The True Ministers of Christ Accredited by the Holy Spirit: A Sermon

III.  I now, therefore, intreat your permission briefly to press a third position on your serious consideration, namely, that whoever of us have Him NOT, they are under most FEARFUL GUILT in PRETENDING to His presence.

b.  Our guilt is also that of resisting the Holy Ghost, in His truth, in His work, in His people.  If we have not known the ways of God aright, we have erred in our hearts and hardened them,—against what the Holy Ghost saith, “Harden not your hearts;” and hereby He is grieved: and the result is that God swears in His wrath, that we shall not enter into His rest. [40]

c.  Our guilt is that of substituting another spirit for Him: the Anti-spirit in league with Anti-christ.  It may be said that I go nigh to affirm that our work may possibly be the working of Satan, if it be not of the Holy Ghost.  My brethren, I mean quite to say it.  For of all evil men, who are instruments of Satan for seduction, false apostles and ministers are the most so.  And the more apparently holy they are, the more diligent to put on the form of godliness when they have not the power,—the more they imitate the love, the meekness, the humility, the self-denial of Christ,—and profess, at the same time, that it is by the Holy Ghost that hereunto they have attained; the more awful is their reception of Satan for the Holy Ghost.  Am I not right in saying, that errors in principle and in doctrine are quite as full of guilt in the sight of God as sins of the flesh?  They are sins of the mind, it is true: but are the sins of purely intellectual evil spirits less than the sins of men, because they are sins of minds and not of fleshly bodies?  And is Satan to be gently dealt with, and not rather the more indignantly repulsed, when, and because, he comes as an angel of light?  He is the very best imitator in the universe, and will be amiable in commending heresies to men.  And you may take him to your hearts in the very resemblance of the Spirit of God Himself, and assume that you possess the holy anointing of that blessed Spirit; and hence may issue the most deadly perversions of the truth of God, under the most amiable guise.  You may be making an unction to yourselves, like unto the holy anointing oil, under that curse of God, that you “shall be cut off from His people.” [42]  Consider the guilt and danger!

IV.  We are now prepared to come to the consideration of our fourth point; That the possession of some accrediting proofs of the presence of the Holy Ghost is essential to our most important interests.

Am I a true minister of Jesus Christ, or am I not?  And if I am, is all as it should be with me?  Have I full proof that my ministry is a participation in the “ministration of the Spirit,” or have I not?  Is He present with me at all?  Is He present with me in all that fulness and power, that is most justly and rationally and earnestly to be desired?  What are the most certain credentials or proofs of this?

Two are all that I shall refer to: one is in my text; the other, which I advert to first, is elsewhere found; I mean the scriptural Character of the true minister of Christ.  You find it concisely expressed in 2 Tim. iv. 1–5, “I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and His kingdom,—Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine.  Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.”  And in 1 Tim. iv. 12, “Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.  Take heed to thyself and to the doctrine: continue in them: for in so doing, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.” [43]

As to integrity in doctrine, enough has been said, we should imagine, to prove the true servant of Christ from the false, the Holy Scripture in its plainest sense being taken for our guide.

And who, you ask, is to say what the standard of Scripture doctrine is, and so to determine what we ought to teach?  You must decide for yourselves.  “I speak as unto wise men; judge ye what ye say.”  “Wisdom is justified of her children.”  Nothing can possibly be plainer than Holy Scripture.  Pray for the Holy Spirit to be your guide in understanding it.  We shall soon see, if we have Him indeed, “who is the Lord’s, and who is holy,”—without his judgments to convince us.

We must do the same with regard to ascertaining who have that true consistency of ministerial character and conduct which is laid down in Scripture, and are therefore those, whom we should “follow; considering the end of their conversation, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.”

I will add nothing concerning the happier experience of a sure interest in Christ, of that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord,—and all the work of the Spirit in the soul of the believer; and of the love of Christ shed abroad in the heart.  But such as this, is the personal character of the true minister of Christ, which ought to be a discriminating credential of the presence of the Spirit of God with us.  O that we may have it in all its fulness and excellency!

2.  The other point, which St. Paul appeals to in the text, is the effectual blessing of God upon ministerial labours.  “Ye,” says the apostle, speaking of souls brought out of death into life by his means, “Ye are our Royal letters, which we carry out in our hearts, as ambassadors for Christ, to be read by, and spoken of unto, all men.  Jesus ordained them on my behalf; I was the ministering hand by which He wrote; the Holy Ghost was with me, and indelibly impressed them on the tablets of your hearts; the character, and language are those which pourtray the new creature, the children of the living God, the heirs of everlasting glory.”  He disclaims all sufficiency, not only to write, but even to conceive, what was written, except as it was given to Him by God, (a point they would readily admit,) and thus, in their conversion by his means, he had the clearest and strongest evidence that God was with him of a truth.  So he says in another place, “The seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord: are not ye my work in the Lord?”  And it is evident that this is a most essential, decisive, and therefore desirable, proof of our ministry being of God.  I do not think we should by any means rest and be satisfied without it.  I know that a minister may be a true prophet without always having this testimony; and though the Israel of God be not gathered by his means, his work is with the Lord, and his judgment with his God; and Isaiah says, “Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?”  But this is the exception and not the rule.  What are pastors and teachers for?  Truly “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ; opening men’s eyes, turning them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God; that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among all them which are sanctified, by faith that is in Christ.” [46]  If these holy and heavenly purposes be not evidently answered by us, what are we better than others?  If they be but feebly and equivocally answered, why are we not afraid, and put upon inquiry as to the cause, and upon prayer, most earnest prayer, that we may not be disowned both of God and man?  What letters have we to show that we are not thus disowned?  O that our gracious Lord and master may give us all imperishable seals of our apostleship in great numbers!  Let us earnestly see to it that we obtain them.  The double testimony of scriptural character, and of such seals given to our ministry, is irresistible.

But it may be asked, have not even false apostles their disciples, and sometimes many; Theudas, four hundred; Judas of Galilee, much people? [47]  They have: but not of such sinners converted into saints, as evidently prove the operation to be of God; not such as would glorify God on the racks of persecuting torture; not such as would die martyrs in the flames, if called to it; nor such as, in peaceful departures, could triumph through faith in the Son of God, and rejoice in the certain hope of a glorious immortality.  The happy and heavenly deaths of those who had lived upon the doctrines of Evangelical Protestantism are immortal and irresistible testimonies in favour of that sort of Christianity, as the truth of God.  They constitute an evidence, which Anglo-catholics will never be able to produce.  What were the latter days of Froude, their modern proto-saint, if not their proto-martyr?  Where are their dying witnesses?

What do they in the formation of such characters as I speak of?  Here, my honoured fellow-labourers in the Church of God,—the questions which I would put concerning them, allow me to put pointedly to you all.  What are you really doing in the work of the ministry you have received of the Lord?  Are you answering the purposes for which you were called to it?  What can you do, by the grace of God?  Can you convert a sinner from the error of his way?  Can you give me the heart of stone broken down and melted into the humble and contrite heart?  Can you display a compassionate and crucified Saviour, till men love Him fervently, and mourn for their sins which pierced Him?  Can you heal a wounded spirit?  Can you beautify disciples with Christian graces?  Can you help the saints of God in their preparations for death and eternal glory, when Jesus shall come and receive them to Himself?  Shall you then have any, of whom you will be humbly able to say, “Behold, I and the children whom Thou hast given me!  These are my letters of commendation!  These are my joy and crown of rejoicing: while all the supreme and sovereign glory, O Christ, is thine!”

[2]  2 Cor. xi. 13.  See also Rom. xvi. 17.  Gal. i. 7, &c.  Phil. i. 16, iii. 18.  Col. ii. 8.  1 John iv. 1.

[5a]  Acts xx. 28.

[5b]  Acts vi. 3.

[5c]  1 Thess. i. 5, 6.

[5d]  1 Cor. ii. 4.

[6a]  1 Cor. xii. 1, 8, 11.

[6b]  1 Cor. xii. 3.

[6c]  Rom. viii. 9.

[7]  Ps. l. 16.

[8a]  Tracts 71, 77, and 86; Froude’s Remains, i. 322, 380, 394, 425, 433; British Critic, July 1841, p. 45, 69.

[8b]  See Overton’s True Churchman Ascertained.  See also Goode’s Divine Rule of Faith, Preface, p. 16, referring to two centuries ago.

[9a]  Newman’s Lectures on Romanism, &c. p. 23.

[9b]  See Overton, p. 71, 72, 82, 92.  Robertson observes, in his History of America, p. 163, “Of all the Reformed churches, that of England has deviated the least from the ancient institutions . . .  Though the Articles to be recognized as the system of national faith were framed conformable to the doctrines of Calvin, his notions with respect to church government and the mode of worship were not adopted.”  See the same testimony in Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. vol. iv. p. 87, 88.  Bishop Burnet says, “In England, the first Reformers were generally in the sublapsarian hypothesis; but Perkins and others asserted the supralapsarian way.”—Exposition of the Articles, p. 151.  Dr. Heylin, a zealous Arminian, has the following testimony.  “Of any men who publicly opposed the Calvinian tenets in this University” (Oxford) “till after the beginning of King James’s reign, I must confess that I have hitherto found no good assurance.”  Buckridge, tutor to Abp. Laud, and Houson, are all he can name.  Quinq. Hist. Works, p. 626.  When Laud preceded about suppressing Calvinistic doctrines, he could not “venture the determining of those points to a Convocation,” so general was the disposition of the bishops and clergy in favour of them.  Heylin’s Life of Laud, p. 147.  Bishop Burnet’s honest observations, in the close of his discussion of the Seventeenth Article, will not be forgotten.  “It is not to be denied, but that the Article seems to be framed according to St. Austin’s doctrine.”  . . .  “Since the Remonstrants do not deny but that God, having foreseen what all mankind would, according to all the different circumstances in which they should be put, do or not do, He upon that did by a firm and eternal decree lay that whole design in all its branches, which He executes in time; they may subscribe this Article without renouncing their opinion as to this matter.  On the other hand, the Calvinists have less occasion for scruple; since the Article does seem more plainly to favour them.”

[11]  Tract 90, p. 82.  They affirm that their interpretation of the Articles was intended to be admissible, though not that which the authors took themselves.  This is the old way of putting darkness for light further carried out.  Dr. Powell, Archdeacon of Colchester, and Master of St. John’s College, Cambridge, preached a sermon some forty years ago to instruct the University in the matter of subscribing to the Articles.  And he says, “Where the original sense is one, and the received another, the subscriber is at liberty to use them in either.”  But he never went so far as to say that the subsequently received sense was intended to be admissible by the compilers.  And Dr. Hey, the Norrisian Professor, speaks of “a religious society changing its doctrines, and yet retaining the expressions by which they were defined;” and says, “In whatever degree the Articles grow obsolete, the Injunction, (that is, the Royal Declaration,) must grow so,” notwithstanding it commands interpretation in the literal sense; and “that a man, by speaking according to the literal sense, may speak falsehood.”—Lectures, vol. ii. p. 68, 72, 74.  This mode of dealing with the Articles, when strongly carried out, as in the present case, issues, of course, in a total change.  See Overton, p. 22–26.

[12]  British Critic, July, 1841, p. 45.

[13a]  Tracts for the Times, No, 71, p. 8, No. 78, p. 2.

[13b]  Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Cyprian, Jerome, Augustine, Chrysostom, Jewel, Hooker, Morton, Hall, Laud, Ussher, Taylor, Stillingfleet, and many others.  See Goode’s Divine Rule, ii. 484, &c.  The importance of this question, according to the testimony of Roman Catholics themselves, is evident from such passages as the following from Lumper, Hist. Theol. vol. iii. p. 362.  “If Protestants would admit that the complete Rule of Faith is Scripture joined with Divine Tradition, all the other controversies between us and them would soon cease.”  See Goode, i. 103.

[14]  2 Tim. iii. 15–17.

[15a]  Cor. ii. 2, and i. 23.

[15b]  In Tract 81, p, 75, adverting to expressions including the terms Christ crucified, they say, “It may be seen by an attention to the context in all the passages, where these expressions occur, that it is a very different view, and in fact the opposite to the modern notion, which St. Paul always intends by it.  It is the necessity of OUR being crucified to the world; it is OUR humiliation together with Him; mortification of the flesh; being made conformable to His sufferings and death.  It was a doctrine which was foolishness to the wise, and an offence to the Jew, on account of the debasement of the natural man which it implied.”

[16a]  Brit. Crit. for April, 1842, p. 446.

[16b]  Newman’s Lectures on Justification, p. 160, 236, 247.

[16c]  Pusey’s Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, p. 71.

[16d]  Newman’s Lecture on Justification, p. 68.

[16e]  Tract 90, p. 13.

[17]  Tract 80 and 87.

[18]  That Aristotle should teach that we are to become right-minded by acting rightly, is not to be wondered at.  He knew nothing of the work of the Spirit of God, or of the love of Christ, or of the impossibility (see Acts x. and xii.) of our acting rightly without the grace of the Holy Spirit to give a right mind first.  But that Oxford Divines should teach so is to be wonderfully “dark amidst the blaze of noon!”

[19]  To be grafted into the church is to be outwardly admitted into the enjoyment of church privileges and ordinances.  Rightly means, not as hypocrites, but with the repentance and faith of the regenerate.  The wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, do receive the sacrament of so great a thing as regeneration to their condemnation.  Not receiving baptism rightly, they have no true part in the privileges and ordinances of the church, which are thereby sealed to the faithful.

[20]  When the invitation is received, “Arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord,” (Acts xxii. 16,)—our church has guided us at once to say, it is the mystical, that is, the significant, washing away of sins, that is then accomplished; but so signifying the true, that a lively recollective enjoyment of it is excited in the mind.  When we are called to obtain the true remission of sins, it is thus,—“Repent,” (there is the spiritual operation,) “and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ,” (there is the outward sign) “for the remission of sins;” or, without any notice of the sign at all, “Repent, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.”  But repentance, and faith, and conversion, are the fruits of regeneration.  Baptism was no more intended to impart the spiritual cleansing from sin, than was the offering of the blood of bullocks and goats; and yet the people are spoken of as purged by that blood, and remission of sins as received by it.  It was only a mystical ceremony.—Circumcision was the same: the thing itself was mystical: And Baptism is its counterpart; and both of them are significant of the remission of sins, “the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh,” a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness in Christ Jesus, effected by the Holy Spirit of God implanting the seed of the Word of Christ in the soul and vivifying it; before even it is proper that baptism should be administered.

[22a]  1 John v. 1.  Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.

[22b]  “Except a man be born of water and of the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”  Of the Holy Ghost comes the spiritual birth, and thereby the entrance into the spiritual kingdom or church of God: if the water of baptism be meant, then also figurative birth, and concurrently the visible kingdom or church to which baptism is the only door: a proper parallelism of idea being sustained.  But probably, as the expression “baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” means, baptize with the Holy Ghost as a spirit of burning, so “born of water and of the Holy Ghost” means, “born of the Holy Ghost as a Spirit of washing,” the real “washing of regeneration.”  This last expression is most frequently understood, and by Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Hopkins amongst others, to refer to the sacramental washing, not the spiritual.  But why the force of the term regeneration should not preponderate over that of washing, I cannot see.  So “the washing of water by the Word,” wherewith Christ sanctifies and cleanses His church, is the ablution, like as of water, that is by the Word, when the Holy Ghost uses that Word in the hearts of men.

[23a]  Matt. iii. 11.

[23b]  1 Cor. xii. 13.

[23c]  Rom. vi. 3, 4, 6, 13.

[24a]  1 Pet. iii. 21.

[24b]  Col. ii. 11, 12, 13.

[24c]  James i. 18

[25a] 1 Pet. i. 23, 25.

[25b] 1 John iii. 9, 10.

[25c]  See Scott’s Remarks on Bishop Tomline’s Refutation of Calvinism, vol. ii. p. 197.

“There may be in divers cases,” says Hooker, “life by virtue of inward baptism, where outward is not found.”  B. v. 60.

The same may be argued concerning the real “forgiveness of sins,” and the mystical forgiveness.  There is one spiritual baptism for the actual, and one sacramental baptism, significant of the same thing, for the significant remission.  Equally distinct and separate, and even more so, if possible, is justification; of the possession of which by means of baptism the Scriptures say not a word, neither the Church of England, nor any other church, but the Church of Rome.

[26]  Sermons for the Times, p. 29, 30.

[27a]  The revival of “stations” for confession, of “the rod of discipline,” and “the robe of shame,” with other matters of penance, is wishfully inquired after, and may possibly ere long be brought about.  See Wordsworth’s Sermon on Evangelical repentance.

[27b]  Tract 79, p. 5.

[27c]  Wordsworth’s Sermon, p. 42.

[28a]  Tracts, vol. i.  Advt.

[28b]  Tract 4, p. 5.  Theirs is stated to be “the only church in this realm, which has a right to be quite sure that it has the Lord’s body to give to His people.”

[30]  A pledge has respect to a thing future.  The proper order of regeneration is to precede baptism, which cannot correctly therefore be a pledge of it?  Where does Scripture so represent it?  Circumcision was not a pledge to Abraham of the righteousness he had: a “seal” it was.

It is easy enough to state and explain the sound meaning belonging to our ritual and catechism.  But it should be quite clear and obvious at the first glance, without explanation.  The verbal expressions should be such, as that the right meaning only should present itself to the mind of the reader.

[31a]  Where our twenty-fifth Article says, that by the sacraments God doth not only quicken, but also confirm our faith in Him, “the Latin has nostramque fidem in se non solum excitat, (not vivificat) verum etiam confirmat.”—See the Latin Articles in Burnet.

[31b]  Pusey’s Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, p. 51.

[32a]  Tract 90, p. 3.

[32b]  The sermon is printed almost entirely as it was written; but in preaching, the whole of this section, to the end of the second head, was omitted, on account of the time.  A few other paragraphs were also shortened in the delivery, but the sense universally preserved.

[33a]  Melancthon, Loci. Com. Sig. de Monstr. Eccles.

[33b]  St. Paul adverts to the laying of the hands of the presbytery upon Timothy, and the laying of his own hands upon him; most probably referring to the same thing.  St. Paul, himself a presbyter, possessed an actual superiority, like other apostles, among many presbyters; which, by Divine Providence, was continued in the church: and they who were advanced to it had the name of Bishop (once general among the presbyters) assigned and limited to them.

In the ordination of Deacons, our Church appoints the laying on of the hands of the Bishop only.  For more of her views respecting ordination, see Burnet on the twenty-third Article.  And note the liberal style of the article itself.

[35]  Hooker, (Book VI.) shows that with respect to sin generally, the Church, or the ministers thereof, can only declare the divine absolution of the truly repenting sinner believing in Jesus.  She actually remits only such outward sins as she can take ecclesiastical cognizance of, and can retain and censure until openly repented of and confessed.  Our Church expresses herself better in her Liturgical Absolution, than in that for the Visitation of the Sick, which might be improved.

[37]  Tracts, vol. ii.  Advt.

[38a]  Rom. x. 13, &c.

[38b]  Acts xiii. 38, 39.

[39a]  Collect for the Ordering of Priests, “Most merciful Father,” &c.

[39b]  Tract 87, p. 75.

[39c]  1 Peter i. 12.

[39d]  1 Cor. ii. 4.

[39e]  I have said nothing of many other grounds of revived difference asserted by the Anglo-catholics; such as the Eucharistic sacrifice for the quick and dead, the invocation of saints, the worshipping of images and relics, and the spiritual supremacy of the Pope: it is enough to mention them.  If those who assert all these things have the Holy Ghost, those who deny them have Him not.

[40]  Heb. iii. 7–11.

[42]  Exod. xxx. 31–33.

[43]  See also Col. i. 28, 29.—“Christ—whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: whereunto I also labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily.”

[46]  Ephes. iv. 12.  Acts xxvi. 18.

[47]  Acts v. 36, 37.