Chapter 16 | Table of Contents | Appendix

It is my complaint against, and charge upon, all the nations of Christendom that this necessity of murdering arms is the dragon's monster that is equally brought forth by all and every part of fallen Christendom. Therefore, all and every part, whether popish or Protestant, is equally as far from the Spirit of their Lord and Savior, the Lamb of God and therefore all are lacking the same entire reformation.

In these last ages of fallen Christendom many reformations have taken place. But alas! Truth be told, they have resulted in all their variety, little better than so many run-away births of one and the same mother, so many lesser Babels come out of Babylon the Great. Among all the reformers, the one and only true reformation has never been thought of. A change of place, of governors and of opinions, together with new-formed, outward models is all the reformation that has transpired to date!

The wisdom of this world with its worldly spirit was the only thing that had overcome the church and had carried it into captivity. For it is in captivity as soon as it is turned into a kingdom of this world. A kingdom of this world it certainly is, as soon as worldly wisdom has its power in it. Not a false doctrine, not a bad discipline, not a usurped power or corrupt practice, ever has prevailed or does prevail in the church, but that has had its whole birth and growth from worldly wisdom. This wisdom was the great evil root the reforming ax should have been laid to and must be laid before the church can ever be again that virgin spouse of Christ that it was at the beginning. "If any man," says St. Paul, "will be wise, let him become a fool in this world." This admits of no exception. It is a maxim and is as universal and unalterable as what says, "If any man will follow Christ let him deny himself." For no man has any more to deny and repent of than what the wisdom and spirit of this world are and do in him. For all that is in this world, the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, are the very things in which, alone, the wisdom of this world lives and moves and has its being. It can be no other, can rise no higher nor be any better than the things that they are and do. As heavenly wisdom is the whole of all heavenly goodness, so earthly wisdom has the whole evil of all the earthly nature.

St. Paul speaks of a natural man that cannot know the things of God, but to whom they are mere foolishness. This natural man is only another name for the wisdom of this world. Though the natural man cannot know the things that are of God, he can know their names and learn to speak what the saints of God have spoken about them. He can make profession of them, be eloquent in their praise and set them forth in such a desirable view as to make them quite agreeable to the children of worldly wisdom. This is the natural man, who having got into the church and church power, has turned the things of God into things of this world. Its fallen state is nothing else but its fall into the hands of the natural man of this world. And when this is the state of the church, the wisdom of this world (that always loves its own) will be in love with its will and spare no cost to maintain its place. It will make laws, fight battles in defense of it, and condemn every man as heretical who dares speak a word against this glorious image of a church that the wisdom of this world has set up. This is the great anti-Christ that is neither better, nor worse, nor anything else but the spirit of Satan working against Christ in the strength and subtlety of earthly wisdom.

If, therefore, you take anything to be church-reformation other than a full departure from the wisdom of this world, or anything else to be your entrance into a salvation-church but the nature, Spirit and works of Christ living in you, then papist or Protestant reformation or no reformation all, will be just as much good to you as when a Sadducee turns publican or a publican becomes a Pharisee. For the church of Christ, as the door of salvation, is nothing else but Christ Himself. Whether it is Christ in us or we in His church [His body], it is the same thing. When what wills and works in you is what was alive in Christ, then you are in His church, for what he was must be the same life in those who are His. Without this it matters not what pale you are in. To everyone without the new creature born from above, Christ says, "I know you not." And to every virtue that worldly wisdom puts on He says, "Get you behind me Satan for thou desire not the things that be of God."

The reason why worldly wisdom, though under a religious form, is and can be nothing else but what is called Satan or anti-Christ, is because all that we are and have from this world is that very enmity against God, that whole evil that separates us from Him and constitutes all the death and damnation that belongs to our fallen state. As sure as the life of this world is our separation from God, so is it that a total departure from every subtlety and prosperity of worldly wisdom is absolutely necessary to change an evil son of Adam into a holy son of God. And the church of Christ is solely for this end--to make us holy as he is holy. Only what is all powerful can change a sinner into a saint. And he who has not found that power in the church may be assured that he is not a true son of that church. For the true church brings forth no other births but holy children of God. It has no other end, no other nature or work but that of changing a sinner into a saint.

But this can only be done just as the change of night into day is done or as the darkness is quite lost in the light. Something is required that is as contrary to the whole nature of sin as light is to darkness and it must be as powerful over it as the light is. Power over darkness can alone do this. Creeds, canons, articles of religion, stately churches, learned priests, singing, preaching and praying in the best contrived form of words, can no more raise a dead sinner into a living saint than a fine system of light and colors can change the night into day. What cannot help you into all goodness cannot help you to any goodness nor can it take away any sin unless it can take away all sin.

On this ground the apostle said, "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing [but a new creation]." On the same ground it must be said that popery is nothing and Protestantism is nothing, because all is nothing regarding salvation except a sinner changed into a saint and a new creature. Call nothing, therefore, your holy salvation-church but what takes away all your sins [Jesus Christ]. This is the only way not to be deceived with the cry about churches, reformations and divisions. If it be asked, "What is meant by taking away all our sins?" The whole is fully told us in these words, "To as many as believed, to them he gave power to become sons of God." This is the true taking away or forgiveness of sins, not a strong imagination or brain-fancy that on such an hour, or on such a day or in such a place, you felt and knew assuredly that all your sins were forgiven you. The need for forgiveness of sins that made you a sinner is not enough, because you will everyday thereafter have the same necessity of confessing yourself a miserable sinner as you had the day you first believed.

True forgiveness of sins and freedom from sinning only happens then when the thing that sinned in us is done away with or become powerless in us. Nothing can do this but that power by which we become sons of God. A blind man is only delivered from his blindness when he is put in full possession of seeing eyes. This is the only way his darkness is done away with. In this same way our sins are forgiven us or done away with when the power by which we become sons of God or the new creature is so given to us and so possessed by us, as seeing eyes are given to and possessed by the man who once lived in darkness. Only then can our old man be said to be truly put off when the new man in Christ is raised to life in his place. Our sins are only then truly blotted out or done away with when the sinless nature or a birth of God that sins not is come to be the ruling life in us.

The learned have given us many marks of the true church, but be that as it may, no man, whether learned or unlearned, can have any mark or proof of his own true church-membership [members of Christ's body], except his being dead unto all sin and alive unto all righteousness. This cannot be more plainly told us than in these words of our Lord, "He that commits sin is the servant of sin." Surely he that is a servant of sin cannot at the same time be a living member of Christ's body or that new creature who dwells in Christ and Christ in him. To suppose a man born again from above under a necessity of continuing to sin is as absurd as to suppose that the true Christian is only to have so much of the nature of Christ born in him as is consistent with a real power of Satan still dwelling in him. "If the son," says Christ, "shall make you free, then you shall be free indeed." What is this but the same as saying if Christ be come to life in you, then a true freedom from all necessity of sinning is given to you.

Now if this is hindered and cannot come to pass in the faithful follower of Christ, it must be because both the willing and working of Christ in man is too weak to overcome what the devil wills and works in him. All this absurdity and even blasphemy is necessarily implied in that common doctrine of books and pulpits which teaches that the Christian can never be done with sinning as long as he lives. If this is the case, may Christendom sleep as securely as it does under the power of sin without any thought, hope or desire of doing God's will on earth as it is done in heaven, and live without any concern of being as pure as he who has called them is pure or walking as he walked.

The scripture knows no Christians or saints who act as saints ought to in all things, but iff scripture did not mean that a man flee all evil and be holy in all his conversation, saint and sinner would have only such difference as one carnal man has from another. Preachers and writers comfort the half-Christians with telling them that God requires not a perfect sinless obedience, but accepts the sincerity of our weak endeavors in place of it. Here, if ever there was, is a case of the blind leading the blind. For St. Paul, comparing the way of salvation to a race says, "In a race all run but one obtains the prize: so run that you may obtain it." Now if Paul had seeing eyes, must not they be blind who teach that God accepts all that run in the religious race and requires not that any should obtain the prize?

How easy was it to see that the sincerity of our weak endeavors is quite a different thing from what alone can and does require perfection of our lives. God accepts sincerity and bears with it. But why or how? Not because he seeks or requires no more, but he bears with them, because, though, they are a great distance from the prize that is set before them-- that perfection or new creature that he absolutely requires-they press on that they might reach their high calling in Christ. These are the ones who "obtain the prize."

The same thing Paul says is said by Christ. In other words, "Strive," says he, "to enter in at the strait gate." Here, our best endeavors are called for and therefore accepted by God. At the same time he adds, "that many shall strive to enter in but shall not be able." Why is this so? It is because Christ Himself is the one door into life. Here the strivers mentioned by Christ and those that St. Paul calls runners in a race are the very same persons. Christ who calls Himself the one door of entrance is the same thing that Paul calls the prize. The one that alone obtains the prize or that enters through the right door is that new creature in whom Christ is truly born. For whether you consider things natural or supernatural nothing but Christ in us can be our hope of glory.

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-15)

The pleader for imperfection further supports himself by saying, "No man in the world, Christ excepted, was ever without sin." And so say I with the apostle, "That if we say we have not sinned we make Him a liar." But then it is as true to say that we make Him a liar if we deny the possibility of our ever being freed from a necessity of sinning. For the same Word of God says, "If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

But surely he that is left under a necessity of sinning as long as he lives can no more be said to be cleansed from all unrighteousness than a man who must be a cripple to his dying day can be said to be cured of all his lameness. What weaker conclusion can well be made than to infer that because Christ was the only man that was born and lived free from sin, no man on earth can be raised to a freedom from sinning. This is no better than concluding that because the old man is everyone's birth from Adam, there can be no such thing as a new man created unto righteousness through Christ Jesus living in him as his All in all. This is no better sense or logic than saying that because our Redeemer found us as sinners, therefore he must of all necessity leave us as sinners.

Of Christ it only can be said that he is in Himself the true vine. But of every branch that is His and grows in Him, it must be as truly said that the life and spirit of the true vine is the life and spirit of its branches and what flows through the vine also flows through the branches. And here let it be well noted that if the branch has not the life and goodness of the vine in it, it can only be because it is broken off from the vine and therefore a withered branch fit for the fire. But if the branches abide in the vine, then Christ says this glorious thing of them, "You shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you" (John 15:7). This is the very same glorious thing that he had before said of Himself, "Father I thank you that you have heard me" and "I knew that you hear me always" (John 11:41).

With all this being true, how could this new creature who is in such union, communion and power with God because Christ is in him and he in Christ, as really as the vine is in the branches and the branches in the vine, how must such a newly created creature be a servant of sin as long as he lives in this world? This is as absurd as saying that because of this union that Christ must now stoop to live by the power of our old corruption.

The sober divine who abhors the pride of fanatics for the sake of humility says of himself and all men, "We are poor, blind and imperfect creatures and all our natural faculties are perverted, corrupted and out of their right state. Therefore nothing that is perfect can come from us or be done by us." Truth enough! This is the very same truth as when the apostle says, "The natural man knows not the things that be of God; he cannot know them for they are foolishness to him." This is the man that we all are by nature. But what scripture ever spoke of or required any perfect works from this man any more than it requires the Ethiopian to change his skin? What a learned divine must he be who considers this old natural man as the Christian and therefore rejects Christian perfection because this old man cannot attain to it? What greater blindness than to appeal to our fallen state as a proof of a weakness and corruption which we must have when we are redeemed from it? Is this any wiser than saying that sin and corruption must be where Christ is because it is everywhere he is not?

Our Lord has said this absolute truth, that unless we are born again from above there is no possible entrance into the kingdom of God. What this new birth is in us and what we get by it is as expressly told us by His beloved apostle saying, "What is born of God sins not." This is as true and unalterable as to say what is born of the devil can do nothing else but add sin to sin. To what end do we pray, "this day we may not fall into no sin," if no such day can be had? But if sinning can be made to cease in us for one day, what can do this for us but what can do it tomorrow as well? What benefit in praying that "God's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven," if the earth as long as it lasts must have as many sinners as it has men upon it? How vainly does the church pray for the baptized person, "that he may have power and strength to have victory and to triumph against the devil, the world and the flesh," if this victorious triumph can never be obtained? What good is this baptism and prayer if he must continue committing sin and be a servant of sin as long as he lives? What sense can there be in making a communion of saints to be an article of our creed if at that same time we are to believe that Christians as long as they live must in some degree or other follow and be led by the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life?

From where and why do all these foolish doctrines come? It is because the church is no longer that spiritual house of God in which nothing is intended and sought after but His spiritual power and life. It has become a mere human institution made up of worldly power, worldly learning and worldly prosperity in gospel matters. As a result, all the frailties, follies and imperfections of human nature must have as much life in the church as in any other human society. The best sons of such a church are forced to plead such imperfections in all its members, as must be where the old fallen human nature is still alive. And alive it must be and its life defended where the being continually moved and led by the Spirit of God is rejected as gross fanaticism. For nothing but a full birth and continual breathing and inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the new born creature can be a deliverance from all that is earthly, sensual and devilish in our fallen nature. This new creature, born again in Christ of that Eternal Word that created all things in heaven and on earth, is both the rock and church of which Christ says, "The gates of hell shall never prevail against it." For prevail they will and must against everything but the new creature. And every fallen man, be he where he will or who he will, is in his fallen state and his whole life is a mere Egyptian bondage and Babylonian captivity until the heavenly church or the new birth from above has taken him out of it.

See how St. Paul sets forth the salvation-church as being nothing else and doing nothing else but merely as the mother of this new birth. "Know you not," says he, "that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Here we have the one true church infallibly described and no other church but the new creature. He goes on, "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection." Therefore to be in Christ, or in His church, belongs to no one unless the old man is put off and the new creature risen in Christ is put on. The same thing is said again in these words, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth, we should not serve sin." Therefore the true church is nowhere to be found but in the new creature that henceforth sins not nor is any longer a servant to sin.

Away then with all the tedious volumes of church unity, church power and church salvation. Ask neither a Council of Trent, nor a Synod of Dort, nor an assembly of divines for a definition of the church. The apostle has given you not just a definition but the unchangeable nature of it in these words. But now, "being made free from sin and become servants of God, have your fruits unto holiness and the end everlasting life." Therefore to be in the true salvation-church and to be in Christ, that new creature that sins not is strictly the same thing. What now is become of this true church or where must the man go who would desire to be a living member of it? He need go nowhere, because wherever he is, what is to save him and what he is to be saved from is always with him. Self is all the evil that he has and God is all the goodness that he ever can have, but self is always with him and God is always with him. Death to self is his only entrance into the church of life and nothing but God can give death to self. Self is an inward life and God is an inward Spirit of life. Therefore, nothing kills what must be killed in us or quickens what must come to life in us except the inward work of God in the soul and the inward work of the soul in God.

This is that mystic religion that, though it has nothing in it but that same Spirit, that same truth and that same life that always was and always must be the religion of all God's holy angels and saints in heaven, is accounted to be madness by the wisdom of this world. As wisely done as to reckon him mad, who says that the vanity of things temporal cannot be or give life to the things that are eternal, or that the circumcision of the flesh is but as poor a thing as the whetting of the knife in comparison of that inward mystic circumcision of the heart which can only be done by, "that Word of God which is sharper than any two edged sword and pierces to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit" (Heb. iv.1). Now fancy to yourself a rabbi-doctor laughing at this circumcision of the two edged sword of God as gospel madness, and then you see that very same Christian orthodoxy that in this day condemns the inward working life of God in the soul as mystic madness.

Look at all that is outward. All that you see has no more of salvation in it than the stars and elements. Look at all the good works you can think of. They have no goodness for you except when the good Spirit of God is the doer of them in you. For all the outward works of religion may be done by the natural man,. He can observe all church-duties, stick close to doctrines and put on the semblance of every outward virtue, but this is as high he can go. No Christian can go any higher than this feigned outward formality put on by his natural man until led and governed by the Spirit of God. To this he can add nothing but his own natural fleshly zeal in the defense of it. All zeal must be of this kind until it is the zeal that is born of God and calls every creature to that same new birth from above.

"My little children," says St. Paul, "of whom I travail again in birth until Christ be formed in you." This is the whole labor of an apostle to the end of the world. He has nothing to preach to sinners, but the absolute necessity, the true way and the certain means of being born again from above. But if dropping this one necessay thing, he becomes a disputing reformer about words and opinions and helps Christians to be zealously separated from one another for the sake of being saved by different notions of faith, works, justification, election, etc. He has forgot his calling and has become a blind leader of all who are blind enough to follow him. All that is called faith, works, justification, sanctification or election are only so many different expressions of what the restored, divine life is and does in us. They have no existence anywhere or in anything but the new creature. Everything that is or can be good in us is nothing else but this divine birth from above, because the divine nature dead in Adam was his entire loss of every divine virtue. It was his whole fall under the power of this world, the flesh and the devil. Therefore, the divine nature brought again to life in man is his faith, his hope, his prayer, his works, his justification, sanctification, election and salvation. And the election that systematical doctors have taken out of its place and built it into an absolute irreversible decree of God, has no other nature, no other effect or power of salvation, but what equally belongs to our faith, hope, prayer, love of God and love of our neighbor. Only as far as these divine virtues are in us are we the elect of God and this means nothing else but the beloved of God. Nothing makes us the beloved of God but His own first image and likeness rising up again in us.

If you would plainly know what is meant by being elected of God, the same is meant as when the scripture says, "God hears only those who call upon Him," or that he can only be "found by those who seek Him." So he only elects those who elect Him. Again, "He that honors me, him will I honor," says God. "He that loves me," says Christ, "shall be beloved of me and my Father." This is the mystery of election as it relates to salvation. At diverse times and in sundry manners God may have, and has had, His chosen vessels for particular offices, messages and appointments. As to salvation from our fallen state, every son of Adam is His chosen vessel and this is as certain as that every son of Adam has the seed of the woman, the incorruptible seed of the Word born along with him and this is God's unchangeable universal election that chooses or wills the salvation of all men. For the ground of all union, communion or love between God and the creature lies wholly in the divine nature. What is divine in man tends towards God and elects God. And God only and solely elects His own birth nature and likeness in man. But seeing His own birth, a seed of His own divine nature is in every man. To suppose God by an arbitrary power is willing and decreeing eternal happiness in some and willing and decreeing eternal misery in others is a blasphemous absurdity and supposes a greater injustice in God than the wickedest creatures can possibly commit against one another.

But truth, to the eternal praise and glory of God, will eternally say that His love is as universal and unchangeable as His being and that His mercy, over all His works, can no more cease than His omnipotence can begin to grow weak. God's mark of a universal salvation set upon all mankind was first given in these words, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent." Therefore wherever the serpent is, there his head is to be bruised. This was God's infallible assurance or omnipresent promise that all that died in Adam should have its first birth of glory again.

The eternal Son of God came into the world only for the sake of this new birth, to give God the glory of restoring it to all the dead sons of fallen Adam. All the mysteries of this incarnate, suffering, dying Son of God, all the price that he paid for our redemption, all the washings that we have from His all-cleansing blood poured out for us, all the life that we receive from eating His flesh and drinking His blood have their infinite value, their high glory and amazing greatness in this, because nothing less than these supernatural mysteries of a God-man could raise that new creature out of Adam's death into a living temple and deified habitation of the Spirit of God.

That this new birth of the Spirit or the divine life in man was the truth, the substance and sole end of His miraculous mysteries, is plainly told us by Christ Himself, who at the end of all His process on earth tells His disciples what was to be the blessed and full effect of it, namely that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter (being now fully purchased for them), should after His ascension come in the stead of Christ in the flesh. "If I go not away," says he, "the comforter will not come. But if I go away I will send Him unto you and He shall guide you into all truth." Therefore all that Christ was, did, suffered, dying in the flesh and ascending into heaven, was for this sole end--to purchase for all His followers a new birth, new life, and new light in and by the Spirit of God, restored to them and living in them as their support, comforter and guide into all truth. And this is what was meant by His words, "LO I AM WITH YOU ALWAY EVEN UNTO THE END OF THE WORLD."