history of the Church. Its
full development, since the Reformation, is due
to John Agricola (1492-1566), one of the early
coadjutors of Luther, some of whose expres
sions, as to justification and the law, in the
heat of his great controversy with Rome, were
hasty, extravagant, and quite Antinomian.
These utterances Agricola developed into a
system so extreme, and so subversive of
Christian morals, that he published in 1537
these words : " Art thou steeped in sin — an
adulterer or a thief? If thou believest, thou
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 by a professed friend. Luther attacked
him violently, calling him a fanatic, and other
hard names. After Agricola's death, Amsdorf
and Otto advocated his doctrines, and main
tained that good works are an obstacle to salva
tion. Similar sentiments were preached in
England in the days of Oliver Cromwell. But
48 AOTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
it remained for Dr. Crisp, (1600-1642), a rector
of the Church of England, to give this error its
full development in Anglican theology, from
the seed-corn of high Galvanism. The follow
ing sentiments abound in his sermons : " The
law is cruel and tyrannical, requiring what is
naturally impossible." " The sins of the elect
were so imputed to Christ, as that, though He
did not commit them, yet they became actually
His transgressions, and ceased to be theirs.
The feelings of conscience which tell them that
sin is theirs, arise from a want of knowing the
truth. It is but the voice of a lying spirit in
the hearts of believers that saith they have yet
sin wasting their conscience, and lying as a
burden too heavy for them to bear. Christ's
righteousness is so imputed to the elect, that
they, ceasing to be sinners, are as righteous as
He was, and all that He was. An elect person
is not in a condemned state while an unbe
liever ; and should he happen to die before God
calls him to believe, he would not be lost.
HISTORICAL SKETCH. 49
Repentance and confession of sin are not neces
sary to forgiveness. A 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
tinction between right and wrong, and removes
all motives to abstain from sin. It boasts in
the perseverance of the saints, while it believes
in no saint but one, that is, Jesus, and neglects
to persevere. Several vigorous theologians
opposed this baneful doctrine, the chief of
whom were Baxter and Williams, who, after
heroic efforts and no small suffering, finally
triumphed.
The next revival of Antinomianism in the
Church of England and among the dissenters,
was in the eighteenth century and was met
most courageously by John Wesley, the apostle
of experimental godliness and of Christian per
fection, and by the seraphic John Fletcher,
whose writings, says Dr. Dolliuger, "are the
50 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
most important theological productions which
issued from Protestanism in the latter part of
the eighteenth century." His reasoning is co
gent, his imagination vivid, his style clear and in
cisive, and the momentum of his arguments is so
irresistible that he swept the field, driving Anti-
nomianism out of England during, at least, two
generations. His "Checks" stand to-day un
answered and unanswerable. No man can read
them with candor and continue to deny the
obligation of believers to strict obedience to
the law of God ; that inwrought holiness is the
requirement of the Gospel, and that there is no
sharp contrast between it and the law.
A 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 this heresy, en
tombed by Fletcher, lias had its resurrection,
HISTORICAL SKETCH. 51
is the so-called Plymouth Brethren, whose
peculiar tenets will be described in the next
chapter.
CHAPTER m.
THE PLYMOUTH BKETHEEN.
WHAT are the Plymouth Brethren ? This is
a question which many people are asking. An
old lady at Hamilton camp-meeting Last year,
hearing the writer comment on one of their
doctrines, indignantly left the audience, ex
claiming, "I have heard enough of the Ply
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
they do not repudiate the word " Plymouth,''
52
THE PLYMOUTH BEETHREN. 53
they style themselves " The Brethren." Their
leading mind, if not their original founder,
who died a few years ago at an advanced age, is
John Darby. Hence they are sometimes called
Darbyites. The movement was at first a pro
test against ecclesiasticism, like that of George
Fox, the first Quaker. Darby, a clergyman in
the Church of England, renounced the Church,
and assumed that all existing Church organiza
tions are a detriment to Christianity, and
obstructive of regeneration and the spiritual
life. His little band 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. They call themselves the
Brethren, as if they were the only persons in
the bonds of Christian brotherhood. They
are all priests and all laymen. They insist thai
in Christianity there is no specially called and
ordained ministerial order. In this they resem
ble the Friends ; but, unlike them, they lay
54 ANTHTOMIANISM REVIVED.
great stress upon ordinances, especially the
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 liberality, and intimated close
communion. Hence, while denouncing all
schisms and sects, they are a sect of the straight-
est 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 unre-
generate are permitted to be present. They
talk much about separation unto God, by which
they mean abandonment of ecclesiastical organ-
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 55
izations , and politics even, refraining from
voting, insisting on deadness to the world and
entire devotion to God, by going forth and
preaching Christ wherever they can get a
hearer. They make constant use of the Bible
in private and in public, or, rather, of a certain
line of texts, interpreted to sustain their pecu
liar tenets. Professing to rely only on the
Word of God, you will find them all equipped
with the commentaries of Mclntosh, Darby,
and others. To propagate their doctrines they
scatter many tracts and small expository books.
Several years ago, D. L. Moody learned his
method of Bible-study 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 Holy Scrip
tures. Hence they claim him as a product of
their system. In his earnest exhortation to
converts to join some church, he certainly
repudiates Plymouth come-out-ism, an4 h<? en>
55 ANTIXOMIAXISM EEVIVED.
phatically disclaims some of the theological
tenets of the Brethren. Just how far he
accords with them we do not know. He
adopts their milleimarianism, and preaches the
personal reign of Christ on the earth as a sub
stitute for the present agency of the Spirit
and of preaching, which are regarded as inade
quate for the successful evangelization of the
whole world, arid the reconstruction of society
on a Christian basis. His declaration that the
world is like a ship so hopelessly wrecked that
it cannot be gotten off the rocks, but must be
left to perish, while Christians rescue as many
of the passengers as possible, is a pessimistic
Plymouth idea.
Jii England the Brethren are quite numerous
and influential. Some, as Tregelles are very
scholarly. Such men as Varley, Lord llad-
stoek, Blackstone, and Muller, are either pro
fessed Brethren, or arc in strong sympathy with
them. They have missionaries in India whose
disorganizing influence has given our Methodist
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 57
missionaries some trouble, and has caused one
secession, and the loss of several promising
missionary stations. The Wesleyan Methodist
societies in Lausanne and Vevay, in Switzer
land, at one time suffered great loss through
the bewilderment caused by the preaching of
Mr. Darby against their doctrine of Christian
perfection, and their use of the Holy Scriptures.
The leaven of their doctrines has already spread
widely in America, and their theological tenets
are preached by leading ministers in Boston,
New York, St. Louis, and other cities, while
their theories of Church organization are
rejected.
The Brethren, having no written creed and
no Church discipline, are exposed to constant
schisms, so that 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
58 ANTINOMIANISM KEVTVED.
tenets they are quite generally agreed — their
Antinomianism. We have heard Mr. Darby
say that if any man had anything to do with
the law of God, even to obey it, he was a sin
ner by that very act.
Their primal error seems to be in their con
ception of the Atonement. They teach that
sin, as a kind of personality, was condemned on
the cross of Christ and put away forever.
Whose sins? Those of the believer. All his
sins past, present, and future, are "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 first momentary act of faith renders the
Atonement eternally available, and without any
further conditions infallibly secures everlasting
life. Hence the younger Dr. Tyng, in a recent
sermon odorous of Plymouth, declared that in
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 59
that act of faith the believer's " responsibility
ends." This must mean that his probation
ceases, his eternal salvation having been abso
lutely secured.
The object grasped by faith is not so much
Jesus Christ, a present Saviour, as His finished
work of condemning and putting away sin on
the cross. " Faith grasps only past and finished
acts." Intellectual assent to these historical
facts, the atonement of Christ judging my sin,
and His resurrection as the proof thereof, con
stitutes saving faith.
Their view of the Atonement is the old and
exploded commercial theory — so much suffer
ing by Christ equals so much suffering by the
sinners saved by Christ. With this theory of
the Atonement, they cannot proclaim its uni
versality without teaching Universalism. So
they make a distinction between the death of
Christ for all, and the blood of Christ shed
only for those who are, through faith, sprinkled
and cleansed thereby. By this means God
60 ANTIKOMIANISM REVIVED.
saves believers, and presents "an aspect of
mercy " toward all mankind.
Their idea of justification is not that it is a
present act, taking place in the mind of God in
favor of the penitent believer, but it is a past,
completed, wholesale transaction on Calvary
ages ago. Faith puts a man 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.
In regeneration, the new man is created in
the believer, and the old man remains with al).
his powers unchanged. Mr. Darby asserted to
the writer that after more than fifty years of
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
the Holy Spirit to improve human nature," —
that seems to be past praying for, — but to
make a brand-new man to dwell in the same
body with the old man till physical death lucki
ly comes and kills the old Adam who had sue-
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 61
cessfully defied all power in heaven and earth
effectually to crucify him. Henceforth the new
man has the entire possession of the disem
bodied soul. How different this from a holi
ness bearing its heavenly fruit this side of the
grave (Luke i. 74, 75; Rom. vi. 6, 19, 22; 2
Cor. vii. 7, 2; 1 Thess. iii. 13; iv. 7; ii. 10;
Heb. xii. 10, 14 ; Col. ii. 11 (Rev. Ver.) ; 1
John iv. 17). The only Scripture cited for
this doctrine of death sanctification is Rom. vi.
7 : "He that is dead is free from sin." This
evidently means (see verse 6), he who has died
unto sin is freed or justified (Rev. Ver.) from
sin. This text, found by the "Brethren,"
escaped the keen eyes of the whole West
minster Assembly, who could find nothing in
proof of this point better than Heb. xii, 23 :
" the spirits of just men made perfect," assum
ing the point in proof that they were made
perfect in death. The Greek scholar will note
that the text reads, not " perfected spirits," but
the '* spirits of perfected just (men)," implying
62 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
perfection in this life. Yet the old man is to be
quite vigorously choked down and kept under till
death comes to the rescue and brings that good
riddance which the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, could not bestow. He is to be reckoned
as dead by a kind of pious fiction, though he is
as lusty and vigorous as ever. That Scripture
which says " that the body of sin might be
destroyed " is explained to signify, " be re
pressed " and " rendered inactive " ; and those
Scriptures in which the old man, or the flesh, is
to be crucified, mortified, or killed, 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
logical tract : " The two natures remain in him
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 soiled or corrupted by reason of its
co-existence in the same being with the old.
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 63
They remain the same. There is no blending
or amalgamation. They are essentially and
eternally distinct. The old nature is unalter
ably and incurably corrupt, while the new
nature is divinely pure in its essence."
This doctrine of the two natures is not com
pletely stated till the fact is brought out that
neither is regarded as responsible for the acts of
the other. For they are conceived of as per
sons. If the flesh of the believer behaves
badly, that is none of the believer's business.
He does not live in that department of his
being, and hence has no responsibility for its
evil deeds. The " flesh was condemned on the
cross and is under sentence," why should I
worry about it ? This reminds us of the story
of the English bishop and his servant, who
reproved him for profanity. The bishop, who
\vas a member of the house of lords, replied,
that he swore as a lord, not as a bishop.
" But," queried the servant, " when the devil
gets the lord, what will become of the bishop ? "
64 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
The favorite method of exegesis of 1 John
iii. 9, is to substitute " whatsoever " for " who
soever," and to say, " that part of our nature
that is born of God does not commit sin," the
unregenerate part will continue to sin. This
is the style of exegesis : " We have a right
to read the text thus : ' Wliatsoever is born
of God doth not sin.' We are double creatures
all the way through. That part of us that is
born of God does not sin. Sin is decreasing ;
righteousness is growing. So we need not feel
discouraged if we find ourselves going astray,
if the purpose of our heart is toward God. We
are confident of constant progression — sure of
being better in the other life than here. It is
always first the blade, then the ear, after that
the full corn in the ear. The Apostle tells us
that religion brings us great assurance. We
know we shall be like Him — how little like
Him now ! We are a long way from the per
fect pattern of Christ, of being like Him in
character, with not a stain upon the soul's
THE PLYMOUTH BEETHEEN. G5
whiteness. Feed your soul on the thought of
better things to come. Look for the hour
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 ?
2. How high a rank is that theology entitled
to which discrowns man in order to save him ;
which changes him from a " who " to a " what,"
from a person to a thing, in order to keep him
from sinning? Does such a theology empha
size the sacredness and dignity of man ? Does
it honor the Holy Spirit to teacli that He be
gets impersonal " whatsoevers," instead of per
sonal " whomsoevers " ?
3. In the light of this exposition, what be
comes of St. John's sharply defined line sepa-
60 ANTINOMLAJSTISM REVIVED.
rating " the children of God " and " the chil
dren of the devil"? For in the very next
verse to the text he says : " In this " — the
fact of not sinning — " the children of God
are manifest, and the children of the devil " —
in the fact of their sinning. This exposition
not only " tears down the fence between the
Lord's garden and the devil's common," but it
actually binds up the child of God and the
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 such a double
nature that a part of him may be holy, and a
part commit sin ?
5. Is not the action of the free will an ele
ment of every moral act, and can the will at
one and the same time sin and abstain from
sin?
6. If such a moral philosophy is good in the
pulpit, would it not be good at the bar? Could
uot the lawyer plead that the part of the
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 67
accused which is born of God is innocent of
the crime, and that it is 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 tell the regenerate part to
look out for itself? The soul that sinneth —
the undivided soul — it shall die.
7. Is there any analogy in the natural world
for a partial birth — a part being born at one
time and a part forty or fifty years afterward ?
A hearer of this exposition very properly
asks me the question : " What if a person
should die before he gets wholly born ? "
8. Is the expounder right in his interpretation
of assurance, that it does not relate to present
knowledge of forgiveness and of entire sanctifi-
cation, but to the final perseverance of the
saints ? Does it not always relate to a knowl
edge of our present acceptance with God,
except this one expression, " the assurance of
hope"?
68 ANTINOMIASTISM REVIVED.
9. Is freedom from sin ever presented as an
object of hope in the future ? Is entire sancti-
fication ever classified with the good things to
come, such as the second coming of Christ, the
resurrection and glorification of the body, and
the rewards of Heaven ?
10. Does not St. John, in this very epistle,
declare, that as Jesus is, so are Christians in this
world ? Does the likeness of Christ which be
lievers shall have when they shall 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
saddling it all upon the flesh, ." the old man," who
turns out at last a mere mythical person who
cannot be found in the Day of Judgment.
We are impressed, in reading the Plymouth
writings, with the perpetual confusion of the
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 69
term, " sinful flesh," with the body, as though
sin could be predicated of the material part of
man. Some even speak of the hand and the
foot as committing sin. Thus the old error of
Oriental philosophy and 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 till death. Yet
they insist that they are perfectly holy in Christ
"up there," while perfectly carnal and corrupt
" down here " in their moral state. They dwell
ad nauseam upon the distinction between the
standing in Christ and the state. The standing
in Christ attained by a single act of faith is the
great and decisive thing ; the moral state is a
small affair, having not the least power to
damage the standing. David in Uriah's bed,
and with hands red with his blood, was in a
sad moral predicament indeed, so far as his
70 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
moral state was concerned, but his judicial
standing in Christ was not in the least inr
paired. All that he lost was his communion
with God ; all that he sought for was restored
joy — " Restore Thou unto me the joy of Thy
salvation." God did not see his adultery and
murder. These were covered with the blood
of atonement shed in the Divine purpose
before the foundation of the world, and put
away forever before David was born. A favor
ite proof text for this abominable dogma, which
lays the axe flt the root of the whole system df
Christian morals, is Num. xxiii. 21: "He hath
not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he
seen perverseness in Israel," correctly rendered
by Rosenmiiller : " God cannot endure to be
hold iniquity cast upon Jacob, nor can He bear
to see affliction, vexation, trouble, wrought
against Israel." Some such must be the mean
ing of this text. The Plymouth exegesis makes
it positively deny the omniscence of God, and
flatly contradict His declaration : " Because all
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 71
these men which have seen My glory, and My
miracles which I did in Egypt and in the wil
derness, have tempted Me now these ten times,
and have not hearkened to My voice ; surely
they shall not see the land which I swear unto
their fathers, neither shall any of them that
provoked me see it" (Num. xiv. 22, 23). God
not only saw the sins of Israel, but He kept
accurate account of their number, and so in
dignant was He that He purposed to smite and
disinherit the whole nation, and raise up a bet
ter one from Moses (Num. xiv. 12).
The doctrine that the believer is seen only in
Christ, and is regarded as pure as Christ Him
self, is founded on his incorporation into the
glorified human and Divine Person in lieaven.
The first act of faith is the occasion on which
the Holy Spirit eternally incorporates the be
liever into the risen and glorified body of Jesus
Christ. " Since," as Mr. Darby said to the
writer, " Jesus does not walk about in heaven
dropping off fingers and toes,"it follows that
72 ANT1NOMIAN1SM REVIVED.
every believer once incorporated into Christ is
absolutely sure of ultimate salvation. The cer
tainty is forever beyond contingencies. No act
of sin, even murder, can remove us from our
«
standing in Christ. Sin may obstruct com
munion, and leave the soul in sadness and dark
ness for a season ; but since, as Shakspeare says,
" All is well that ends well," sin in a believer is
well since it ends in eternal life. For a proof
of this doctrine, Eph. v. 30 is quoted: "For
we are members of His body." The clause,
" of His flesh and of His bones," which is
rejected by the Revised Version as spurious, is
strongly emphasized as a proof of a literal in
corporation into the person of Christ. A little
attention to the context will show that literal
embodiment in Christ cannot be meant without
implying the actual incorporation of the hus
band and wife in " one flesh." If it be said,
this is just what marriage produces, we reply,
that the "one flesh" of 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 all believers are.
in their judicial standing, literally " sitting to
gether in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
Another proof-text is found in the oft-recurring
words, " in Christ."
It may be safely said that the Plymouth doc
trines find their basis in a literalizing of figures,
ingenious allegorizing of facts, and a straining
of t}rpes. The best specimens of typology run
wild, are found in the Plymouth commentaries.
For instance : 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 is the line of
argument which is thought to be unanswerable :
Leaven always stands for sin. In Lev. xxiii.
1C, 17, is the command to put leaven into the
bread for Pentecost. Therefore there was siu
74 ANTINOMIAKISM REVIVED.
in the Pentecostal Church after it was filled
with the Holy Spirit, whose office is not to
cleanse believers from all sin, but to incorporate
them into Christ up in the sky. TJiis is the
argument of their greatest annotator, M'ln-
tosh, whose exegetical skill and spiritual insight
are by some of " the Brethren " attributed to an
inspiration almost plenary. Says another writ
er, J. R. C.: " We know that Moses in the law
spake of Christ. These ancient enactments
were shadows, in many, if not in all, cases, of
good things to come." Then from the Mosaic
requirement that " the man who hath taken a
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 home in a kind of
honeymoon. Here is a specimen of Major
Whittle's typology, whose doctrines are all
drawn from the Plymouth Brethren: First,
he assumes, without a particle of proof, that
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 75
the ark is a type of Christ. Secondly, all who
went into the ark in the old world came out in
the new; none died, none were lost. Hence
all who are once in Christ will be infallibly
saved ! 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-Scriptu-
ral doctrines. The great master of this falla
cious treatment of God's Word, the wizzard
who can 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
teachers and demonstrating the ultimate res
toration of all the wicked in hell to holiness
and heaven. Evangelical minds should be on
their guard against this subtle method of in
stilling dangerous theological errors. There
76 ANTINOMLAJSTSM KEVIVED.
is 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
his abiding, unchanged, with the new man, till
death. Regeneration has no effect on the old
man by way of improvement or extinction. He
is incapable of becoming better, and has a life-
lease in the believer's soul. The personality,
or what says J, may put itself under the leader
ship of either the new nature or the old for an
indefinite period without detriment to the
standing, only the communion is obstructed
when the old Adam is at the helm. The best
illustration of the Christian soul is, that it is a
tenement with two rooms. The spiritual apart
ment faces the sun, and the fleshly room is in
the rear, turned from the sun. The believer,
ouce sure of his standing in Christ, may live in
77
78 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
the front room and bask in the sunshine, or he
may retire into the back room and live in the
shade. He is exhorted to live in the front
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
in light, though he was not partial to the light
while dwelling in his double tenement on the
earth.
These teachers have a special hostility to the
Weslyan doctrine of Christian perfection,
against which they oppose perfection in Christ.
They are very shy of the term " perfect love,"
since this, as used by St. John, evidently refers
to our love to God : " Herein is our love made
perfect." This is not God's love to us, as some
say, " for," says Alford, " this is forbidden by
the whole context." Inwrought personal holi
ness is 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 is
exceedingly complex and contradictory. First,
in our standing we are as holy as Christ ; sec
ondly, in our flesh we are perfectly vile, the old
man being incapable of improvement ; thirdly,
the new man is 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. Our client never borrowed the kettle; 2.
It was cracked when he borrowed it ; 3. It was
whole when he returned it.
But, nevertheless, there is an exhortation to
practical holiness in most of the writings of
the Brethren, on this wise: "Be holy down
here because ye are holy up there " (in Christ).
"Strive to make your state correspond with
your standing." Yet this motive to Christian
80 ANTINOMIANISM IlEVIVED.
purity is neutralized by the assurance that the
believer's standing in Christ is eternal anyhow,
just as the exhortation to sinners to repentance
by a Universalist is a motive of no force, since
ultimate salvation is certain. Says M'Intosh :
" God will never reverse His decision as to what
His people are as to standing." " Israel's bless
edness and security are made to depend, not on
themselves, but on the faithfulness of Jehovah."
" We must never measure the standing by the
state, but always the state by the standing.
To lower the standing because of the state, is
to give the death-blow to all progress in practi
cal Christianity." That is to say, the fruit
must always be judged by the tree ; to judge
the tree by the fruit, is to give the death-blow
to practical pomology.
The opening verse of 2 Cor. xii., speaks of
visions and revelations of the Lord ; the closing
verse condemns un cleanness and fornication and
lasciviousness not repented of. "In the for
mer," says M'Intosh, " we have the positive
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 8]
standing of the Christian; in the latter, the
possible state into which he may fall if not
watchful." Yet he keeps his Christly standing
amid all his swinish wallowings ! This is Ply
mouth Brethrenism in a nut-shell. Here is an
other : " In John xiii. the Lord Jesus looks at
His disciples and pronounces them * clean
every whit ' ; although in a few hours one of
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
Christ — between our positive standing and our
possible state." (Notes on Leviticus.)
These theologians make a nice distinction be
tween conscience of sin and consciousness of sins,
where neither the Bible nor moral science
affords the least ground for this distinction,
" The former," say they, " is guilt ; the latter is
the normal experience of all believers. They
ever feel the motions of sin within their hearts."
Whereas conscience is nothing more than con
sciousness when the question of right or wrong
is before the mind.
82 ANTINOMIANISM EEVIVED.
Here is another distinction vital to the Ply
mouth system : " It is of the utmost importance
that we accurately distinguish between sin in
the flesh and sin on the conscience. If we con
found these two, our souls must, necessarily, be
unhinged, and our worship marred." Then
follows the Scriptural distinction in 1 John i.
8-10 : " ' If we say that we have no sin (in us),
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in
us.' In the next verse we find the sin on us —
1 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 took
1,800 years for Bible readers to discover it, and
then only through Plymouth eye-glasses ! From
Augustine to Darby this has been a standing
proof-text against entire sanctification, which is
as plainly taught in the passage as the sun in
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 83
the heavens. Let any candid mind read the
context, and he will see that the clause, " If we
say we have no sin," means, if any unregener
ate man denies that he has any sin which needs
the atonement, or that he has ever sinned, as it
is in verse ten, he deceives himself. No writer
would so stultify himself as to say that he who
is cleansed from all sin in the seventh verse, is
a dupe and a liar in the eighth verse, if he tes
tifies to the all-cleansing blood. John must be
written down as utterly self-contradictory to
say that he that is born of God 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 is no salvation from sin in this
life. The absurdity of this text as a proof of
indwelling sin, as the highest attainable state
of the Christian, and of self-deception on the
part of the person who professes entire inward
cleansing, is akin to that of advertising a com-
84 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
plete cure of cancers, and then branding as
false every testimony to such a cure.
Another text constantly urged by them, in
utter disregard of the context, is Gal. v. 17,
which, by that fallacy in logic called " 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. " I marvel," says he, as
translated by Dean Alford, " that ye are so soon
removing from Him that called you in the grace
of Christ, unto a different Gospel." Again :
" Are ye so foolish ? Having begun in the
Spirit, are ye now being made perfect in the
flesh?"
In believers, in this mixed moral state, a
struggle is going on between the flesh and the
spirit. The fallacy lies in the assumption, that
the best Christians are in this state, against the
positive testimony of St. Paul : " I have been
crucified with Christ ; and it is no longer I that
live, but Christ that liveth in me."
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 85
The doctrine of assurance is strongly empha
sized by these Christians as the privilege of all
who are in Christ. They are very earnest in
their condemnation of the "hope-so " experience,
and they insist 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
Christ, removes the safeguard against sin, which
old-fashioned Calvinism set up, in the uncer
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 sin. The
Arminian is told that the holiest saint on earth
may fall from grace and drop into hell. The
Calvinist is restrained from abusing the doctrine
of unconditional election by the consideration,
that no man may, beyond a doubt, know that
his own name is on the secret register of God's
chosen ones. This ignorance inspires a health-
86 AKTIKOMIANISM REVIVED.
ful solicitude promotive of watchfulness and
persevering fidelity in the Calvinist, just as the
possibility of total and final apostasy tends to
conserve the purity of the Arminian. The
Plymouth Brethren drop both of these safe
guards by uniting, with eternal incorporation
into Christ, a present and absolute assurance of
that fact. There may be a few souls who
would not be put in imminent peril by the
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 released from the salutary restraint of
fear. Hence we predict that great moral dis
asters will follow the general prevalence of the
teachings of Mr. Darby and his school.
In this matter of assurance, how much more
guarded are the utterances of John Wesley,
who teaches the certain knowledge of justifica
tion 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 it." This, translated into the Ply
mouth idiom, would read thus : " Let none ever
presume to rest in any supposed standing in
Christ while his actual state of character is not
radiant with all the excellences of Christ."
"Let no one who is 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
saints have a through ticket for heaven, why
should they stand before the judgment seat of
Christ ? The favorite proof-text, ever on the
lips of the Brethren, is John v. 24, with the
comment that " condemnation " should be trans-
luted "judgment." To show how far this fails
to prove the doctrine for which it is quoted, I
88 A2JTIX03IIAXIS3I EEVITED.
will adduce Alford's note Anglicizing the
Greek: " The believing and the having eternal
life arc commensurate ; where the faith is, the
possession of eternal life is ; and when the one
remits, the other is forfeited. But here the
faith is set before us as an enduring faith, and
its effects are described in their completion
(See Eph. i. 19, 20)." "He who believeth"
(pcrsevcringly) " comes not into, has no concern
with, the separation (/.r/m-), the damnatory part
of the judgment." All the texts which teach
the simultaneous judgment of all the human
family are ingeniously explained away by par
tial judgments strung along through the future,
after the doctrine of Swedenborg, in order to
make way for this new doctrine, that the saints
will not be before Christ's judgment tribunal
in the last day. We shall show the fallacy of
these explanations when we come to the discus
sion of the Plymouth scheme of eschatology,
or lust things.
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 89
THE SINS OF BELIEVERS ARE NOT REAL SINS.
This is a necessary inference from the assured
exemption of believers from condemnation,
however deep their fall into gross sins. For
this exemption implies the absence of guilt.
Those acts which entail no guilt cannot be real
sins. If they appear to be sins, their appear
ance is deceptive. Hence, a distinguished
English doctor of divinity could say in the
pulpit, " A believer may be assured of pardon
as soon as he commits any sin, even adultery
and murder. Sins are but scarecrows and bug
bears, to frighten ignorant children, but 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 God's eyes, be
cause He sees the believer and all his acts only
in Jesus Christ. This is the logical conclusion
from the premises that character is transferable,
90 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
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 sinlessness.
What an opiate to the accusing conscience !
what a weakening of the divine safeguards
against sin, set up in man's moral constitution,
are manifest on the very face of such a theo
logical tenet ! The chief barrier against sin is
removed, and sinning is made easy. With
ordinary human beings, even after regeneration,
facility for sinning with impunity becomes a
tremendous temptation, and to most men an
irresistible incentive to sin. If God has sol
emnly pronounced " woe to them that call
(moral) evil good, and (moral) good evil,"
what must be His sentence against those who
entirely rub out the broad boundary line be
tween them by teaching that the willful viola-
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 91
tion of the known law of God is only a seem
ing, but not a real sin? Yet this is the inevi
table outcome of the doctrine that there never
can be condemnation to them who are in Christ.
The case is aggravated by the denial of the
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 of real sin, and that the sin
principle is a necessity in every human heart
during this life, 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, more baneful than the
Canada thistle is to 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 past generations. I quote
from Baxter's Aphorisms on Justification, an
92 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
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
by us; for we never personally satisfied the
law (of innocence), but it is wholly without us,
in Christ. In this sense every Christian dis-
claimeth his own righteousness, or his own
works. Those only shall be in Christ legally
righteous who believe and OBEY the Gospel,
and so are in themselves evangelically right
eous. Though Christ performed the conditions
of the law (of Paradisaical innocence), and
made satisfaction for our non-performance, YET
WE OURSELVES MUST PERFORM THE CONDI
TIONS OF THE GOSPEL. These (last) two pro-
positions 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 in Christ, and riot in ourselves, or performed
by Christ, and not by ourselves, is such a mon
strous piece of Antinomian doctrine as no
man, who knows the nature and difference of
the covenants, can possibly entertain." (Bax.
Aphor. Prop. 14-17.) Thus speaks this pious,
practical, well-balanced dissenter against the
fatal errors arising from confounding the
Adamic law with the law of Christ, the first
demanding of a perfect man a faultless life, the
other requiring an imperfect man, inheriting
damaged intellectual and moral powers, to ren
der perfect, that is, pure love, to God his
Heavenly Father, through Christ his adorable
Saviour, with the assistance 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
94 ANTINOMIANISM KEVIVED.
merits of Christ, as if I had never wrought any
thing; and withal so to WOEK, as if I were
only to be saved by my own merits." To give
each of these its due in practice, is 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 and of unconditional
election. For this reason it does not specially
offend Arminians, while its doctrine of the final
perseverance of all believers is a tenet very
pleasing to those who hold Calvinism, with its
modern alleviations, the only form still extant
in New England. For these reasons this great
error is well adapted to become widespread in
both these great branches of orthodoxy.
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. 95
when they are assured that God's law, as the
rule of life, is abrogated by the Gospel. This
repugnance of the Gospel to the moral law is
one of the primal errors of all Antinomians.
But the form which this antagonism takes, is
peculiar to the modern Antinomianism. This
is the difference between the believer's stand
ing in Christ, and his actual moral state.
These bear no relation to each other. The
state may be utterly bad, while the standing be
perfectly good. Like the first brick in a row,
Jesus only is seen by the eye of God, the de
fects of the others, covered by Him, are not
seen ; the perfections of Jesus being seen in
stead. This standing, attained by the first act
of faith, is inalienable and everlasting.
The influence of this doctrine of an eternal
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
96 ATDTOMIANISM KEVIVED.
to looseness of living in not a few cases. It is
possible that a few might suffer no detriment
from embracing such a theory, but they would
be exceptions. Most people live below, not
above their creed. How can a man, amid the
fierce temptations of life, sing the following
verses, and be just as watchful against sin as
before ? Especially, how can one in whom the
old man exists in full strength ?
" Rejoice, rejoice, my soul,
Rejoice in sin forgiven ;
The blood of Christ hath made thee whole;
For thee His life was given.
" Rejoice in peace made sure:
No judgment now for thee ;
Thy conscience purged, thy life secure,
More safe thou canst not be."
Heaven itself can afford no greater safety !
Is there no moral peril in preaching such a doc
trine to men in the furnace of temptation ? In
all my study of human nature, I have found
that the removal of barriers against sin is a
tremendous incentive to its commission.
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 07
REPENTANCE SLIGHTED.
At another point, the Plymouth system is
open to criticism — its neglect of, or very slight
emphasis on, the need of repentance. This is
in keeping with its Antinomian tendencies. I
quote from Dr. Robert Anderson's book, —
" The Gospel and its Ministry," — a book
highly commended by Mr. Mood}*, to verify
this criticism, and to show that this defect is
not an oversight, but a part of the system, the
justification of which is attempted in this quota
tion : " The soundest and fullest Gospel
preaching need not include any mention of the-
word (repentance). Neither as verb or noun
does it occur in the Epistle to the Romans, —
God's great doctrinal treatise on redemption
and righteousness, — save in the warnings of
the second chapter. And the Gospel-book of
all the liiblc will be searched i:i vain for a
single mention of it. The beloved Disciple
wrote His Gospel, that men might believe and
98 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
live, and His Epistle followed, to confirm be
lievers in the simplicity and certainty of their
faith ; but yet, from end to end of them, the
word ' repent ' or * repentance ' never once
occurs." This proves nothing. It is manifest
to every student, that the synoptic Gospels,
which are full of repentance, present a differ
ent phase of Christ's teaching from John's
Gospel. Again, it would not be natural to look
for exhortations to repentance in epistles to
believers, whether John's epistles or Paul's.
To find these, let us turn to the reports of the
Apostle's sermons to the unconverted, in the
Acts, and 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. It must be carefully
remembered that, though the word " believe "
occurs about a hundred times in John's Gospel,
and " repent " is not found even once, John's
" believe " is so large in its meaning that it
comprehends conversion, or turning from sin, as
THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 99
well as trusting in Christ. This fulness of
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 the indispensable
prerequisite to its exercise. Hence, repentance
must be earnestly preached.
CHAPTER V.
ANTHSTOMIAN FAITH.
WE look in vain in all these writers of the
Antinomian school, whether ancient or modern,
for any adequate definitions of saving faith.
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 away
sin once and forever on His cross. There is no
preliminary to this mental act, such as a heart
felt conviction of sin, and eternal abandonment
of it in purpose and in reality. Nor is there
any test of this faith in the genuineness of its
fruits. The evangelical definition of saving
faith is utterly ignored, — that it has its root in
genuine repentance, its bud and blossom in joy
ful obedience, and its fruitage in holiness of
heart and life ; that in addition to the assent of
100
ANTINOMIAN FAITH. 101
the intellect, — the fruitless faith of devils
(James ii. 19), — there must be the consent of
the will, the Christward movement of the
moral sensibilities, and an unwavering reliance
on Him, and on Him alone, as a present
Saviour. Nor do the Antinomians teach that
faith is continuous — a life-long outgoing of the
heart in glad obedience — but rather that its
efficacy is concentrated into a single act of
assent to a past fact, an act which forever and
forever justifies. We can easily predict the
character of the edifice built upon a foundation
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, an eager pursuit of
holiness, and " pressing on unto perfection "
(Heb. vi. 1, Rev. Ver.), and that " perfect love
•which caste th out all fear that has torment."
We find rather a dry, intellectual religion, tena
cious of its speculative theory, indifferent to
inward and outward holiness, and reveling in
imaginary graces, or, rather, in the perfections
102 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
of Christ falsely imputed to themselves, and
preferring to keep the old man alive rather than
his summary crucifixion, in 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 life, and a pleasant refuge to those
who have lost their inheritance among the
sanctified, into which they once entered when
under better religious instruction.
We have thus far spoken of an indefinite An-
tinomian faith ; we now proceed to speak of
FAITH VERSUS FEELING.
" The power of God," says Fletcher, " is fre
quently talked of, but rarely felt, and too often
cried down under the despicable name of
frames and feelings."
" If I had a mind," said the eloquent George
Whitefield, " to hinder the progress of the Gos
pel, and to establish the kingdom of darkness,
I would go about telling people they might
have the Spirit of God, and yet not feel it," or
which is much the same, that the pardon which
ANTINOMIAN FAITH. 103
Christ procured for them is 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. 'They are exhorted to beware
of looking for any changed feeling, that feeling
is inconsistent with true faith. Says John
Wesley, " It is easy to satisfy ourselves without
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
other. Frames (allowing the expression) are
no other than heavenly tempers, the mind that
was in Christ ; feelings are the Divine consola
tions of the Holy Ghost shed abroad in the
heart of him that truly believes. And wher
ever faith is, and wherever Christ is, there are
these blessed frames and feelings. If they are
not in us, it is a sure sign that though the wil
derness become a pool, the pool is become a
wilderness again." (Note on Peter iii. 18).
This is the process of inculcating this kind
104 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
of faith. The religious teacher sits down in
the inquiry room, by the side of the seeker,
opens his Bible at Romans x. 9, and reads : " If
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
that 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
and childish to be looking for any change in
your feelings. I strongly advise you to be bap
tized and join the Church. You have fulfilled
the conditions of salvation. You are hence
forth to count yourself a Christian, and by a
resolved will to crush out all doubts respecting
ANTINOMIAN FAITH. 105
jour conversion, whenever they arise. For they
will arise. All true Christians have doubts of
this kind. It is an evidence that they have a
good hope in Christ. But, dear pastor, is this
all there is in the new birth? I expected I
should have unspeakable joy, arising from a
sense of burning love. I thought I should be
sure that I was saved by some inward impres
sion by the Holy Ghost. Oh, says the pastor,
you are not to expect a miraculous conversion.
That kind is limited to the Apostolic age.
SlN " IK," AND SlN " ON," THE SOUL.
Through all their books and innumerable
tracts runs a distinction between the preposi
tions "in" and "on." It is the aim of the
Gospel to deliver from sin " on " the soul, but
not from sin " in " the heart, till we pass
through the gate of death. In other words,
justification is affirmed, but entire sanctification
in the present life is denied. The blood of
Jesus Christ is efficacious for the removal of
106 AKTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
actual sins, but it fails to eradicate the sin prin
ciple, or inbred sin, till physical death conies to
the aid of atonement, and completes its saving
power. Thus the penalty of sin becomes its
destroyer. "Death, that foul monster, the off
spring of sin, shall have the important honor of
killing his father," says Fletcher. " He alone is
to give the great, the last, the decisive blow."
In vain do we call for Scripture proofs for death
sanctification, and for the important distinction
between "in" and "on." When those Scrip
tures are cited which teach immediate perfect
cleansing from all sin, as in 1 John i. 7, 9, we are
assured that the verb " cleanse " here means
judicial clearance, or justification, and not in
herent purification. But this involves St. John
in the Romish doctrine of good works as a con
dition of justification — " If we walk in the
light." This is certainly a course of good works
prescribed as a condition of cleansing. If this
is pardon, we have a condition unknown to St.
Paul. But we have as great a difficulty in pas-
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 : " Let us cleanse
ourselves." (2.) Justification is divided and
distributed into two parts, " flesh and spirit " —
a piece-meal pardon ! (3.) " Filthiness " is a
state. How can a state be justified, or have
judicial clearance or acquittal ?
It is easy to see that sin "in" the believer,
who has been adopted into the family of God
(2 Cor. vi. 18), or inbred, original depravity, is
here intended, and the Corinthians are ex
horted to seek its entire purgation as a condi
tion to " perfecting holiness in the fear of the
Lord."
NOT UNDER THE LAW.
" Free from the law, oh, happy condition! "
This 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
108 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
atonement, forever freed from the necessity of
pleading that we have perfectly kept the law,
in order to acceptance with God. We are freed
from the necessity of legal justification. Such
a necessity would shut up a sinful race in
eternal despair. We are freed from the law
as the (/round of justification. Our ground of
justification is the blood of Christ shed for us.
(2.) Nor are true believers, who have received
the Spirit of adoption, under the law as the
impulse to service. They are not spurred on to
activity by the threatened penalties of God's
law. Love to the Law-giver has taken the
place of fear of the law as a motive. This is
specially true of those advanced believers, out
of whom perfect love has cast all servile, tor
menting fear. Before emerging into this expe
rience, there is 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. 109
will run the way of Thy commandments when
Thou shalt enlarge my heart." The Septuagint
Version, used by our Lord Jesus, reads : " I
have run. . . . Since," etc. " Without the
law," says St. Paul, as an outward yoke laid
upon the neck, "but under law to Christ."
Love to Christ absorbs into itself all the princi
ples of the moral law, and prompts to their
glad performance. Hence, " Love is the fulfill
ment of the law." This is the meaning of
Rom. vii. 6, as translated in the Revision which
corrects the blunder of King James' version
from a faulty MS., making the law of God die,
instead of the believer's dying to it; that is,
ceasing to be actuated by its terrors, and be
coming obedient from the new principle of
love. " But now we have been discharged from
the law, having died to that wherein we were
holden ; so that WE SERVE IN" NEWNESS OF THE
SPIRIT, and not in the oldness of the letter."
(3.) We are free from the law as the instru
ment of our sanctification* Christ has become
110 ANTINOMIAN1SM REVIVED.
our sanctification by purchasing with His blood
the gift of the Holy Spirit. He is called
" holy," not as a peculiar attribute, distinguish
ing Him from the Father and the Son, but be
cause it is His great office to make men holy.
We are " elect through sanctification of the
Spirit and belief of the 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 its Author, out of whose
bosom it goes forth. If believers were free
from the law, as a rule of life, we should be
obliged to change the verse —
"Free from the law, oh, wretched condition " !
A 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. Ill
tion to the mighty momentum of the train, so
is the law designed to direct our moral progress
to a destiny of unspeakable blessedness. Diso
bedience derails and destroys. Hence the law
is a blessing of unspeakable value. The soul
that despises it is in imminent peril. The the
ology which teaches that men mount to a
" happy condition," by ridding themselves of
the beneficent guidance of the moral law, merits
the condemnation of all Christians. Jesus is a
Law-giver to control, as well as a Redeemer to
save.
THE SINNER HAS NOTHING TO Do.
" Nothing, either great or small,
Nothing, sinner, no;
Jesus died and paid it all,
Long, long 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 to a continued
course of good works. " This is the work of
112 ANTESTOMIAmSM REVIVED.
God — which He requires — that ye believe in
His Son." In all cases there must be repent
ance and its fruits, forsaking wicked ways, and
turning to God. In the case of the unbeliev
ing Jews there were two severe preliminary
works before they could believe. They must
conquer their love for human honor, and
through the use of prevenient grace, rise to the
position where they are swayed by the honor
that comes from God only, or the only God.
Hie labor, hoc opus est — this is work, this is
toil. Jesus sets another task before the Jews
before they can believe in Him. They must
believe in Moses. Men cannot indolently neg
lect inferior light, and, at a single bound, spring
up 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 it dili
gently, and to follow wherever the truth leads.
This implies self-denial and cross-bearing, even
ANTINOMIAN FAITH. 113
before Jesus is apprehended as their Saviour.
Then having found Him, they must consecrate
all their powers of service to do His will ; they
must work while the day lasts. These works
are rewardable, though not meritorious, in the
sense of putting God under obligation to com
pensate the doers. In the light of these truths
the following verses have an Antinomian
sound : —
" Cast your deadly ' doing ' down —
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
the world preaching from his favorite text:
"Faith without works is dead." Sinners are
not saved by works, but they must work to be
114 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
saved. "Work out your salvation -with fear
and trembling. Ye are workers together with
God."
THE FLESH REMAINS FLESH.
Two natures co-existing in the believer in
his best possible earthly state, is proved by
John iii. 6, which is amended to read thus:
" That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and
remains flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit." This is quoted to prove that
the single nature is untouched in the new birth,
while an entirely new nature, or, rather, new
creature, is created, 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 use of sarx, flesh, to signify
merely that which " mediates and brings about
man's connection with nature." He finds six
shades of meaning to this important word, the
ANTINOMIAN FAITH. 115
last only embracing the idea of sin. He ex
cludes from this meaning all passages in the
four Gospels in which the word occurs.
2. It is assumed that such writers as Weiss,
and Julius Miiller, are in error when they say
that the meaning of Jesus is, "the corporeal
birth only produces the corporeal sensual part."
3. There is a confounding of birth with crea
tion out of nothing. " For as generation," says
Dr. Whedon, " is a modifying of substance or
being, imparting to it a new principle of life,
conforming it, as living being, to the likeness
of the generator, so regeneration is a modifica
tion of the human spirit by the Holy Spirit,
conforming the temper of the human to the
Holy."
So that that which is born of the Spirit,
is the same person as is born of the flesh.
He is henceforth endowed with the new qualit}
of spiritual life, instead of spiritual death.
The identical man, soul, body, and spirit —
" for in the term flesh," says Alford, " is in-
116 ANTLNOMIANISM REVIVED.
eluded every part of that which is born after
the ordinary method of generation " — is born
again by the endowment of spiritual life.
What is born again in the view of the irnpu-
tationist? Not the fallen nature, — that must
remain fallen ; nothing is born again ; 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, and sometimes under the
rule of the new. This is not a birth at all.
For in a true birth there is a communication of
life to non-living matter. So in the spiritual
birth there is the impartation of life to a spirit
ually non-living soul.
4. Our best philosophers say that the only
safeguard against materialism is the theory that
the soul is created by 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. 117
Now it is well known 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 is
the true theory. But he who builds on any
of these hypotheses must first demonstrate its
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 creation, rests ana
logically upon a misunderstood theory respect
ing the 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 sin. The
Adamic matrix, though marred by sin, being
still used in the creation, and not the matrix
of a new race.
118 ANTIKOMIANISM REVIVED.
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 this region of
speculation into that of common sense. Nico-
demus was surely right when he understood
that the new birth was a second birth of the
same subject. 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 is signified by being in Him :
" He that eateth (continuously) my flesh, and
(persistently) drinketh my blood, abideth in
me, and I in him." Eternal blessedness is in
Him, and is imparted to all who by faith con-
ANTINOMIAN FAITH. 119
linually appropriate it. With such souls there
is a mystical union with Christ, an inter-pene
tration of Spirit. So long as Jesus abides in
the believer, he abides in Him : " Christ in you
the hope of glory." This union excludes wilful
sin. When this is committed, the union is
dissolved. If Christ should continue to dwell
in the heart which persists in a course of vol
untary transgression of the known law of God,
He would become what St. Paul styles, " the
minister of sin," and not a destroyer of the
works 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 "perfect in
Christ, not in themselves," affirmed that their
faith canceled their obligations to obey the
Divine law. They might, as they wickedly
claimed, violate any or all the ten command
ments without being guilty of sin, so long as
they maintained faith in Christ. No wonder
120 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
Mr. Wesley wrote of such men : " Surely, these
are the first-born children of Satan."
The true doctrine of the result of union with
Christ, is very truly expressed by Rev. Mr.
Sears, of the Unitarian faith : " The atonement
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 well pleased, was literally identi
fied with sin so as to be " wholly chargeable
therewith, that 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
our place literally — that 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,
straight through eternity, by what the Son of
God has done in our place. . . . Other consid-
121
122 ANTIKOMIANISM REVIVED.
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
repenting, and praying, and reading the Bible,
and then trusting Christ ; nor the converse of
this, that is, by trusting Christ first, and then
preparing something — repentance, reformation,
good works — which God will accept ; but that
sinners are saved irrespective of what they are
— how they feel — what they have done —
what they hope to do — by trusting on Christ
only, that the instant Christ is seen and rested
on, the soul's eternity, by God's free promise,
and regardless of all character and works, is
fixed."
We would call attention to the following
points in the above quotation ; —
1. Repentance is not necessary to saving
faith.
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 and char
acter, is FIXED." " What we shall be matters
nothing" since we have a through ticket for
Heaven. St. James is an impertinence in this
scheme of salvation, and his epistle may well
be called "strawy."
3. That " God regarded and treated Christ
as a sinner " ; 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 intention was wanting.
" The prophets did foresee in Spirit that Christ
124 ANTLNOMTANTSM REVIVED.
would become the greatest transgressor, mur
derer, thief, rebel and blasphemer that ever was"
or can be." " Whatsoever sins I, thou, and we
shall have done, or shall do hereafter, they
are Christ's own sins, as verily as if He had
done them Himself."
We once heard a layman, an ex-president of
the Boston Y. M. C. A., assert in a public evan
gelistic service that " Jesus Christ on the cross
was 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 bolts of the Father's personal
wrath. What we do affirm is that his sufferings
and death were 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 of His holy character
while He pardons penitent believers.
The chief proof-text of the doctrine that
Christ on the cross was a gigantic sinner, is 2
Cor. v. 21. " For He hath made him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him." This is
styled " the sublime equation." Jesus becomes
guilty of our sins and suffers their punishment,
and His righteousness is henceforth forever
reckoned as ours. The exchange of our sin
for Christ's righteousness is " absolute."
The common sense exegesis of this text is,
that Jesus became of His own free will a sin-
offering for us, and that this is the meaning of
sin in the first clause. This is the interpreta
tion of Augustine, Ambrosiaster, Erasmus,
(Ecumenius, Vatablus, Cornelius a Lapidis, Pis-
cator, Bitsche, Wolf, Hammond, Michaelis,
Rosenmiiller, Ewald, Raymond, and others.
It is a remarkable fact that the Hebrew word,
chattath, is used in the Old Testament by actual
126 ANTENOMIANTSM REVIVED.
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 sin, liamartia,
in the sense of sin-offering. So obvious is this
usage in Paul's Epistles, that the Revision has
twice, at least, translated this term by "sin
offering " — Rom. viii. 3 ; Heb. xiii. 11. We
contend that it should be thus rendered in 2
Cor.v. 21.
4. We have insuperable philosophical and
ethical difficulties in the way of receiving the
statement that the guilt of the race was trans
ferred to Christ. Character is personal, and
cannot be transferred. Sin is not an entity, a
substance which can be separated from the sin
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 is
the act or state of the thinker. 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, it can
not be punished in the abstract. If it cannot
be transferred to another, it cannot be punished
in another, though one man may voluntarily
suffer to save another from punishment.
Hence we repudiate in the interest of sound
ethical philosophy and clearness of thought, the
following proposition of Dr. Bishop : —
" If the sin of the believing sinner is taken
from his shoulders and laid upon the Son of
God, then justice, still following after sin, must
strike through sin and the person of the Son of
God beneath it."
It is a moral axiom that only the guilty can
be rightfully punished. If Christ was hoiy,
harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners,
to punish Him would be, not only contrary to
all human law, but it would outrage all those
God-given moral sentiments on which human
law rests. It is in vain that Dr. Bishop seeks for
128 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
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 society universally hangs the innocent
family on the same gibbet with the guilty hus
band and father. Then the case would be aiial-
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 which theological accuracy
requires. While it is true that Jesus is our
substitute, He is our substitute truly and strict
ly only in suffering, not in punishment. Sin
cannot be punished and pardoned also. This
would be a moral contradiction. Sin is con
ditionally pardoned because Jesus has suffered
and died. There is no punishment of sin ex
cept in the person of the sinner who neglects
PLYMOUTH VIEW OF THE ATONEMENT. 129
so great a Saviour. Sin was not punished on
the Cross. Calvary was the scene of won
drous mercy and love, not of wrath and
penalty.
Says Dr. Whedon, " Punishment in the strict
sense implies the guilt of the sufferer as its
correlative. Whenever the sinner arid the suf
ferer are not the same, it is only by an allow
able inaccuracy that the suffering can be called
punishment. It follows that it is not strictly
accurate to say that Christ was punished, or
that he truly suffered the punishment of sin."
But this inaccuracy is no longer " allowable "
when it is made the 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, despite my wallowing
in fleshly lusts, I am seen to be as holy us He
is holy.
6. But the ethical difficulties thicken as we
continue om examination of this view of the
atonement.
130 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
A LIMITED ATONEMENT
Is the inevitable outcome of the doctrine that
siri was punished on the cross. Whose sin?
If it be answered, that of the whole human
race, then universalism emerges, for God cannot
in justice punish sin twice. It must be, then,
that the sins oi the elect only were punished.
Hence at the bottom, this system of doctrine
rests upon the tenet of a particular, in distinction
from a universal atonement. The fact that this
basis is not avowed, and that the terminology
of hyper-predestinarianism, such as " the elect,"
" the reprobates," " special call," " irresistible
grace," "perseverance of the saints," and salva
tion by "Divine Sovereignty," is studiously
avoided, makes this system of doctrine still
more dangerous, because these offensive feat
ures are concealed with Jesuitical cunning.
We cannot resist the suspicion that this is
designed, so as to make it palatable to those
educated in the Arminian faith, in order to
PLYMOUTH VIEW OF THE ATONEMENT. 131
catch them with guile. Some unreflective
Arminians are thus unawares entrapped into
the reception of that unmitigated scheme of
doctrine which Christendom is almost univer
sally shaking off.
In our first interview with Mr. Darby, we
asked what was his view of election founded
on the foreseen, free, acceptance of the condi
tions of salvation, repentance toward God, and
faith in Jesus Christ. His reply was that " an
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 of everlasting
life as a present possession : " He that heareth
(continually) my words hath everlasting life "
(John v. 24) ; " He that believeth (persever-
ingly) on me hath everlasting life " (John vi.
47).
The reader of the Greek Testament sees at a
glance the condition expressed in the present
tense of the verb " heareth " and " believeth."
If these conditions are fulfilled, the new life
inspired by the first act of evangelical faith
becomes everlasting. This is the common sense
view. If this faith, at any point of probation,
lapses, the life expires. That everlasting 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. 133
ing possession" (Gen. xvii. 8), nor the seed of
Phineas losing " the everlasting priesthood,"
nor the Israelites breaking "the everlasting
covenant " (Is. xxiv. 5), and finding out Jeho
vah's "breach of promise" (Num. xiv. 34).
Hymeneus and Philetus forfeited the everlast
ing heritage of believers by " making shipwreck
of faith and a good conscience."
We infer, therefore, that the words "hath
everlasting life," were never designed as a non
forfeitable insurance policy, giving an uncondi
tional and inalienable right to the rewards of
Heaven. They are a compendious expression
for the spiritual life already inspired, which is
destined to become everlasting if its conditions
are fulfilled through the whole of our probation.
A SOUL BORN OF GOD CAN NEVER BE UN
BORN.
An abuse of figurative language is a strong
hold of religious error. Antinomianism seizes
upon " the new birth," " the being born again,"
134 ANTINOM1ANISM REVIVED.
"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
folly ' ; a wicked man is called ' a son of Belial,
a child of the wicked one, and a child of the
devil.' But when he turns from wicked works,
by faith, he becomes a child of God. Hence the
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
God's ways turn back, even into adultery, mur
der, and incest, they are still God's dear people
and pleasant children, in the Gospel sense of the
words. They ask, " Can a man be a child of
God to-day, and a child of the devil to-morrow ?
ETERNAL LIFE NON-FORFEITABLE. 135
Can lie be born this week, and unborn the 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 said, " Can a man enter the second time into
his mother's womb and be born ? "
The question would be easily answered, if,
setting aside the oriental mode of speech, they
simply asked, " May one who has ' ceased to do
evil ' and learned to do well to-day, cease to do
well and learn to do evil to-morrow ? To this
we could directly reply, If the dying thief, the
Philippian jailor, and multitudes 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, David into adultery,
Solomon into idolatry, Judas into treason, and
136 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
Ananias and Sapphira into covetousness ?
When Peter had shown himself a blessed son
of heavenly wisdom, by confessing Jesus Christ,
did he even stay till the next day to become a
son of folly by following the "wisdom which
is earthly, sensual, and devilish"? Was not
our Lord directly obliged to rebuke him with
utmost severity, by saying, " Get thee behind
me, Satan " ?
A SHEEP CAN NEVER BECOME A GOAT.
Here is another Antinomian abuse of figures.
In the day of judgment the human race stand
separate — the sheep and the goats. It is said
that since a sheep can never 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. 137
open sin, build their hopes of heaven upon this
palpable mistake. " Once I heard the Shep
herd's voice," say these apostate souls ; "I/0Z-
loived Him, and received His ear-mark, water bap
tism, and therefore I was one of His sheep; and
now, though I follow the voice of a stranger who
leads me into all manner of sins, into adultery
and murder, I am undoubtedly a sheep ; for it
was never heard that a sheep became a goat."
" A washed sow is no sheep," said Mr. Darby
to the writer, with an air of logical conclusive-
ness. Says Fletcher, " Such persons do not ob
serve that our Lord calls ' sheep ' those who
hear His voice, and ' goats ' those who follow
that of the tempter. Nor do they consider that
Saul, a grievous wolf, 'breathing slaughter
against Christ's sheep,' and ' making havoc '
of His little flock, could 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-
138 ANTINOMIAN1SM REVIVED.
band." Fletcher shows the superlative fallacy
of this style of logic by quoting the metaphors
of John the Baptist and Jesus, who style the
Jews a " brood of vipers and serpents." Christ
afterwards compares this vipers' brood to a
brood of a hen ! Had the vipers become chick
ens? To convince the reader that this is
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 the logical outcome
and immoral tendency of this pernicious doc
trine : —
" Though a believer does sin, yet he is not to be
reckoned as a sinner ; his sins are reckoned to
be taken away from him. God reckons not his
sin to be his ; he reckons it Christ's, therefore
he cannot reckon it to be his. Christ does jus
tify a person before he believes ; we do not be
lieve that we may be justified, but because we
ETERNAL LIFE NON-FOUFEITABLE. 130
are justified. The elect are justified from eter
nity, at Christ's death ; and the latest time is
before we are born. It is a received conceit
among persons that our obedience is the way to
heaven ; but I must tell you, all this sanctifica-
tion of life is not a jot the way of that justified
person to heaven. To what purpose do we pro
pose to ourselves the gaining of that by our
labor and industry which is already become ours
before we do one jot? The Lord does nothing
in his people upon conditions. He 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, you pro
voke God as much as in you lies. We must work
from life and not for life. Love to the brethren,
universal obedience, and all other inherent
qualifications, are no signs by which we are to
judge of our state (" standing " is the modern
term). Every elect vessel, from the first in
stant of his being, is as pure in the eyes of God
from the charge of sin as he shall be in glory.
140 ATINOMIANISM REVIVED.
Though such persons do act rebellion, yet the
loathsomeness and hatefulness of this rebellion
is laid on the back of Christ ; He bears the sin,
as well as the blame and shame ; and God can
dwell with such persons that act the thing, be
cause all the filthiness of it is translated from
them upon the back of Christ. It is the voice
of a lying spirit in your hearts that says ' you
that are believers (as David) have yet sin wast
ing your conscience.' David indeed says, ' My
sins are gone over my head,' but he speaks
from himself, and all that he speaks from himself
was not truth. There 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 all the humiliation in the
world. A believer may be assured of pardon as
soon as he has committed any sin, even adultery
and murder. God does no longer stands dis
pleased, though a believer do sin often. There
is no sin that even believers commit that can
possibly do them any hurt. Therefore, as their
ETERNAL, LIFE NONFORFEITABLE. 141
sins cannot hurt them, so there is no cause of
fear in their sins committed. Sins are but
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 these
and these good works, God will be angry with
them, we abuse the Scriptures, undo what
Christ has done, injure believers, and tell God
lies to His face. All our righteousness is filthy,
full of menstruosity, the highest kind of filtlii-
ness ; — even what is the Spirit's must be in
volved within that which is man's own, under
the general notion of doing"
" It is a soft and easy doctrine to bid men sit
still and believe, as if God would translate
them to heaven upon their couches ! Christ
expects that those who have grace should put
forth the utmost power thereof in laboring after
the salvation He has purchased for them." " So
work with that earnestness, constancy, and un-
weariuess in well doing, as if thy works alone
142 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
were able to justify and save thee ; and so ab
solutely depend and rely upon the merits of
Christ for justification and salvation, as if thou
never hadst performed one act of obedience in all
thy life. This is the right Gospel frame of obedi
ence, so to work as if we were only to be saved
by our own merits ; and withal so to rest on
the merits of Christ, as if we had never wrought
anything. It is a difficult thing to give to each
of these its due in practice. When we work, we
are apt to neglect Christ ; and when we rely on
Christ we are apt to neglect working. But
that Christian has got the right art of obedience
who can mingle these two together ; who can
with one hand ' work the works of God,' and
yet, at the same time, lay fast hold on the merit
of Jesus Christ. Let this Antinomian principle
be forever rooted out of the minds of men, that
our working is derogatory to Christ's work.
He gave himself for us, that He might redeem
us from all iniquity, and purify to Himself a
peculiar people, 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 logical outcome.
There is rather an attempt to draw a vail over
those inferences which old 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
tions highly esteemed by D. L. Moody and
many other evangelists : " The very moment
in which a soul is born again, — born from
above, and sealed by the Holy Ghost, — he is
incorporated into the body of Christ. He 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
foot is a member of the human body." " There
are two grand links in Christianity, which,
144 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
though very intimately connected, are perfectly
distinct ; namely, the link of eternal life, and
the link of personal communion. The former
never can be snapped ly anything, the latter can
be snapped in a moment, by the weight of a
feather." It seems that a sin as light as a
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 life ! Comforting indeed to the back
slider ! His fear that he may at last be filled
with his own ways, are groundless. " Behold
ers many faults may find ; but, as regards our
standing, 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
of His holy name, and to the praise of His sal
vation, that not a blemish should be seen on
those who are His — those whom He, in sov
ereign grace, has made His own. His charac
ter, His name, His glory, and the perfection of
ETERNAL LIFE NON-FORFEIT ABLK. 145
His work, are all involved in the standing of
those with whom He has linked Hi:nself."
Tims it would seem that David's workmanship,
in making himself an adulterer and a murderer,
is utterly ignored as a blemish. While in
Uriah's bed his standing as perfectly holy is
absolute. "We must never measure the stand
ing by the state, but always judge the state by
the standing. To lower the standing because
of the state, is to give the death-blow to all
progress in practical Christianity." That is,
we must never judge the tree by the fruit, but
always the fruit by the tree. If a crab scion,
grafted on a golden pippin, still produces crab-
apples, we must aver that they are golden pip
pins, because the crab has a golden pippin
standing. " The people of God are seen only
in ' the vision of the Almighty' — seen as He
sees them, without spot or wrinkle, or any such
thing — all their deformities hidden from view
— all His comeliness seen upon them." "He
hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath
146 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
he seen perverseness in Israel." The enemy
may say, " There is iniquity and perverseness
there all the while." " Yes ; but who can make
Jehovah behold it, when He Himself has been
pleased to blot it all out as a thick cloud for
His name's sake ? " " God will never reverse His
decision as to what His people are as to stand-
ing."
This is the comment on the shameless licen
tiousness of Israel on the plains of Moab, with
the women of Midian. Their standing is still
the same as it was when the prophet stood on
Pisgah. "It reminds us of the opening and
close of 2 Cor. xii. In the former we have
the positive standing of the Christian ; in the
latter, the possible state into which he may fall,
if not watchful. That shows us a " man in
Christ " capable of being caught up into Para
dise at any moment. This shows us saints of
God capable of plunging into all manner of sin
folly." Of course the plunge into the
ETERNAL LIFE NON-FORFEITABLE. 147
cesspool has not the least damaging effect on
their clean standing in Christ. These quota
tions are 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
tion between imputed righteousness and im
puted holiness. The term "impute," literally
signifies " to think to," to reckon one thing be
longs to another when it really does not. In
the Revision it is superseded by the word
"reckon."
We define righteousness in man to be con-
148
HOLINESS IMPUTED. 14JA
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
transferable. But in addition to His personal
righteousness He has a mediatorial righteous
ness, the merit of His passive obedience, labors,
sacrifices, sufferings, death, and high-priestly
intercessions. Now, although the phrase, " the
imputation of Christ's righteousness," or
" Christ's imputed righteousness," is not found
in the Bible, the doctrine itself is found in the
epistles of Paul unfolded extendedly, and it is
hinted at in the Gospels when Jesus speaks of
giving His life for the world, or as a ransom for
many. But it is always His mediatorial, and
not His personal righteousness. The absolute
necessity of this imputation in the scheme of
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
150 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
the truth of history, and cheating the law of
its demands. Hence pardon and salvation
would be impossible under the reign of strict
and unbending law. But here conies in the
mediatorial righteousness of Christ to all who
plead it as the ground of 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 fictitious, conformity, to the law,
now possible through faith in the merits of
Christ. 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 ; sanctifi cation is a work
wrought in us, and always has respect to the
present. Hence, imputation of holiness is not
HOLINESS IMPUTED. 151
necessary. In fact, in the very nature of
things, it is impossible. There can be no such
thing as vicarious character, for character is the
sum total of what we ourselves are. There
may be a vicarious assumption of another's
debt ; there cannot be a vicarious assumption
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 " in Christ " is perpetually quoted
as a proof-text 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 as belonging to Christians, even when they
are unholy in character and wicked in conduct.
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 so intimately unites us with
Him, that all His personal excellencies become
ours in such a sense as to excuse us if we lack
them. It is said that the first act of faith eter
nally incorporates us into the glorified person
of Christ, so that whatever sin we may commit
afterwards we incur no condemnation.
Says Fletcher : " People, it seems, may now
be 'in Christ,' without being 'new creatures,'
and ' new creatures ' without casting ' old
things' away. They may be God's children
without God's image ; and ' born of the Spirit '
without ' the fruit of the Spirit.' ''
The favorite proof-text of this piece of rank
Antinomianism is Rom. viii. 1 : " There is there
fore now no condemnation to them that are in
Christ Jesus," with special attention called to
the omission by the critical MSS. and the Re
vised Version, of the limiting clause : " who
HOLINESS IMPUTED. 153
Walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit."
Over this omission the imputationists rejoice,
as if it unanswerably demonstrated the truth of
their 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 critics.
Hence their assertion that the flesh is a sin
ful state which does not in the least damage our
perfect standing in Christ, in whom the carnally-
minded believer is as holy as the Son of God
Himself. It is said that " the standing is never
to be judged by the state, but the state by the
standing." The New Testament Scriptures re
lied on as proofs of this doctrine are those in
which our faith is imputed for righteousness.
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-
154 ANTiXOMIAXISM REVIVED.
tween the sum total of Christ's merits, called
His mediatorial righteousness, and His own per
sonal righteousness, which is not transferable.
Character is personal and unimputable.
Another constantly recurring Scripture is the
expression, '* in Christ "- - used to prove an act
ual incorporation into His Person. We 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
also. Elsewhere they are found only in Rev.
xiv. 13. What does Paul mean by these
phrases ?
1. He does not mean incorporation into the
glorified Person of Christ, for he always (except
in 1 Cor. xv. 18 — " asleep in Jesus ") avoids
His purely personal name, Jesus, never saying
" in Jesus," but he always adds one of His
titular names, Christ, or Lord.* "In Christ,"
* On " truth as it is in Jesus," see Meyer. Eph. Iv. 21. Quoto
Meyer and Bengei.
HOLINESS IMPUTED. 155
or "in the Lord," must mean, then, some in
timate relation to His official work.
2. What this relation is will be seen when we
observe that while Luke and Peter use the term
" Christian," Paul never used it, but uses the
more vivid phrase, " in Christ." Let us now ex
amine a favorite text of the imputationists — 1
Cor. i. 2 : " To them that are sanctified in
Christ Jesus." We heartily endorse the com
ment of Meyer, " the greatest exegete of the
nineteenth century ": " In Christ — namely, in
His redemptive work, of which Christians have
become, and continue to be, partakers, by
means of justifying faith (Eph. i. 4 ; Heb. x.
10)." In the fourth verse, Meyer's note on
" in Christ," is " in your fellowship with Christ."
His paraphase of the thirtieth verse, "But of
Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made
unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sancti-
fication, and redemption," is the following:
u But truly it is God's work that ye are Chris
tians, and so partakers of the greatest Divine
156 ANT1NOMIANISM REVIVED.
blessings, that none of you should in any way
boast himself save only in God." Rom. xvi. 7 ;
" In Christ before me " — Christians before me.
Rom. xvi. 10; "Approved in Christ" — i.e.,
says Meyer, " the tried Christian." 2 Cor. v.
17 ; " If any man is in Christ " a Christian,
says the same annotator.
Cremer, in his Biblico-Theological Lexicon,
enumerates forty-eight texts where this phrase
is used with the above meaning, such as " weak
in Christ " and "• babes in Christ," for feeble
Christians ; " growing up in Christ," for an ad
vancing Christian ; " perfect in Christ," for a
believer fully sanctified, or, in the words of
Meyer, " perfect as a Christian, in respect to the
whole Christian nature." " Holy in Christ " is a
phrase foreign to New Testament diction. The
general meaning of the words, " in the Lord,"
is discipleship to the Lord Jesus, as in Rom. xvi.
2 : " which are in the Lord "; 1 Cor. vii. 39 ;
" To be married in the Lord " ; i. e., to a dis
ciple of the Lord Jesus.
HOLINESS IMPUTED. 157
The expressions " in Christ " and " in the
Lord " are the Pauline way of denoting a sav
ing relation to the Son of God, a union with
Him by faith, a union which ceases when the
faith decays. It is quite probable that St. Paul's
use of this peculiar idiom is an amplification of
the words of Christ, " If ye abide in Me," in
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 : " Every branch iii
Me that beareth not fruit, He taketh away."
That this taking away is no mere temporary
break in the saving relation to Christ, but an
eternal cutting off, will be seen by reading the
sixth verse : " If a man abide 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." This solemn and expressive
language is utterly meaningless, if the phrase "in
Me," or " in Christ," means an inalienable stand
ing in Christ wholly independent of one's real
158 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
character. Those modern champions of imputed
holiness, and opponents of inwrought personal
purity, the Plymouth brethren, find their air-
castle rudely 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 " believers are
parts of the glorified Person of Jesus Christ,
who does not walk about in Heaven dropping
His fingers and toes by self-mutilation, but re
tains every part and particle of His body for
ever." The revised version, in Eph. v. 30, omits
" of His flesh and of His bones," and thus re
moves a seeming proof-text for the incorpora
tion theory.
3. This paper would not be complete if we
did not refer to the objective use, by St Paul,
of the phrase " in Christ," 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
provisions. As a specimen of the objective use,
we quote Rom. vi. 23 : " But the free gift of God
is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord " (R. V.).
See also Rom. viii. 2, 39; 1 Cor. i. 4 (R. V.) ;
2 Cor. v. 19; Gal. ii. 4, iii. 14 (R. V.) ; Eph.
i. 3, ii. G. 7 (R. V.), iii. 11, iv. 32 (R. V.) ;
Phil. ii. 5; 2 Tim ii. 10. In all these passages
Jesus Christ is presented as God's treasury of
grace and salvation. In examining these texts
the reader will be impressed with the superior
precision of the revisors in their translation of
the preposition " en," in. There are instances
in which this Pauline idiom embraces both the
subjective and the objective, notably Rom. vi.
11, " Alive unto God in Christ Jesus " (R. V.).
Here the believer appropriates the life that ex
ists in Jesus.
160 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
Writers in classical Greek exemplify only the
objective use of " en" Thus Sophocles : " I in
deed am saved wholly in thee " ; Hesiod :
" Whether Athens shall be enslaved or freed is
now in thee " ; says Homer : " Complete victory
is in the immortal gods."
But St. Paul's 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 it is just as rea
sonable to interpret 1 John v. 19, " The whole
world lieth in the evil one " (R. V.), as mean
ing that the whole world is in itself inherently
saintly, but by imputation is wicked in the evil
one, as it is to say that the best estate of be
lievers on earth is to be inherently impure,
while by imputation they are spotless in Christ.
According to the testimony of that cosmopoli
tan evangelist, Wm. Taylor, imputed holiness,
enrobing cherished vileness, is a favorite fiction
of the pagans of India. A fakir in his presence
HOLINESS IMPUTED. 161
professing spotless holiness, was rebuked by the
crowd as a liar, a cheat, and an adulterer. Ad
mitting the truth of these charges, the fakir
triumphantly exclaimed : " I am vile in myself,
but perfectly holy in Vishnu."
To be holy with a retention of the old
man, would be an untruth and a flat contradic
tion (Meyer on Eph. iv. 21.)
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 first for the saints,
and the second with them. In the first, Christ
will not appear to the world, which will be in
utter ignorance ol that great event. At some
day — not fixed in the Plymouth scheme, but
near at hand — Jesus will come down with
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. 163
state. He will miss them, and wonder where
they are. This " rapture of the saints " is fore
told in 1 Thess. iv. 17. But in the 16th verse
there are three words indicating noise — a
shout, the voice of the archangel, and the
trump of God. But Plymouth exegesis easily
explains this little objection. 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
Elijah, all of which were unobserved by the
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
nary readers have seen in the simile, "as a
thief," is the suddenness and unexpectedness of
His advent. The Plymouth brethren add the
perfect secrecy of His coming, work, and de-
164 AUTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
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
of offices under His millennial reign. It seems
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
ate. His civil service appointments will be
made according to merit, after a rigid examina
tion. In this way the works of the saints, but
not their persons, will come to judgment. The
question of their personal relation to the divine
government was forever adjusted when they
put forth the first 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 this inquest into the
works of the saints and their assignment to
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOQY. 165
oilice, is supposed to occupy about seven years.
Then when the state of the future millennial
administration is made up satisfactorily to all
concerned, the King descends with all His reti
nue of saints in all the pomp and majesty of
royalty, impressing every beholder with awe
and wonder. Now He appears.
But the world to which He comes is in a
sorry condition. The devil 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
universal king, to bring order out of chaos.
King Jesus makes Jerusalem His capital, and
sends His appointees to their respective coun
tries to enter upon their various offices. Per
haps St. Paul may mount the throne of Great
Britain and the Indies, or become the President
KEVIVED.
of the United States, without the bother of an
electoral college. The Jews are all going to
wheel into line by sudden conversion like that
of Saul of Tarsus, and become Christ's right-
hand men — the inner circle nearest the throne.
They will become the great missionary agency,
travelling through all lands, and preaching
Christ, the Jews' Messiah and the world's Sav
iour. Satan will be bound in his prison-house
a thousand years, and the Gospel, which was a
failure for eighteen hundred years, will 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
sion, u Go ye into all the world and preach,"
etc. That was designed only 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. 167
rene, the work of conversion goes on very rap
idly, and a nation is born in a day. At the
close of the thousand years there is a review of
the nations, and the inquiry is made how they
have treated Christ's brethren, the Jewish
evangelists. This review of the nations — not
of individuals — in a general judgment, is de
scribed in Matt. xxv. 31-46. If you wish to
embarrass a Plymouth brother, ask him to
expound the whole passage, carrying through
it from beginning to end the idea that nations,
and not individuals of the human family, are
there judged and eternally sentenced. The
brother's embarrassment will be painful, and
his makeshifts will be pitiable.
At the end of the millennium Satan is loosed
for a season and makes sad havoc with the con
verts made in his incarceration. He raises an
army and encompasses the camp of the saints,
is conquered, and, with Antichrist, is cast into
the lake of fire, the latter being a living man.
Finally, the wicked dead are raised and
168 ANTINOMIAKISM REVIVED.
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 which is brought into the judg
ment is assumed to be blank. This is a very
violent assumption, as the reader of the passsge
will see.
After the sentence of the wicked dead, come
the new heavens and the new earth — the eter
nal abode of the saints, if I can make out the
meaning of the Plymouth doctrine on this
point.
The effect of this teaching is, first, to belittle
the Christian agencies now 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 by the Comforter
in this life. Thirdly, it calls off the attention
from the great saving truths of the Gospel, and
leads believers to dwell upon airy and baseless
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 169
speculations, and profitless argumentation.
Fourthly, unless the laws of mind are all
changed in this generation, \ve predict from the
history of Adventism in past ages, that the Ply
mouth 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 " Brethren,"
is the hopelessness of the world under the dis
pensation of the Holy Spirit. They always
and everywhere assume that this dispensation
is a stupendous failure. "From the Cross to
the Second Advent there is nothing but a
parenthesis." I shudder at the disrespect which
is thus shown to the Paraclete, the personal suc
cessor to the risen Lord Jesus.
It is, moreover, an imputation of a lack of
goodness on the part of God to let the world
170 ANTINOMIANISM HEVIVED.
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,
converting the Jews in a day, and, through
them, converting the Gentiles in a wholesale
way by sheer omnipotence. But if the world
is growing better under a purer and 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 show that the world is
steadily and certainly going to the bad. Here
is the exposition : " The leaven does not mean
the Gospel ; it everywhere, in the language of
the Spirit of God, which is always beautifully
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 171
consistent with itself, means something evil.
In twenty places, we have mention of leaven,
and it always denotes evil. Into the 'three
measures of meal,' not into the ivorld, not into
society at large — no, but into the new, unleav
ened lump — into the church — a leavenlike
mystery of iniquity is introduced by the
'woman,' the seducer, the mother of harlots.
The very hiding of it looks suspicious. Could
this mean the public preaching of the Gospel ?
The whole lump — sad announcement! — was
to be leavened. Has not this announcement
been fulfilled ? " Then follows a dismal picture
of Christianity, painted with a brush dipped in
the blackness of darkness, ending with this
question, "Is 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.
172 A1TTINOMIAKISM REVIVED.
of heaven in this one aspect, its inherent 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 that kingdom itself in
another aspect, its power to penetrate and assim
ilate a foreign mass. 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 its good
side as well as its bad, and to this good use the
Gospel is compared. This is the traditional
explanation of this parable, which is certainly
full of good sense.
Let us examine the Plymouth view. The
meal is the church. This is a pure assumption.
The form of words, in both parables, is the
same. The kingdom is like a grain of mustard-
seed, and like leaven. If it is like it in its
progress of corruption and deterioration, surely
" there is," as Alford well says, " an end of all
the blessing and healing influence of the Gos
pel on the world."
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 17'-?
THE GKAIN OF MUSTARD-SEED.
Not content with a pessimistic perversion of
the parable of the leaven, they attempt to foist
an entirely new meaning upon the preceding
parable. The mustard-plant grows in order to
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 by Christ as nest
ing in His Church. But what is the proof?
The Lord himself tells us, in the previous para
ble, who are the "fowls " or " birds of the air";
for it is the same word that is used in both
places. u Then cometh the wicked one and catch-
eth away that which was sown in his heart."
Therefore, the birds which picked up the far
mer's seed scattered on the sidewalk, were not
clean, grain-eating birds, such as pigeons and
doves, but were vultures and owls ! " Thus
the kingdom of heaven, as it purports to be, or
174 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
nominal, national Christianity, becomes a vast
and monstrous worldly system."
A meaning utterly different from that in
tended by the great Teacher is read into His
words by a style of reasoning which would
pervert and subvert the whole Bible, if it were
universally applied. Yet this sophistry is
eagerly swallowed by those who desire to prove
that the world is on the down grade, nearing
the brink of destruction, and the church is
crowded with a phethora of sins, and is so far
gone in wickedness as to be past praying for,
and deserves nothing but vilification and denun
ciation by all true lovers of Christ's appearing.
We do not wonder that "the Brethren" are all
come-outers after they have accepted this inter
pretation of these two parables.
PROBATION CLOSED IN ADAM'S FALL.
One is surprised, in reading Plymouth theol
ogy, by the declaration made by all the writers
that human probation closed with fall of Adam.
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 175
The idea seems to be that, since legal justifica
tion is impossible to the fallen race, that " the
era of probation has been finally 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 it is closed forever." How dif
ferent is this from St. Peter's exordium at Caes-
area ! " Of a truth I perceive that God is no
respecter of persons ; but in every nation he
that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is
accepted with Him." This looks like probation
on the plane of natural theology, the religion of
the conscience. St. Paul seems to endorse
Peter's doctrine in Rom. ii. 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, were He revealed to
them ; and the purpose of righteousness, i. «.,
176 ANTINOMIAXISM REVIVED.
the disposition to walk by the perfect law, were
it disclosed to them. This I call probation. I
do not see how the " Brethren " can, by any
possible theodice, justify God for bringing
countless millions of fallen beings into exist
ence in a state of hopelessness implied in proba
tion " forever foreclosed."
If they mean to say that no man since Adam's
expulsion from Eden is under the dispensation
of mere justice expressed in law, but that all
men ever since that sad event have been under
justice tempered by mercy, as revealed in the
Gospel, and that they are still on probation
but under changed conditions, no one would
object. For all sound theologians reckon the
Gospel dispensation as dating from the promise,
" The seed of the woman shall bruise the ser
pent's head."
A little reflection will show that the denial of
human probation is a logical antecedent of the
negation of a general judgment of the race. If
the race is not on trial in probation, there is 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 at
the end of the world, strongly implying, as it
does, that all men are now on probation, 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 assertion of the Plymouth
Brethren is, that a person, once " in Christ," by
a momentary act of faith, is forever removed
from the possibility of Divine, judicial disap
proval. Let us examine their Scriptural proofs.
Romans viii. 1, as translated in the Revision,
which omits the last clause, is frequently cited
as an absolute 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
ITS ANTiKOMLANISM J1EV3VED.
the Spirit," i. e., while we walk thus. This con
ditioning clause has as much force in the fourth
verse as it would have had in the first.
John iii. 18, " He that believeth on Him is
not condemned." Here the word believeth is
in the Greek, in the present tense, which
denotes a continuous state of faith. He who
believes perseveringly is not, at any point of his
faithful life, under condemnation.
The same explanation applies to Rom. viii.
33-39. The "we" and "us" of this passage
refer, not to all men, but to persevering believ
ers. In Gal. iii. 13, " Christ redeemed us from
the curse of the law." The persons included in
"us" are fully described in the eleventh and
twelfth verses, those who constantly live by a
faith which bears the fruit of obedience. " The
just shall live by faith."
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 179
THE SAINTS WILL NOT BE JUDGED IN THE
LAST DAY.
This doctrine is really included in the pre
ceding. The word for " condemnation " is often
translated " judgment " in the Revision. The
great proof-text of the " Brethren " is John v.
24 : " Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that
heareth my word, and believeth him that sent
Me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judg
ment, but has passed out of death into life.''
(R. V.) Here the "judgment" 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 human probation.
As Dean Alford well says : " Where the faith
is, the possession of eternal life is ; and where
the one remits, the other is forfeited. But here
the faith is set before us as an enduring faith,
and its effects described in their completion"
(See Eph. i. 19, 20.)
IbO ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
In all of God's promises of eternal life to the
righteous, there is an implied condition which
is sometimes expressed, as in Heb. iii. 6, 14, 2
Pet. i. 10, 11, Rev. xxii. 14 (R. V.)
The grand reason why the saints will not be
judged, lies in the fact that their sins were
judged on the cross, and condemned once for
all ; and the believer need not have any concern
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; and we are the saints. We
have a certificate of our heavenly standing
signed and sealed by the Holy Spirit. This is
my paid-up, non-forfeiting insurance policy.
An occasional outburst of unholy tempers or
indulgence in the lusts of the flesh may becloud
my communion for an hour, but they cannot
damage my standing in Christ, or vitiate my
title to life everlasting. If one should fall into
habitual sin, " he only sleeps." As sleep does
not affect the validity of a man's title-deeds to
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY.
his farms, so spiritual sleep the most profound
does not damage my title to the skies. Precious
doctrine ! Who is so unbelieving as not to fall
in love with it at first sight, especially if he be
a periodical Christian,*and is most of the time
at the aphelion ?
But on what is this doctrine built? On
these two words — in Christ. Let us hear
what Jesus Himself says : " If any man abide
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 by its sap ; the picto
rial and impressive portrayal, just before the
apostasy of Judas, of these five particulars, —
the withering, the cutting off, the gathering,
the casting into the fire, and the burning, —
have an import of deep and awful solemnity,
disclosing, as they do, that the most intimati
unity with Christ, in probation, does not shut
out the possibility of a perverse use of our frea
agency, entailing eternal perdition.
182 ATINOMIANISM REVIVED.
A JUDGMENT OF PERSONS AND A JUDGMENT
OF WORKS.
Before leaving this topic, we should notice
the Plymouth distinction between a judgment
of persons and a judgment of works. They
teach that the persons of believers were judged
at the cross, and they were acquitted once for
all. Their works are to be reviewed by Christ,
not to determine the question of destiny to
heaven or to hell, but to decide on each one's
amount of rewards. This, they say, is not
properly called a judgment. But the Scrip
tures make no such 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 is condemned, the crim
inal actor is condemned. Human courts know
nothing of a fancied judgment of works aside
from the worker. The purpose for which they
administer law is to reach persons by their
judgments.
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 183
A radical error in Plymouth ethics seems to
be a forgetfulness that a moral agent is a unit
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 we have refuted
in the discussion of the two natures.
THE GENERAL JUDGMENT DENIED.
The General Judgment at the last day is
very stoutly denied by the " Brethren," as may
be inferred from the last paragraph. If the
reader wishes to confound them and make them
writhe in pain, ask them to explain St. Paul's
words in Rom. xiv. 10-12 : " For we shall all
stand before the judgment seat of Christ (God
— Rev. Ver.) For it is written, as I live, saith
the Lord, to me every knee shall bow, and
every tongue shall confess to God. So then
each one of us shall give account of himself to
God." Here the " Brethren " must choose one
of the three horns of the following trilemma : —
184 ANTINOMIAXISM REVIVED.
The words " we all," " each one of us,"
"every," must mean (1), all mankind, saints
and sinners, or (2), the saints only, or (3), the
wicked only. If either of the first two is
chosen, the saints will be judged. But if the
third is chosen, how do you account for the fact
that St. Paul deliberately includes himself
(" we " and " us ") among the wicked ? His
constant habit is to use these pronouns either
referring to all men, more commonly to believ
ers. There is 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,
those who have done good, arid those who have
done evil. This unanswerably demonstrates
that the saints are not on the judgment seat as
associate judges, but before that august tri
bunal. In Heb. ix. 27 — " It is appointed unto
men once to die, but after this the judgment "
— it is manifest that the judgment is co-exten-
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 185
sive with death, and is in no way conditioned
on character. Hence the saints will come into
judgment after death. The strength of this
argument is immediately perceived by the
Greek scholar when he sees that the word for
" men ' is anthropoi, a term so broad as to com
prehend the whole race. Then to make surety
doubly sure, it is preceded by what grammari
ans call " the generic article," which must often
be left untranslated in English, but means all
the human race (Hadley, § 529).
We could hardly keep from laughing in the
face of the venerable Christian scholar, when,
at my request, Mr Darby gave an exposition of
Matt. xxv. 31-46. What pitiable make-shifts
to explain away this most solemn and awful
passage in the Holy Scriptures ! " It was not a
final and universal judgment, but a review of
the Gentile nations. 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
186 ANTiNOMIANISM REVIVED.
Christ will send forth to convert the Gentiles
after His coming and setting up of His visible
kingdom on the earth. ' My brethren ' are
Jews. Jesus never called anybodjr brother but
a Jew." But when pressed to explain more
particularly the sheep and the goats, and the
final sentence, the wriggling and floundering of
this great evangelist was something wonderful
to behold. May I never see another man, mani
festly of so great genius and learning, com
pelled to crawl through orifices so small.
There is something very depressing to a gen
erous mind to witness such an intellectual
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 literal return of the Jews.
He spiritualizes the seed of Abraham, the sac
rifices, the circumcision, and Jerusalem, and he
distinctly foretells the spiritual salvation of the
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGV. 187
Hebrews, not before " the fulness of the Gen
tiles be come in," but after that event (Rom.
xi. 25). The faith of the Gentile world receiv
ing Jesus as their Saviour will drown out the
unbelief of the Jews, and they will receive
Him as their Messiah. Is not this great Apos
tle, writing under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, a more accurate interpreter of the proph
ets than any uninspired man, or class of men,
in modern times?
The universal Church of Christ, from the be
ginning to the present hour, has never formu
lated pre-Milleiiarianism in its creed state
ments of Christian truth. They all speak of
Christ as coming "to judge the quick and
dead," but never to set up an outward and visi
ble kingdom " with Jerusalem for the centre of
worship and of blessing." Examine that sum
mary of Christian faith, the Apostles' creed, so-
called, not because it was made by them, but
oecnuse it is a compend of their doctrines,
and you will find no trace of Chiliasm contained
188 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
therein. The judicious Bishop Pearson, in his
Exposition of the Creed, says, " That the end
for which He shall come, and the action which
He shall perform when He cometh, is to judge
all those which shall then be alive, and all
which ever 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's second
advent, " to judge the quick and the dead."
There is even a verbal agreement.
The next most important symbol of the
early church, the Athanasian Creed, has these
words : " Whence He shall come to judge the
quick and dead. At whose coming all men
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 will come again.
2. The object of His advent will be " to judge
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 189
the quick and the dead." This they testify
with one voice, and as preliminary, all confess
the resurrection of the dead, meaning all the
dead.
3. All imply what the Athanasian distinctly
states, that this resurrection and judgment will
be at His coming.
4. All are silent about any pre-millennial
coming, or personal reign, or any of the pecu
liar tenets of millenarians. Now these creeds
universally received, in ancient and modern
times, by Roman, Greek, and Protestant
churches, must be presumed to accord with the
Divine Word.
The Augsburg Confession, A. D. 1530, says :
" It is taught that Christ will appear at the end
of the world to sit in judgment, and that He
will raise all the dead, and will give to the
righteous and elect eternal life and endless
joys ; but wicked men and devils He will con
demn, and they shall be • tormented without
end."
190 ANTINOMIA^ISM ItEVIVED.
It adds this significant item : " Others are
also condemned, who are now scattering Jewish
notions, that prior to the resurrection the right
eous will possess a temporal kingdom, and all
the wicked will be exterminated."
Substantially the same clause, " to judge the
quick and the dead," is found in the Metropoli
tan, 1530 ; Basle, 1534 ; Second Basle, 1536 ;
Second Helvetic, 1564 ; Heidelburg, 1562 ; Bel-
gic, 1562 ; Scotch, 1560 ; Anglican, 1551-1562 ;
Westminster, 1643-48 ; Catechism of Trent,
1566 ; and Orthodox Confession, 1642.
This array of creeds, ancient and modern,
Protestant, Papal, and Greek, teaches a doc
trine wholly irreconcilable with the first princi
ples of millenarianism, or modern Second Ad-
ventism. If it is true that all men are wiser
than one man, it is true that all churches are
more correct in a doctrine held in 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 as to be abso
lutely irreconcilable with Christ's spiritual
kingdom. Isaiah xiv. 1, 2, a commonly-quoted
proof-text for the restoration of the Jews,
declares that they will be slave-holders. " The
house of Israel shall possess them (strangers)
in the land of the Lord, for servants and hand
maids." After the spirit of philanthropy, kin
dled in men's hearts by the Gospel, has led
them to sweep every form of involuntary servi
tude from the earth, it is utterly repugnant to
all our ideas of moral, not to say of Christian
progress, to read that chattel slavery, the pos
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
192
AoSTTINOMlANISM REVIVED.
law, as taught by Paul? What would be the
significance and efficacy of bloody sacrifices
after the Lamb of God has been slain as a
sufficient atonement for sin ?
CHAPTER X.
THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE REVIEWED.
CONSPECTUS OF ITS DOCTRINES.
THE author has thought that he could give the best
refutation of the Plymouth Eschatology by a republica-
tion of his review of " The Prophetic Conference," held
in New York in 1878. It was published in Ziori's Herald,
soon afterward, in a series of eight articles.
The recent Prophetic Conference in New
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. It is the natural fruitage of the Ply
mouth literature brought from England and
recommended to American Christians by cer
tain popular evangelists in their sermons, Bible
readings, and evangelical conferences. These
evangelists, though they discard the name of
103
194 ANTINOMIAinSM REVIVED.
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. This is
called Chiliasm, from the Greek, and Millenari-
anism, from the Latin, word for a thousand.
But the more exact term is 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. 195
gregational, fifteen Episcopal, twenty-seven
Baptist, forty-three Presbyterian, seven Meth
odist, and ten undenominational, which, we
suppose, means Plymouth.
The first impression which this makes on the
mind 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 sit
down and waste time in speculating upon the
future. It indicates that as a Church we are
by no means so discouraged with the progress
of the Gospel as to pronounce the dispensation
of the Holy Spirit as inadequate to the con
quest of the world for Christ. We shall see,
as we review the strong Calvinism involved in
the pre-millennial scheme, that there are theo
logical reasons for the cold shoulder of Meth
odism. Eighty-one were from Calvinist and
196 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
twenty-two from Arminian Churches. Of the
papers on special topics read at the Conference,
twelve were by Calvinists and three by Armin-
ians.
It is not our purpose to go into a review of
these papers in detail, but to outline the doc
trines, and point out some difficulties in the
way 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 for the training of a
people whom Christ is taking out of the Gen
tiles for Himself. The kingdom cannot exist
till the King is present in person, destroying
pagan powers by force, and converting the peo-
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 197
pie by the wholesale, by the majesty of His
glorious presence. Yet this presence is to be
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 converts, are to go forth and preach
Christ to the Gentiles with marvellous success.
One of the speakers in the Conference assures
us that everybody will then be converted. Just
how free agency is adjusted to this 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 all are to be saved
by irresistible grace. Hear him: "Regenera
tion is a glorious change in reference to this
earth and the race upon it. It comprehends
the appearing of the Saviour to accomplish it ;
the resurrection by Him of His departed saints,
and the rapture (catching up) of His living
saints to take part in His acts of dominion
(holding offices under Him) ; the overthrow of
198 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
all forms of evil on the earth ; the repentance
and restoration of Israel ; the outpouring of the
Spirit on all flesh ; the renewal of the earth to
far more than its original beauty before the
curse ; the entire renewal of every child therein
born, and thus the atonement of Jesus made
availing and applied to perpetual generations ;
the removal of all physical evils as well as
moral"
The parantheses and italics are ours. We
cannot see why 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
ence. In the present dispensation men are
converted by the suasion of the truth under
the gentle and resistible influences of the
Spirit. But in the future glorious regeneration
of the earth, the Spirit, we are left to suppose,
will drop the sword of the truth which failed
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 199
before, and -will 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 greatest wonder of all ;
why cannot a power, which irresistibly and
infallibly converts, infallibly keep the soul in a
gracious state ? Dr. Imbrie insists that every
body will be converted in the millennium, or
world's regeneration, but admits that when
Satan is unchained, a countless host of these
converts will so thoroughly backslide that Satan
will deceive them into enlisting in a war against
Christ in numbers " as the sand of the sea,"
going up on the breadth of the earth and com
passing the camp of the saints about, and fire
will come down from God out of heaven and
devour them (Rev. xx. 7-9). 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
^00 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
the Holy Spirit. This is a wonder, indeed.
But to us it is no surprise that machine-made
Christians should fail when once the hand of
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
the present dispensation is the most favorable
for the development and growth of virtue
which this world will ever see, and that
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
majestic and glorious presence — will not afford
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 conversions. It is exceedingly
difficult to make a virtuous choice under such a
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 201
preponderance of terror. Hence we all exhort
sinners not to defer submission to Christ till
the hour of death.
Now, the second coming of Christ is always
represented as a thousand-fold more awful than
death. He will be revealed in flaming fire,
with the holy angels, on the throne of His
glory. If He sets up that throne, not as a
judgment tribunal for the day of doom, but as
a permanent government for a thousand years,
He will have destroyed the very genius and
spirit of the Gospel, which is the sway of
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
foreground, completely hiding Calvary from
the sinner's eye. It will be a public confession
that a fallen world cannot be restored by the
202 ANTINOMTAXISM REVIVED.
moral power of truth and love under the sua
sion of the Paraclete, and a resort to force for
the triumph of His kingdom.
We can see how an old-fashioned Calvinist,
who believes in irresistible grace, can accept
this doctrine ; but how an Arminian, trained
to magnify human freedom and the suasive
power 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 by mere sovereignty, can
accept the Millenarian idea of the universal
triumph of Christ, surpasses our poor under
standing.
But there is a greater wonder. If the world
is to be subdued to Christ by a stroke of His
omnipotence, and not by the slow process of
redeeming love — the story of the Cross told
o'er and o'er in ever-widening circles down the
generations, till every creature has heard the
glad evangel — why does not that stroke fall
now, or, rather, why did it not fall thousands
of years ago ? If the world is growing worse
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 203
and worse, and there is no hope for its salva
tion under the present Gospel agencies, 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 hopelessly
down to inevitable ruin. But if the coming of
Christ is to institute the general judgment and
execute the eternal doom of the incorrigible,
and there is a remedial system gradually ex
tending through all the earth, we have a good
reason for the delay of Christ, the merciful
Intercessor, to assume the office of an inexora
ble Judge. But if He foresees the inevitable
failure of the gradual triumph of the Spirit,
and if it is His purpose to discard this mode of
saving men, and to disentangle Himself entirely
from it, and to institute His kingdom by down
right omnipotence, saving the race by force,
why does He delay ? The pre-millenarian can
give no satisfactory answer.
CHAPTER XL
DIFFICULTIES OF LITERALISM.
IN our attempt to accept the teachings of
this body of good men, we find an insuperable
obstacle in their literal exegesis of Scriptures
which are manifestly figurative. By way of
illustration, we will examine their method of
explaining Zech. xiv. In proof of the person
al reign of Christ at Jerusalem, no Scripture is
quoted more frequently and more confidently
than portions of this chapter, especially the
fourth and ninth verses : " And His (the
Lord's) feet shall stand in that day upon the
mount of Olives." " And the Lord shall be
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's Word must be
expounded homogeneously ; that is, it must be
204
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 is a homogene
ous unit. In the light of this principle let us
go through this chapter, applying a literal exe
gesis.
In verse 2 " all nations " (not some, or all by
representatives, but all the nations of the
globe) " gather against Jerusalem to battle."
This is, of course, to be as real and visible as
Waterloo or Gettysburg, 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. Whether the
Prince of Peace will "go forth" singly " and
fight against those nations, as when He fought
in the day of battle," or as a general in com
mand of an army, is a question which 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.
206 ANTQTOMIAOTSM REVIVED.
The inference is, the saints will not stand as
idle spectators, but will all have a hand in the
fight. These saints are the righteous dead of
all past ages, raised from their graves, and the
living believers, who were all caught up to
meet the Lord in the air, and who descended
with Him at His appearing after receiving their
reward — some office in the millennial king
dom. This scene brings vividly to mind the
Homeric battles before the walls of Troy,
where bloodless immortals — gods and demi
gods — sword in hand, mingled in the gory
battles of the Greeks and Trojans. But a
scrutiny of our Hebrew Bible develops another
difficulty : " And Judah also shall fight against
Jerusalem," not at Jerusalem. This compli
cates matters ; for the Jews have all been con
verted, and have become Christ's foremost ad
herents. That they should turn against the
capital city of their Messiah King, after He had
gathered them to the land of their fathers, is
something very mysterious. Will some Chiliast
rise and explain ?
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 207
But, in addition to all these difficulties, na
ture is to be convulsed, the mount of Olives 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 capital. The convenience 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 by
year, to worship the King, the Lord of hosts,
and to keep the " feast of 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 hills to
the Holy City. How many ships it would take
to carry, every year, the whole human family,
or one half — say 700,000,000 — counting out
208 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
the children, the very aged, and those near
enough to Jerusalem to go by land, we leave
to the pre-millennial arithmeticians. 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
as it has been since the great Rebellion.
In answer to the question how these annual
pilgrims to the capital of the millennial king
dom are to be fed, and who is to carry on the
world's agriculture, we have at hand the reply
of Papias (A. D. 100), the first great millena-
rian : " In like manner a grain of wheat will
produce ten thousand heads, and each head will
bear ten thousand grains, and each grain will
yield ten pounds of clear white flour ; and oth
er seeds will yield seeds and herbage in the
same proportion." This fecundity of nature
reduces the difficulty to that of a sufficient
number of harvesters, millers and bakers. We
infer from the statement of Irenaus that there
may be some difficulty in securing the grape
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 209
crop ; " The days "will come when vines shall
grow, each bearing ten thousand branches, and
on each branch there will be ten thousand
twigs, and on each twig ten thousand clusters of
grapes, and each grape, when expressed, will
yield twenty-five metratai of wine (i. e., about
two hundred and nine gallons). 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 my account give thanks
unto the Lord.' " We infer that 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}rnoldsand Frances E. Willard,
during the thousand years of the good time
coming ; for even the saints may be in danger
of repeating the folly, in their regenerated
earth, that Noah did, in his renewed world,
after all the sinners were drowned.
But let us return from this digression to our
literal exposition. What are the human family
210 ANTIKOMIANISM REVIVED.
to do after they have all been transported to
Palestine ? They are to keep the feast of taber
nacles. They are to build booths in the streets
of the city and on the house-tops. This will
require considerable more space than Palestine
itself can afford ; for when people are on a joy
ous picnic it will not be in harmony with the
spirit of the occasion to crowd them together
like Africans in the hold of a slave-ship.
But this difficulty ot literalism we must pass
by, and inquire into the kind of religious ser
vice these pilgrims are expected to render.
We find that in everything except circumcision
they are commanded to be Jews. They must
attend a localized worship as did the Jews ; they
must keep one of the great Jewish feasts, under
pains and penalties for disobedience ; " the
Lord's house " will be standing, and there will
be the " bowls " — literally, " sprinkling bowls "
for blood-sprinkling, and the " pots " for seeth
ing the peace-offerings. In short, it is said that
"they that sacrifice " shall come and take of
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 211
them and seethe therein. " The altar " is
spoken of, and its whole ritual is certainly im
plied as obligatory. The sacrificial slaughter
of animals at the Lord's altar and in the Lord's
house is spoken of undeniably. What will be
the significance of these animal sacrifices after
the one and sufficient sacrifice of the Lamb of
God? Will some literalist who insists that
Jesus will set up His throne at Jerusalem, be
so kind as to tell us ? It will not do to spiritu
alize the sacrifice unless you spiritualize the
whole chapter.
Our explanation is very simple. When God
would convey to the Jews the idea that in some
future time all the human race would be wor
shippers of Him, he condescended to their own
narrow notions of true worship, namely, com
ing to Jerusalem and offering sacrifice. The
whole chapter is 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
212 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
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
of the Gospel. Thus most of the difficulties of
this obscure chapter vanish when we take a
spiritual view.
Other difficulties press upon the literal inter
pretation of this chapter. We mention only
one. If any people refuse to go up to Jeru
salem, they are threatened with drought and
the plague. Here both moral and natural evil,
or suffering in consequence of sin, are treated
as possibilities, in the very millennium. But,
according to Dr. Imbrie, both natural and
moral evil will be excluded. Who will relieve
this discrepancy between millenarian teaching
and the threatened punishments in this their
favorite prophecy ?
If any reader of Zech. xiv. still insists that
the language must be literally interpreted, we
advise him to read the eighteenth Psalm, in
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGT. 213
which David describes his deliverance from his
enemies by divine interposition. Can the same
reader believe that it is literally true of
Jehovah — " There went np a smoke out of His
nostrils, and fire out of His mouth devoured;
coals were kindled by it," etc. ? Then let the
reader turn to Joel ii. 28-32, and read the
graphic account which will convulse all nature,
if understood literally. Then read Peter's
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 " the great
and terrible day of the Lord ; " and they
would be applying the passage to some future
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 the Pro
phetic Conference by reason of its quite clearly-
pronounced Calvinism. This is not a non-
essential part of the scheme lugged in by the
predestinarian essayists, but is fundamental in
the system. The design of the dispensation of
the Holy Spirit is not to save all men, but to
take out of the Gentiles a people for Christ's
name. These constitute His chosen Bride. He
meets her for the first time in the air. She is
to have special honors ever after. A large mil
lennial family may spring from her, but they
are inferior in dignity and privilege to the
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. 215
Rev. Dr. A. J. Gordon, in his attempt to
disprove the simultaneous resurrection of the
human race at the second advent, and in his
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 we profess to
hold, should not be a mere abstraction of the
ology, an article of faith which we find it
necessary to adopt in order to insure a con
sistent and Scriptural body of divinity, while
we ignore its practical application. It is, per
haps, the most solemn and awful of all Scriptu
ral revelations. It certainly can only be dis
cussed and preached effectively by us in those
rare states of mind where the exquisite balance
has been reached between tender adoration
of the sovereignty and holiness of God, and
pathetic sympathy with the helplessness and
sinfulness of man. While, therefore, it is the
instinct of the truest piety to leave God to
carry out what belongs wholly to the domain
216 ANTDJOMIANISM REVIVED.
of His will, it should be equally the care of an
exact and loyal theology to note the application
of this principle at the various stages of
redemption, and speak accordingly. Thus we
speak very constantly of our missionary enter
prises as destined to convert the heathen
nations to Christ. The Holy Spirit says that
God has visited the Gentiles, * to take out of
them a people for His name.' We speak about
the world being converted. The Lord said to
His first disciples what He says to us, and what
He will say, we 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 * the
Son of Man will 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. 217
who shall be * accounted worthy to obtain that
age and the resurrection from among the
dead.' "
In this long quotation the reader will note a
quiet rebuke for what " we say," in the use of
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 whom " belongs wholly to
the domain of God's will." 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
self. To be sure, He once said something about
preaching His gospel to every creature, but He
intended that it should be only a common call
to all, while the Holy Spirit, who had looked
into the depths of the Father's secret will, and
had seen the names of the elect — a definite
number — written there, would infallibly give
these a special call, accompanied by irresistible
grace. Hence it was absolutely certain before
218 ANTINOMIANISM EEVIVED.
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. M.
Parsons, in his paper on " The Present Age and
the Development of Anti-Christ." Hear him :
"Each age (religious dispensation) had its
assigned work in the recovery of heaven. Our
own age has its section. It is to gather 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 among them are redeemed.
The old doctrine of a limited atonement,
preached in New England a century ago, but
now 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
of the prophets. Hear the peroration of Mr.
Parsons : " Brethren and friends, we are called
to preach the Gospel to every creature during
this age, that from every nation, and tongue,
and people, the Lord Jesus may gather in His
dear Bride." We have always supposed that
our commission was to every creature because
Jesus Christ tasted death for every man. But
according to Calvinian Millenarianism, we are
to preach to every creature only because Christ
omitted to put a chalk-mark on His Bride. If
this 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
devote all our efforts to the affianced ones, on
whom He has set His heart. What a pity that
preachers should be required to waste so much
labor I
Many things in the paper of Dr. James H.
Brooks were to us a means of grace, especially
220 ANTDTOMIANISM KEViVED.
his vigorous and exhaustive presentation of
the bearing of the coming of Christ on the
fidelity and purity of believers. But we found
no nutriment to our spiritual life when we read
the following sentence : " The pre-millennial
coming of our Lord alone indicates the divine
honor and sovereignty. Those who reject the
doctrine, constantly affirm that it disparages
the Gospel by representing it as a failure, and
the work of the Holy Spirit, by intimating
that it is inadequate to the conversion of the
world. But a moment's reflection is sufficient
to show that it exalts the Gospel by proving
that it accomplishes all it was designed to effect,
and the work of the Holy Spirit by demon
strating that lie saves all He intended to save
during the present dispensation" If the words
we have italicized " exalt the Gospel," they
certainly blacken the character of its Author
with a heartless indifference to the well-being
of a portion of our race while pretending a
deep interest in their salvation, and in mockery
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 221
offering them everlasting life which they could
not appropriate without the assistance of the
Spirit. Whittier tells us that the indignant
women of Marblehead "tarred and feathered
the sea captain, Floyd Ireson, and rode him on
a cart " for not saving some poor fellows on a
raft at sea when he saw their signals of dis
tress. That he did not intend to save them
was his crime against humanity, which out
raged the moral sense and philanthropic in
stincts of these plucky women. It would have
made the case no better, but rather worse, if
that seaman had changed his course, gone to
the wreck, taken off all that he intended to,
and then sailed away, with abundant room in
his cabin and provisions in his larder for those
whom he had left to perish on the raft.
It would certainly be an alleviation of Dr.
Brooks' doctrine, to attach to it the grand
scheme of restorationism advocated by Mr.
Barbour, of Rochester, by which all those
whom the Holy Spirit did not intend to save
222 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
under the present dispensation, will be raised
from the dead and have a fair chance for salva
tion in the millennial age. The only difficulty
in this theodicy is 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.
A class of millenarians, not represented in
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
bride — 144,000. By scrupulously keeping the
seventh day, and abstaining from meats cere
monially unclean, they are endeavoring to be
among that number. They are the dolefulest
saints we ever met. We think they should be
despondent, with such a slender hope of salva
tion.
CHAPTER
EXEGETICAL ABSUKDITIE8.
•— The birth of Christ, the King of the Tews. Matt
ii. 2.
t — The death and resurrection of Christ
A — Ascension of Christ. Acts i. 9.
D — Descent of the Holy Ghost. Acts ii.
224 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
Church— Mystical body of Christ (Eph. i. 22, 23;
iii. 3-6; Rom. xii. 4, 5; Col. i. 24-27; 1 Cor. xii. 12-27,)
and the Brido of Christ. Eph. v. 21-23.
De — Descent of the Lord (1 Thess. iv. 14) to receive
His Bride. John xiv. 3.
R — Resurrection of the just. Luke xiv. 14; Acts
xxiv. 15; 1 Thess. iv. 15, 16; and change of living be
lievers. 1 Cor. xv. 23, 51, 52.
Rapture — Translation of the saints who (like Enoch)
are caught up to meet Christ in the air. 1 Thess. iv. 17.
M — The meeting of Christ and His Bride. 1 Thess.
iv. 17; Eph. v. 21-32; 2 Cor. xi. 2. Thus the Church
escapes the tribulation. Luke xxi. 30; 2 Peter ii. 9; Rev.
iii. 10.
T — Period of unequalled tribulation to the world
(Dan. xii. 1; 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;
cii. 16,) and will restore them to their own land. Isa.
xi. 11-16; Jer. xxx. 3; xxxi; xxxii. 36-44; Amos ix. 15;
Zech. viii. 3-8; Rom. xi. Anti-Christ will be revealed.
2 Thess. ii. 8. The vials of God's wvath poured out,
Psa. ii. 1-5; Rev. vi. 16, 17; Rev. xiv. 10; xvi. But men
only blaspheme God. Rev. xvi. 11, 21. Israel accepts
Christ (Zech. xii. 10-14; xiii. 6,) and are brought through
the fire. Zech. xiii. 9. They pass not away. Matt.
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; Zech xiv. 4, 5; Matt. xvi. 27; xxiv. 29, 30.
J — Judgment of the nations, or tho quick. Matt. xxv.
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 225
32-40; xix. 28; Acts x. 42; 1 Peter iv. 5. Anti-Christ is
destroyed. 2 Thess. ii. 8. The Beast and the False
Prophet are taken. Rev. xix. 20. Gog and His allies are
smitten. Ezek. xxxviii. ; xxxix. Satan is bound. Rev.
xx. 1-3; Rom. xvi. 20.
R. L. — Resurrection of the Tribulation Saints, which
completes the First Resurrection. Rev. xx. 4-6.
Mill'm — The Millennium. Christ's glorious reign on
earth for 1,000 years (Rev. xx. 4) with His bride. 2 Tim.
ii. 12; Rev. v. 10; Isa. ii. 2-5; iv. ; xi. 1-12; xxv. G-9; Isa.
Ixv. 18-25; Mic. iv. 1^1; Zeph. iii. 14-20; Zech. viii. 3-S,
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. xx. 12-
15; John v. 29; Dan. xii. 2.
J. W. T.— Judgment at the Great White Throne of
all the remaining dead. Rev. xx. 11-15. Death and Hell
destroyed. Rev. xx. 14; 1 Cor. xv. 26.
E. E. — Eternity. Isa. Ivii. 15.
[THE above diagram is taken from a pam-
plilet circulated at the Conference with the
endorsement of its president. It is also found
in a book entitled " Maranatha," by Rev. 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 in the Tri
bune.]
226 ANTINOMIANISM EEVT7ED.
The most vulnerable point of this pre-millen-
arian theory is found in the exegesis of Matt.
xxv. 31-46. The necessities of the theory re
quire its advocates to do violence to this most
solemn utterance of the Son of God while on
the earth. It is indisputable that He discloses
four facts in this passage : (1) The judgment
will be general, including the whole 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
condemned according to his treatment of Jesus
Christ in the persons of His brethren, either
believers or human beings generally. (4) This
day of judgment is a finality, a winding-up of the
history of man on the earth. Henceforth man
kind will be found in only two conditions — in
everlasting punishment or in life eternal — with
the intimation that the former is a place prepared
for the devil and his angels. The pre-millena-
rian, finding it impossible to wedge in an earthly
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 227
reign of Christ, called the millennium, between
the coming of the Son of Man in His Glory
and His final sentence, " Come, ye blessed ! "
and " Depart, ye cursed ! " deliberately goes to
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
hi check, by millennial agencies.
This is the teaching of the Prophetic Confer
ence. We call this the willful perversion of
the plain words of Jesus Christ, the Judge
eternal. If the reader will 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's eschatology. In
stead of being the end of man on the earth, it is
about the middle point of his earthly history,
and he will be found, after the sentence of
eternal doom, begetting children (Isa. xi. 6, 8 ;
Ixv. 23), black-smithing (Isa. ii. 4), house-
228 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
building and vine-planting (Isa. Ixv. 21), the
old man with his staff in hand for very age,
and the boys and girls playing in the streets
(Zech. viii. 4, 5) ; 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). The references
are those which accompany the diagram.
One of the essayists, Dr. J. T. Cooper,
argued that only the Gentiles are judged in
Matt. xxv. 31-46, and that the Jews were
exempt. According to this writer, and the
Plymouth teachers generally, this judgment
turns upon the question how each nation has
treated Christ's brethren, the Jews. Let the
reader peruse this whole passage, putting nations,
or Gentiles, after the pronouns "ye " and "you,"
and in place of " them," and substitute Jews
for "my brethren," and he will get some idea
of the monstrous misinterpretation which
Chiliasm is forced to put upon this plain pas
sage, in defiance of common sense.
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOQY. 229
By making two last (?) days, or judgment
days — one for the living and one for the dead
(Rev. xx. 11-15) — a space is gained for the
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 in the which all that are in their graves
shall 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 hour," to
make two resurrections, a thousand years apart!
The millenarians find no difficulty in splitting
the judgment day into fragments, locating one
in the air before the Epiphany, or appearing of
Christ, another on the earth after that event,
and still another after a thousand years. The
Plymouth Brethren add a fourth judgment day,
230 ANTINOMIANISM HEVIVED.
when the sins of believers were judged on the
Cross — the only judgment of their persons as
distinguished from their works. But since the
resurrection is always intimately connected
with the judgment, this theory easily invents
as many resurrections as are requisite to its
demands. Hence we have a resurrection of
the saints, to meet Christ before He descends
to the earth ; then the resurrection of the mar
tyrs, who by some unaccountable agency have
been converted and beheaded while Christ was
reviewing the saints in the air, and not a holy
soul was left on the earth, but Antichrist was
for years, and perhaps centuries, riding rough
shod over the God-forsaken earth, and all the
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. Then we have a third resurrection —
that of the wicked — after a thousand years
plus the period in which Satan is loosed, whicli
may be ten thousand years more. For all
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 231
these resurrections and judgments Scripture
proofs are quoted with great profusion and
perfect confidence, although the Church from
the beginning till the present day has believed
in one resurrection and one judgment of the
whole human family.
But still greater difficulties, not to say ab
surdities, are encountered when we examine
the mixed state of tilings on the earth after
the judgment of the living nations, or "the
quick." Here we find living side by side in
the millennium the remnant who have survived
the judgment, and are still flesh and blood;
the saints who were changed when the Judge
reached the air ; and the righteous dead who
have been raised and endowed with spiritual
\
I bodies. How these three sorts of folks are to
have intercourse — mortals and immortals thus
mixed together — is inconceivable. But as
children are to be born, still more difficult
social problems arise. There will be a class
capable of marriage, because they are still in
232 ANflNOMIANISM REVIVED.
the flesh ; a class incapable of that estate, be
cause they are " in the resurrection ; " and a
class of whom we are doubtful, namely, the
changed saints. This exceeding complex state
of society is entirely out of analogy with the
constitution and course of nature, and is en
tirely abnormal and incongruous.
The moral government of such a world by
the second Person of the Trinity in person will
be one continued reign of supernaturalism,
wholly unadapted 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 Holy Scriptures as obsolete as
Noah's almanac. This is admitted by distin
guished pre-millenarians. One of them is
quoted by Bickersteth as saying that " the
Scriptures of the New Testament, written for
a tempted and suffering Church, are unapplica-
ble to this state of things." Dr. McNeile says :
" It is obvious that, in the passage from our
present state to a state of universal holiness,
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 233
these characteristic sayings of the New Testa
ment must cease to have any application, and
become obsolete, not to say false."
If the human race is to be continually propa
gated throng] i 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
average longevity — the child dying an hun
dred years old — there must be another resur
rection distinct from that of the wicked for the
accommodation of these deceased millennial
saints. This will make four resurrections in
all. Thus the difficulties thicken as we dwell
on this theory of the personal reign of Christ
on earth before the last day, which is certainly
" another gospel " from that which Paul
preached.
To the people of the United States this
judgment of nations by the test of our national
234 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
treatmemt of the Jews, is one which we may
approach with greater boldness than any other
nation of modern civilization, for we have never
discriminated against the Hebrews, " these my
brethren," in our legislation, though we have
abused the African, the Indian, and the China
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 life or ever
lasting punishment.
CHAPTER XIV.
DIFFICULTIES IN THE THOUSAND YEARS.
WE object to the millemirian scheme, because
it is grounded chiefly on those portions of the
Bible which are symbolic, and enigmatic, and
difficult to be understood. The personal reign
of Christ a thousand years is not found in the
Gospels, nor in the Acts of the Apostles, nor
in the Epistles of Paul, Peter, James or John,
but only in the Apocalypse, which is the dark
est book in the New Testament. Its striking
symbols and gorgeous imagery impress the
imagination and awaken the feelings. The
visitor in London will find in one library a
thousand commentaries on 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 failed. From
236
236 ANTESTOMIANISM REVIVED.
Ben gel's date of the binding of Satan in 183C
down to the present time, the years fixed for
the coming of Christ have passed away, and
the expositors who have survived their disap
pointment have courageously tried again, by
shifting their ground into the safer future.
There are three great schools of interpreters of
the Revelation : (1) The Prseterists, or those
who teach that the whole, or by far the greater
part, has been fulfiled. Some of the most emi
nent German expositors, as Ewald, De "Wette,
Lucke, and Dusterdieck, belong to this school ;
also Dr. Davidson in England, and Moses
Stuart in America. (2) The Historicals, who
hold that the Revelation embraces the whole
history of the Church to the end of the world.
(3) The Futurists, who insist that this book,
after the third chapter, relates entirely to
future events. Some include the first three
chapters, and assert that they refer to the
future also.
This is the grand outline of opinions held by
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 237
men equally learned and honest ; 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
last things by the symbolic and typical, thus
inverting an acknowledged canon of interpre
tation. The twentieth chapter of the Revela
tion is the basis of pre-millenarianism. Let us
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
chapter opens with the vision of an angel
descending from heaven with a chain in his
hand. This angel can never be proved to be
Christ. Says Alford : " Angelas^ in this book,
is an angel; never our Lord" Thus far in the
Apocalypse there is not the slightest intimation
that He has made His second advent in visible
form. In chapter xix. 11-21, He wars against
238 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
the beast, and the kings of the earth and their
armies ; but the assumption that this is a literal
battle fought on the earth by Jesus in person,
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 " the
armies which were in heaven." The Scriptures
are unanimous in making heaven the fixed
abode of Christ, until He shall come to judge
mankind at the last day.
2. John saw only the souls of the martyrs.
He makes no mention of their bodies. There
is a grave doubt whether a bodily resurrection
is here intended ; but we are inclined to the
literal resurrection of these martyrs. In John
v. 25, we have a resurrection of souls, followed
in verse 28 by a bodily resurrection. This, in
the opinion of many, explains the first and the
second resurrections in this chapter. The pas
sage is obscure, admitting of different interpre
tations.
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 239
3. There is here no proof of the resurrec
tion of all the righteous dead, but only of the
beheaded martyrs ; so that allowing the literal
resurrection of these does not prove that all
the saints rise at this time. Every man is to
rise in his own order. Some arose at the resur
rection of Christ, 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 : " for
one star differeth from another star in 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.
This may explain Paul's aim at a martyr's
death and the resurrection of the beheaded
(Phil. iii. 10, 11). " On such the second death
hath no power." The dying of these martyrs,
in a manner so heroic, utterly vanquished the
mighty enemy. An early restoration from the
dominion of death, suffered prematurely for
240 ANTINOMIANISM KEVIVED.
Christ, is an eminently appropriate reward:
" Holy and blessed is lie that hath part in the
first resurrection."
4. There is in this chapter a total absence
of proof that these raised martyrs reigned with
Christ on the earth. The 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. Bengel,
Wesley, Moses Stuart, and many others, say,
"in heaven and not on the earth."
5. There is no evidence here that a single
millennium is spoken of. The best scholars,
and among them Bengel, Wesley, and Dr.
Owen, assert that there are two distinct periods
of a thousand years spoken of in verses 1-7.
The Greek article sustains this view. The first
period extends through the repression of Satan
which, Bengel says, indicates the great pros
perity of the Church. The second is the reign
of martyrs. Both of these periods are before
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOQY. 241
the second coming of Christ. Thus Beugel
and Wesley, instead of being pre-millenarians,
were, in fact, what most modern Methodists
are, post-millenarians. Beugel styles those who
confound these two distinct millennial periods,
" pseudo-Chiliasts." The Prophetic Conference
thus falls under Bengel's censure as pseudos.
He says : " Whilst Satan is loosed from his
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 ; then, next,
there is the new heaven, the new earth, and
the new Jerusalem." Thus the coming of
Christ is two thousand years plus a little season
after the binding of Satan. A harmless sort of
Chiliasm is this. Says Bengel : " The con
founding of the two millennial periods has
long ago produced many errors, and has made
the name of Chiliasm hateful and suspected."
6. It is a very important point for the mil-
lenarian to prove, that the judgment of the
242 ANTLNOMIANISM KEVIVED.
dead before the great white Throne is that of
the wicked dead only. But this vital point is
not proven by this chapter. In fact, the bring
ing forth of the Book of Life and the casting
into the lake of fire of those whose names are
not written therein, imply that some were
found inscribed. Dr. Brooks' declaration that
this Book of Life is a blank book, is a baseless
assumption. This is not proved by the words,
" the rest of the dead lived not," etc. Says so
eminent a Greek scholar as Dr. Owen : u Yet
as the words here stand, we cannot, without
great violence, make ' the rest ' (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
resurrection." We quote Dr. Owen, not to
endorse him, but to show the difficulty of prov
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. 243
that " the rest of the dead " include all the
human 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 in the general judgment.
7. We 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 to associate
them with either of these chiliads. In chapter
seven, the angels seal exactly twelve thousand
of each of the twelve tribes, but there is no
hint of the restoration of the Hebrew nation
to their own land. After the day of general
doom, the last great day, there descends a new
Jerusalem into the new earth which has no
more sea. Even then " the tabernacle of God
is with men," not with the Jews.
Considering the fact that the old Testament
prophecies are constantly quoted by the millen-
arians in proof of the personal reign of Christ
on earth, with the Jews as His most loyal sup
porters, it is to us an insuperable objection to
244 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
the doctrine, that the book of Revelation omits
to place the restored Hebrew nation in any
such relation to Christ, either in the old or the
new Jerusalem.
If there is to be a personal reign of Christ
on the earth, during a thousand years, to sub
due the nations, as a substitute for the conquest
now being made by the Holy Spirit, it is
remarkable that these 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 a book which has been an
inexplicable enigma to the scholarship of all
the Christian ages. This style of interpretation
may be satisfactory and convincing to those
who accept imagery for doctrine, symbol for
substance, and rhetoric for logic ; but there are
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
pre-millcnarians rire perpetually doing. They
opened their recent Conference with the dis
claimer that they had not brought their ascen
sion robes with them. But such is the perilous
fascination of their method of prophetic stud
ies, that they will soon be attracted to an
interpretation of the apocalyptic numbers and
a determination of the year and day when, in
the language of Mr. Barbour, " Christ is due,"
as we say of an express train. History always
repeats itself. This has been the outcome of
every great millenarian movement. The leaders
may keep their own intellectual balance quite
well, but by deluging Christendom with their
literature, they will soon shake the minds of
Christians of less steadiness who will insist on
bringing to the next Prophetic Conference
their arithmetical charts of Daniel's animals, if
not their ascension robes. We who survived
1843 know the sequel.
CHAPTER XV.
THE CHURCH NOT THE KINGDOM.
WE object to the pre-rnillenarian theory be
cause its definition of the kingdom of Christ
makes it an institution 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 set up. The Chiliast represents the
kingdom as coming only at the descent of the
King in person, and as then set up suddenly by
almightiness without the aid of human agency.
But when we look into the New Testament, we
find no such difference in the use of the terms
"Church "and "kingdom." They seem to be
used interchangeably. The kingdom is to be
established by preaching, and it is to develop
gradually till its ultimate triumph. The gener
ation to whom John the Baptist and Christ
216
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 247
preached, were urged to repent because the
kingdom of heaven was at hand. We fail to
see the cogency of this motive if the kingdom
was not to be set up till after 1,800 or 18,000
years. St. Paul writes a thanksgiving epistle
to the Colossians in which he expresses his
gratitude to the Father "who hath translated
us into the kingdom of His dear Son." Christ
himself spoke of the kingdom of God as within,
or among, His hearers. The disciples were
taught to pray for its complete triumph on the
earth. Parables illustrative of its slow progress,
but ultimate universality, were spoken. The
kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard-
seed, which becomes a tree so great that the
birds lodge in the branches. The astonishing
development of Christ's kingdom from small
beginnings through long ages is here plainly
taught. It is perfectly puerile to assume that
these birds are foul birds of prey, symbolizing
the gigantic corruptions of the Christian
Church! Yet we have again and again met
248 ANTIKOMTANISM REVIVED.
with this exegesis in the writings of modern
millenarians.
In Christ's comparison of the kingdom to
leaven deposited in the meal, He intended to
teach the gradual diffusion, the pervasive and
assimilative power, and the universal prevalence
of the kingdom of heaven. Every unprejudiced
reader, even in the infant Sunday-school, sees
this meaning in the parable. How do the
Chiliasts dispose of this parable ? 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 on." But
some millennarians are not wise enough to
follow so good an example, but confidently ex
pound it thus : " Leaven is always used in the
Bible to represent evil or corruption." Hence
in the language of Rev. H. M. Parsons : " The
parable of the leaven represents the results
which will be manifested in the same kingdom
during the age from the corruptions introduced
PLYMOUTH ESCHATO-L-uGY. 249
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
that such an interpretation cannot for a moment
stand, on its own ground ; but much less when
we connect it with the parable of the mustard-
seed. The two are intimately related. The
latter was of the inherent, self-developing power
of the kingdom of heaven as a seed containing
in itself the principle of expansion ; the former
(the leaven) represents the power which it pos
sesses of penetrating and assimilating a foreign
mass, till all 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 "new leaven"
on the whole being of individuals. Says Trench:
" In fact, the parable does nothing less than set
forth to us the mystery of regeneration, both in
250 ANTINOMIANISM BEVIVED.
its first act, which can be but once, as the leaven
is but once hidden ; and also in the consequent
renewal of the Holy Spirit, which, as the ulte
rior working of the leaven, is continual and
progressive." Thus we array these scholarly
and sober expositors against the strange and
erroneous exegesis of millenarians so intent on
removing a difficult text out of their way that
they foist upon it a meaning never intended by
Christ, in order to make Him teach their dole
ful doctrine, that the church is becoming more
and more corrupt, the world is hopelessly ship
wrecked, and the pentecostal dispensation is a
stupendous failure. From such a dismal view
of Christianity, and from such a misinterpreta
tion of a plain parable, giving a hopeful view
of the expansion and universal prevalence of
the kingdom of heaven established by Christ,
we beg to be delivered.
We believe with Neander that the relation
of the Church to the kingdom is that of a
species to a genus, or of a part to a whole.
The Church is the kingdom begun.
PLYMOUTH ESGHATOLOGY. 251
The millenarian conception of the earthly
kingdom of Christ, entirely different from His
present spiritual reign in the Church, is strik
ingly like the Jewish idea of the Messianic
kingdom, founded on a literal interpretation of
the prophecies. If their gross literalism is at
last to be realized in an earthly and visible
kingdom, we do not see the culpability of the
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. Hence it was absolutely impossible for
the Jews to discriminate between Christ's first
coming to found His Church, and His second
advent to found His kingdom. The brightness
of the earthly kingdom so entirely eclipsed the
colorless, spiritual kingdom, or Church, that
the Hebrew nation seems to be justified in dis
carding the spiritual kingship of Jesus Christ,
who was attended by no such signs of world-
252 ANTINOMIAOTSM REVIVED.
wide temporal dominion as the millenarians
now find in the Old Testament prophecies.
But there is no such vindication of the Jews
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 its true character,
undimmed by the clouds of sensuality and
worldliness. Hence, on the commonly-received
view that the Church is the spiritual kingdom
of Christ, and the only kingdom which He will
establish on earth, the ancient and modern Jews
have no excuse. On the theory of the Chiliast,
they have an excuse for rejecting Him who came
to 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. 253
the less influential is it to induce in the Jew
submission to Christ. Let me amplify this
point : My commission is to preach the Gospel
to every creature. This includes the Jews.
Let me suppose that I have a congregation of
Hebrews whom I wish to lead to Christ. My
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. Having produced
an intellectual conviction, I should next proceed
to sway their wills to an immediate acceptance
of the Nazarene as their personal Saviour.
What would be my great argument ? " The
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 power." My Israelites, in
terror, ask me if this is a final and irreversible
254 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
sentence for disobedience to Christ. I tell
them, with tears, that it is even so. Under the
power of the Spirit attending the Word, some
are constrained to bow the knee to Christ cru
cified who had been a stumbling-block to them
all their lives, Knowing the terrors of the
Lord, I have saved some. But suppose I had
called in a millenarian to do this critical work
of presenting motives to sway their stubborn
Jewish wills ? His course of argument would
be thus : Repent of your sins, and receive
Jesus as your Saviour and Lord because He is
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
the Gentiles. " How long," ask they, " before
this great event ? " " It may occur to-day ; all
the signs indicate that it is near," is the answer.
" If this is so, we think that we will not put
ourselves to the inconvenience and suffering of
the persecution of our brethren for embracing
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 255
Jesus. We will wait and take our chances 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." Thus the nearer the Second Advent,
the less 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 is intensified by the near
approach of the Judge eternal.
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 as proofs of Chiliasm.
Matt. xix. 28 is literally expounded by Chili-
asts, and the " regeneration " is explained as
the new order of things on the earth after
Christ has set up a visible throne. Then 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 : The words " in the
regeneration " are in contrast with " in my temp
tations " in the parallel passage in Luke xxii.
256
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 257
23-30. The contrasted periods are before His
death and after His ascension, when the Church
was renewed and regenerated from the old to
the new dispensation. Then Jesus would sit
on the throne of his glory at the right hand of
the Majesty on high till He shall, on the same
throne, descend to judge the world. The
twelve apostles were to receive twelve apostol-
ates, or thrones — not thrones of glory — sym
bolizing the fact that Christ is King over Israel,
and that the New Testament kingdom is only
another form of the Old Testament Church.
Then follows, in verse 29, a promise of the
hundred-fold now in this time (Mark x. 30),
with persecutions, showing that the time spoken
of when the twelve should enjoy their apostol-
ates, or sit on their spiritual thrones, is during
their present lives, after which they will receive
life everlasting. Hence we are living in the
regeneration, or new dispensation. Another
text, quoted in nearly every paper read in the
Prophetic Conference, as a proof that the whole
258 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
world is not to be converted under the dispen
sation of the Holy Spirit, but only a definite
number — the Bride of Christ — is Rom. xi. 25.
The word " fullness," Dr. E. R. Craven, and
the millenarians generally, interpret as the
completion of the definite " elect number of
the Gentiles " who are to be saved ; if but a
thousand, then the nine hundred and ninety-
nine saved persons lack but one to complete the
fullness. Since quite a parade has been made
of the great scholarship of the millenarians,
we, in Pauline style, in self-defense, wish to
magnify the scholarship on our side.
Our limits forbid giving Meyer's extended
note. We insert only his conclusion : " A part
of Israel is hardened, until the Gentiles collec
tively shall have come in, and when that shall
have taken place, then all Israel will be saved.
The conversion of the Gentiles ensues by suc
cessive stages ; but when their totality shall be
converted, then the conversion of the Jews in
their totality will ensue ; so that Paul sees the
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 259
latter (which up to that epoch certainly also
advances gradually in individual cases) ensuing,
after the full conversion of the Gentiles, as the
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
it." The italics are Meyer's. Turning to Dr.
Robinson's Lexicon, we find him defining
pleroma (fullness), in his text, as " all the mul
titude of the Gentiles." But lest Dr. Robinson
may be considered obsolete, we turn to Cremer's
Biblico-Theological Lexicon, 1878, fresh from
the living author. His rendering is, " the
totality or completeness of the Gentiles," under
the same sub-heading of definitions as "the
fullness of the God-head " — " the sum total of
all that G-od is." After this presentation of the
latest and most erudite researches into the
meaning of this text, the challenge of the Pro
phetic Conference to produce one proof-text
for the conversion of the entire world under
260 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
the present dispensation, does not exhibit an
acquaintance with the best sacred scholarship
of the age.
RESTITUTION OP ALL THINGS.
Another text, supposed beyond all dispute to
contain an unanswerable proof of Chiliasm, is
Acts iii. 21. We are told that " the restitution
of all things " is 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 " restitution " in the
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 " Elias has already come."
But did he 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. 261
the prophets. Now read Acts iii. 21, substitut
ing fulfilment for restitution, and see how com
plete is the sense and how perfect the harmony
with the next verse : " Whom the heaven must
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
truly said unto the fathers," etc. Whatever is
the meaning of the word "restitution," the
work must be completed before Christ comes,
not by His coming. Says Meyer : " Before the
times set in which all things will be restored,
Christ comes not from heaven. Consequently
the age to come cannot be meant; but onl}T
such times as shall precede the Parousia, and
by the emergence of which it is conditioned
that the Parousia shall ensue." "Christ's
reception into heaven continues — this is the
idea of the apostle — until the moral corruption
of the people of God is removed, and the thor
ough renovation of all their relations shall
have ensued." Even Bengel can find no foot-
262 ANTINOMJANISM REVIVED.
hold for millenarianism in this speech of Peter.
" Peter comprises the whole course of the times
of the New Testament between the Ascension
of the Lord and His Advent 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 Jews and Gentiles together. Justas
Jonas says, ' Christ is that King, who has now
received heaven, reigning in 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.' " Ben-
gel seems to endorse Jonas. This certainly
teaches that the world is to be converted before
the Advent, and not by it.
WHY CHKIST DELAYS His COMING.
Now let us turn to the third chapter of the
second epistle of Peter for a commentary on
his meaning in Acts iii. 21. He gives in this
chapter an answer to the scoffers who say,
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 263
" Where is the (fulfiled) promise of His com
ing ? " He then gives two reasons for Christ's
delay in coming to burn up the earth and the
works therein, namely : (1) The different con
ception of time in the divine Mind, a thousand
years being as one day ; and (2) the long-suf
fering of God in affording a further space for
repentance. From this second reason the
inference is irresistible that there will 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 ?
If a thousand people were perishing on an
ocean steamer wrecked at the entrance of the
harbor of New York, and a small dory were
rescuing two or three at a time while a well-
equipped, life-saving government steamer was
lying in sight of the wreck, could it be believed
that the commander delayed to hasten to help
264 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
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 more favorable to the salvation of the
lost world, and delaying out of pity !
When we ask why does Christ delay His
coming to set up a more effective scheme of
salvation, we are told that this question is like
the conundrum, why did not God create the
world sooner? But Peter has answered our
question in a way which grinds millenarianism
to powder. He 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
torial reign and deliver up the kingdom to God,
even the Father. This is what St. Paul avers
will be done at the second advent (1 Cor. xv.
23, 24). Also contrast John iii. 16, 17 ; xii.
47, with Matt. xxv. 31-46 ; 2 Tliess. i. 6-10..
PLYMOUTH ESCHATOLOGY. 265
CONCLUSION.
I have discussed this subject from a sense of
duty to my fellow-Christians. I believe that
the general prevalence of pre-millenialism
would be disastrous to the best interests of the
Kingdom of Christ, now being spread over the
earth by the joint agency of the Holy Spirit
and consecrated believers. The command,
" Grieve not the Spirit," cannot be fully kept
by any person whose theories belittle His effi
ciency in the work of His office. Nor can any
man put 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
for the evangelization of the whole world, put
forth by pessimists of the Second Advent
school, they fail to convince me that men, how
ever good, will ever exert themselves to the
utmost to prove themselves false prophets.
266 ANTINOMIANISM REVIVED.
This is contrary to human nature even in its
highest state of grace. Gen. Grant would
have failed to conquer Gen. Lee, if he had be
lieved it impossible.
k •
HAND-BOOK ON ROMANS."
A CONDENSED HELP TO ALL WHO WOULD UNDERSTAND
THE GREAT THEOLOGICAL EPISTLE OF THE
NEW TESTAMENT.
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JUDGMENT OF THE CRITICS.
The Christian Gnardian.— Dr. Burwash has produced a work that Indi
cates his right to a high place among the Biblical expositors of the day. We know
of no work heretofore published in Canada which presents in equal degree evi
dences of thorough Biblical scholarship and theological acumen.
The New York Christian Advocate.— We congratulate our Canadian
brethren on the appearance of such a scholarly work. . . While not as pre
tentious in size as some other works on the same epistle, it is learned, careful, and
richly exegetical and expository. We have been especially delighted with the
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many such valuable passages, and establishes the author in the front rank of theo
logians.
Canadian Methodist Magazine.— The commentary is lucid and con-
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solution. To all Bible students, but especially to the ministers of our Church and
candidates for its ministry, we cordially commend this volume, one of the most
important contributions to the exegesis of this epistle yet given to the world.
Rev. Prof. Shaw, l.l..l>.. Wesleyaii Theol. Coll., Montreal.—
You may most profitably consult Dr. Burwash on any of the great passages which
in this epistle deal with the difficult problems of man's condition, and in all hii
exegesis you find evidence both of thorough research and of wise and independent
judgment. Read for example on Romans v. 12, " And so death passed upon aU
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those of Hofman and Dietzsch, which Godet and Meyer so summarily dismiss, are
ably, and, I think, correctly defended. The work is a credit to Canadian scholar*
ship and to Canadian Methodism.
WILLIAM BRIGGS, 78 & 80 King St. E., Toronto.
C. W. COATKS, Montreal, Que. S. F. HUESTIS, Halifax, N.S.
"WOIRJECS
REV. J. CYNDDYLAN JONES.
THE WELSH PULPIT OP TO-DAY.
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