CHAPTER 8

It remains for me to touch upon a few points which connect themselves with the preceding.
We shall find that disbelief on the subject of the presence of the Holy Ghost-a disbelief which effaces the truth as regards the Church, destroys it also as regards the action of that Spirit in gifts and fruits of His grace.
" Ministry," says Mr. M., " is of God."
Well! how does he understand this?
" Natural or acquired capacity," he adds, " quickened and sanctified by the Spirit of truth, becomes fruit of grace from on high."
That God, before placing therein the gift, prepares the vessel, by endowing it with natural or acquired qualities, this I believe. Paul was a vessel of election, prepared of God. The Master has given to those of His household, to each one "according to his several ability." But to say that natural or acquired abilities become fruit of grace from on high, is nothing but rationalism refined in order to make an exclusive ministry.
Mr. M. says concerning the presence of the Holy Ghost Himself, things which show a wish to weaken faith in His presence. As to the formula, which he attributes to us I have never heard of it. But to say, as he does, that the Holy Ghost " Himself dwells with the friend of Jesus," is to betray, as to the presence of the Holy Ghost, very serious unbelief, of which the sequel of the passage only multiplies the proofs. " He dwelleth with you," said the Lord, " and shall be IN you." Why omit one half of the Savior's declaration? And who is it who dwells with us and shall be in us? is it not the Comforter sent by the Father? It is, I think, the Holy Ghost in person. This is why he says to the Corinthians " know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you?" (1 Cor. 6:19). He is then a Person, I suppose.
What then does this mean: " a real presence but not a personal presence "?
And this unbelief betrays itself in a way still more serious, in what Mr. M. says a few lines farther on. " The one hundred and-twenty tongues of fire... had not together... the value of the dove which John saw descending on the well-beloved Son." Were then these one hundred-and-twenty tongues of fire really the Holy Ghost Himself?
And with what does this assertion connect itself?
" In Jesus alone dwells all the fullness "; " in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." " The one hundred and-twenty tongues of fire... had not the value of the dove," etc.
Does Mr. M. think that this divine seal, put on Jesus as man " anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power," when He took His place with His own and began His public career, is the same thing as " the fullness which dwells in him bodily "? Is it when the Holy Ghost descended on Him, that the fullness of His deity began?
And if that is not what it means, what connection is there between these things? Was it the personal presence of the Holy Ghost in Jesus which constituted in Him the fullness of the Deity? If not, the contrast which Mr. M. establishes on this point between Him and His disciples has no value.
Jesus as man was sealed by God the Father; but He was God manifested in the flesh, which is quite another thing. There is a difference in the manner of the presence of God. Christ was God incarnate. The Holy Ghost, even if we look on Him as God, only dwells in us. He does not become man so as to unite humanity to His Person. And, if we recognize the Holy Ghost as a Person and as God, what do these words mean: " the one hundred-and-twenty tongues of fire had not the value of the dove "?
This is true, that the manifestation of the Holy Ghost in Christ, who did not lift up " his voice in the streets," was different from the manifestation of the Holy Ghost in the disciples, who were to proclaim abroad from the housetops what He said to them in the ear. Christ was more the object, the disciples were more the messengers, of the faith which condemns the world which has rejected Jesus. But to speak of the comparative value of the Holy Ghost in Jesus and in His disciples is first of all to confound the Person of Jesus with the seal of the Holy Ghost; then it is to confound the Holy Ghost with the manifestations of His presence.
It is the Comforter, the Holy Ghost Himself, who came down on the day of Pentecost, and it is His presence which made Peter say, " thou hast not lied to men, but unto God."
If we compare the effects of the presence of the Holy Ghost as a testimony, it is the contrary which is true. " He that believeth on me," said Jesus, "... greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father," John 14:12.
To say that the worth of Jesus was greater than that of His disciples is nonsense. One cannot compare God and His creatures, nor the Son of God with those who are His, however blessed they may be. This is evident. To compare the Holy Ghost manifested in one way, with the Holy Ghost manifested in another way, is unbelief as to His divine Person.
I do not say (and I indeed hope that it is not so) that Mr. M. has abandoned orthodoxy. But the page of his tract, with which we have just been occupied, betrays certainly a very serious rationalism, the fruit of philosophy. It betrays a practical unbelief which is enough to account for the general bearing of this tract, and which shows itself to the attentive reader in many places. So again, in these words: " when the apostle says that the children of God are led by His Spirit (Rom. 8:14), this has solely reference to faith and holiness in the affections and in life." The influence of the Holy Ghost doubtless manifests itself in these things; but that which is on the mind of the apostle is not the influence of the Spirit only, but the Spirit Himself; that which is on the mind of Mr. M. is a state of soul; in Rom. 8:16 the apostle says, " it is the same Spirit," or " the Spirit itself." And again, " the Spirit helpeth," " the Spirit maketh intercession," the Spirit " dwelleth " in us.
That the Irvingites said that there was more than one Immanuel, is a thing I never heard them accused of; and I have great doubts of it, however they have been deceived by the enemy. However that may be, we have not now to deal with them. But I pray my brethren to be well on their guard against that rationalistic unbelief, which the tract we are examining manifests concerning the presence of the Holy Ghost, and against the efforts which have for their object to substitute for the personal presence of the Holy Ghost in us, a real presence of the Spirit with us. All that this page contains seems to me extremely serious, and makes me more uneasy as regards Mr. M. than nearly all the rest of his tract. I do not know where he learned these things; but I recognize there, in the expressions, in the use of the word, in the manner of quoting from it, as well as in the doctrine, marks so evident of a work of the enemy, a work which I have seen elsewhere, that I confess it alarms me exceedingly. Does he think that the personal presence of the Holy Ghost only took place when He descended on Jesus? And, as we have already asked, is it to this that he applies the expression "the fullness of the Godhead"?
Whilst fully recognizing that it was the Holy Ghost in Person who descended on Jesus, it is certain that, generally speaking, the word of God shows the personal coming of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, to be a result of the ascension of Jesus; that it was then that the Holy Ghost was personally sent from on high as that other Comforter, who was to abide with us forever. Before that, the distinctive thing was the presence of the Son, without the possibility of separating the Father from Him (John 14:10), and the Holy Ghost (Matt. 12:28), as many passages show. That which distinguishes the present time, since Pentecost, is the presence of the Holy Ghost, from whom we cannot separate the Father or the Son; John 14:23.
Is it thus then that Mr. M. has learned only to see a " fullness in the testimony of the Holy Ghost to the Christian's heart, which is unknown in the past dispensation "? Is this all? Has not the Comforter been sent from on high after the ascension of Jesus? Is it not said (John 7:39), that " the Holy Ghost was not yet [given]; because that Jesus was not yet glorified "? In nowise is it believed, that the faithful of the last dispensation were, as he accuses us of saying, " strangers to the work of the Holy Ghost " or to divine life; but we believe that the Comforter was not yet given, as He was given when the work of Jesus had been finished. Does not the word of God say it?
One remark on the subject of the Lord's return.
Mr. M. says on this subject, " It was apparently Paul's expectation when he wrote the first of his epistles; but towards the close of his life, he reckoned he would die."
Were the thoughts of Paul changed, as if he had been wrong at first? By no means. He speaks of the Church's hope, which he shared, and he speaks of it in these words: " we "-at the end he awaited an immediate martyrdom. He was " now " about to be poured out as a libation of the sacrifice. This makes no change in the doctrine, nor in the hope of faith.
A middle course in faith is infidelity in the heart.
There is a painful indifference to the word of God as a guide. In speaking of the choice and appointment of elders, this is how Mr. M. arranges the matter: " The brethren who had done the one, would be able, if needs be, to do the other also." Is it thus that one is to dispose of the word according to our pleasure?
As to the doctrine of guilt, that which Mr. M. says of it amounts to this, namely, that the doctrine which teaches that all men are under the guilt under which Adam was, is an error; that is to say, he is, on this point, what is called an Arminian. The important thing to observe is the levity with which, as with the authority of a teacher, he treats traditional orthodoxy on the point as an error. What he says on Rom. 5:14, viz., that the children of Adam are " far from being accounted guilty of having committed his sin," has no connection with the question; because, as this passage says, they have not in fact committed that sin; but he says nothing of their state of guilt in the sight of God. But Rom. 5:19 says positively that by the sin of Adam they were made sinners. Mr. M. criticizes on this occasion a quotation which I made from Amos 5:26, in the tract on " The State of the Church." The Spirit of God says there that the Israelites, guilty as a part of the whole, of the nation, and guilty of the whole of its sin, would bear the punishment of it in a captivity beyond Babylon. Now we must not lose sight of this, that in this part of the tract " The State of the Church," it was a question not of the eternal consequences of sin, but of the government of God with respect to Israel. Since this government of God deals with the Israelites as guilty, I think therefore He regarded them as such. Joshua and Caleb have nothing in common with this, for there is no question of the faithful, who by the way suffer the consequences of the sin of others, as sharing the lot of the people; the question was as to the unbelieving who, ratifying the sin and unbelief of their fathers, bear the punishment of it, after acting like their fathers or even yet worse.
I will not take up with a view to answering it, a very ridiculous prediction of Mr. M. concerning what is to happen to brethren. I only touch on it for the purpose of explaining a principle which is connected with it.
It is said in " Le Temoignage "
" When corruption has affected a thing which God had made for blessing, He rejects it; or He replaces it by bringing in something else." Mr. M. speaks of this " something else " as if we made it to be " that which should replace the Christian churches in the struggle against evil."
Where did he find that? Every one knows that what brethren believe, is that all the system which exists is in a state of failure, and that it will be laid aside; first, morally, by its own apostasy; then by the judgment of God, who will replace, by the presence of Jesus Himself, the testimony which men failed to render to Him. That there is to be in the course of time a testimony among the Jews is what I believe. But it is not necessary that I should here enter into these details. I only desire to hinder ridicule being cast on an important truth by the false manner in which it has been represented.