PRESENT-DAY PAMPHLETS III
IRVINGISM, TONGUES,
and the
GIFTS of the HOLY GHOST.
By
D.
M. PANTON.
SECOND EDITION
CHAS. J.
THYNNE & JARVIS, LTD.,
1923
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[Page 3]
THE supernatural is not Divine
because it is miraculous. For our wrestling, says the Apostle, is not against flesh and blood; but against the principalities, against the powers, against
the world-rulers of this darkness, against the
spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph. 6: 12). An
unseen host, active behind the ruin of men and the wreck of nations, and often
most seductive were least recognised or understood, can make itself felt in dream
and vision and oracle, and slowly reveals the point to which its organised
efforts are directed. For the Scriptures
are burdened with the portentous shadow of Antichrist. Powers, signs, and wonders, such as thwarted
Moses in the sorceries of Jannes and Jambres, and Paul in the machinations of
Elymas, are to be poured forth, in triple perfection of miracle, from the
Satanic energies of the Man of Sin.1 Further, between Pentecost and the last crisis
appear, century by century, groups of spiritual phenomena apparently related,
and enveloped, to human observers, in bewildering obscurity, because directed
by an intelligence that works, not by years, but by centuries, in furtherance
of designs not temporary, but eternal. Recognising, as we do,
observes Dr. Plumptre, the
great gap which separates the work of the [Holy] Spirit on the day of Pentecost from all others, both in its origin and
[Page 4] its fruits, there is, it is believed, no reason for
rejection the thought that there might be like phenomena standing to it in the
relation of foreshadowings, approximations, counterfeits.2 But the manifest return, in
our own day, of a sycle of the supernatural, more
than of old organised and aggressive, calls to mind former periods in which
Satan has roused all his forces into activity, and God has counter-worked with
swift and appalling power. It is
impossible but that our thoughts should turn to the apostolic gifts. By the gift 3 of the Holy Ghost, manifested in many gifts 4 - the Spirit 5 apportioned
in distributions of the Spirit 6 - the church, enabled to discern spirits, to heal, to
speak in tongues, to prophesy, even to raise the dead, once triumphed over the
powers of Satan. Epochs of critical
importance, the junctions of the dispensations, have had massed about them,
from earliest times, a mustering for spiritual conflict:- as, in synagogue, and
wilderness, and amid the idolatries of pagan cities, Christ and His apostles
collided sharply with, and sternly silenced, the hosts of evil. Thus divinely armoured the
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1. Whose coming
[presence] is according to the working of Satan with all POWER
and SIGNS and WONDERS [wrought on behalf] of falsehood (2 Thess. 2: 9). No stronger words can be used to express even
Divine miracle.
2. Smiths Bible
Dictionary, article, Gift of Tongues.
3. John 7: 39; Acts 2: 38; 8: 20; 11: 17.
4. 1 Cor.
12: 4, 31; 1 Tim. 4: 14; and Eph. 4: 8.
5. Acts 1: 8, 15: 8.
6. Acts 8: 15, 19: 2; 1 Cor. 15: 12, 32, and Heb. 2: 4. Our
Lord alone received the Spirit in His sevenfold fulness. Is. 11: 2, John 3: 34, Rev. 3: 1.
MIRACLES SINCE THE APOSTLES
But
have Divine miracles ever ceased? After the
lapse of the uncertain epoch in which the apostolic miracles disappeared,1 groups of
wonder-workers arise, develop, and [Page 5] decay. These post-apostolic
miracles present a common character.2
They are not the fruits of an organised and
continuous communication of supernatural power. We find (1) healing, the sign most
difficult to pronounce certainly miraculous, the miracle oftenest alleged; yet
without systematic healing by apostles of gifted disciples, accompanied by
miracles of resurrection, sufficiently public and certain to attest a work of
God. (2) Dreams, presentiments,
and visions
are equally inconclusive. Joel (2: 8), it is true, foretold visions, which were
frequent in the lives of the apostles; but they are certain proof of miracle to
none but the seer himself; and sometimes, as in the case of Swedenborg, prince
of visionaries, are traceable to sources demonstrably evil. Dreams and visions do not rank with the
distinctive gifts of the [Holy] Spirit as enumerated by Paul (1 Cor. 12: 8-10). (3) Alleged exorcisms are no more
decisive. Discernment of spirits,
but not apparently their expulsion, is a supernatural
gift. Demons yield to the ungifted
believers faithful utterance of the name of Jesus; coupled, in severe cases,
with prayer and fasting (Mark 9: 29).
Besides, it is possible for spiritual trickery to be substituted for
real exorcism.3 (4) Signal
answers to prayer, as in George Mullers orphanages, may be, together with cure
and dream, Gods gracious response to individual faith, but are not properly workings of miracles.
As Mr. Muller put it:- I have the grace of faith, but not the gift of faith. (5) Prophets, however, present a more
tangible claim; and such, asserting their own divine [Page
6] inspiration, arose among Montanists, Camisards, and Quakers. But it is impossible to suppose these
divinely inspired. Motanus
said, I am the Lord God Almighty, dwelling in man;
I am the Holy Ghost;4 the French Prophets failed
in prediction after prediction; and the first Quaker prophets taught doctrine
frankly Gnostic.5 Each of these
facts, amply substantiated, is fatal.
(6) Tongues are unquestionably supernatural, but, in themselves, yield
no proof of their origin. The Apostles -
the pagan Oracles - Spiritualist mediums - heathen witchcraft, all have
possessed tongues; and the woman-founder [Page
7] of the Shakers was said to speak
supernaturally in seventy-two languages.
(7) The alleged Roman miracles remain; are these the
legitimate successors to the powers, signs, and wonders which attested the work
of Christ, and accompanied the first believers?
Acute difficulties to this view are at once apparent. Roman miracles, as alleged, are rarely great;
sometimes, if they occurred as recorded, they border on the ridiculous;6 at others they may rightly
be defined as superstitious;7 and,
taken as a whole, they startle us by their resemblance to antics of the sιance,8 Had they been consistent attendants on the
claimants to the successorship of the apostles; grave, majestic, and
beneficent; and put forward as a body of adequate evidence sealing the word
preached the claim would have demanded serious and reverent attention. But such has never been the character of the
ecclesiastical miracles.9 It is not often that the
gift of miracles, says Cardinal Newman, is even ascribed to a
Saint. In many cases miracles are only
ascribed to their tombs or relics; or when miracles are ascribed to them when
living, these are but single and occasional, not parts of a series.10 Thus they
differ, from [Page 8] the foundation upward, from the Scriptural gift of miracles. Those, says
Mr. Lecky, who know the
tone that is habitually adopted on these subjects by the educated in Roman
Catholic countries will admit that, so far from being a subject of triumphant
exultation, the very few modern miracles which are related are everywhere
regarded as a scandal, a stumbling-block, and a difficulty.11 Thus the systems of miracle since the apostles,
and earlier than this century, have been un-apostolic; put forward by no
accredited witnesses, with bodily eyes, or the risen Christ (1 Cor. 9: 1); with
evidence too scanty and casual to afford us any sure foothold; and in their
character intemperate, fantastic, and sometimes positively evil.12
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1. Many in the Church,
says Iraeneus in A.D. 176, possess
prophetic gifts, and speak through the Spirit in all kinds of tongues;
of miraculous powers, says Chrysostom, about
A.D. 400. not even a vestige is left: somewhere between these
dates Divine miracles ceased. The Didache (pp. 50-55) directs how Prophets,
obviously customary guests, were to be entertained.
2. As intercourse with evil spirits advances, so does
superstition, pari passu;
the paltry wonders of the sιance go to countenance coats that are peculiar only
by reason of their offensive age, and splinters of the cross too recently cut
from the forest to require a miracle of preservation. Superstition attributes to the supernatural
that which is natural. E.g., Acts
28: 4. Such is the belief in rain-makers, Jer. 14: 22. In the Scriptures alone do we find that even
balance of mind which neither lapses into superstition, nor hardens into unbelief.
3. Pastor Blumhardt, in
modern days, has healed hundreds of demoniacs: on the other hand, Spiritualists
and Theosophists solemnly cast out, tricked by
deceptive powers. The spirits foretold
(1 Tim. 4: 1) are seducing spirits.
4. Mr. Prince, of the Agapemone,
advanced the same awful doctrine. I can do likewise, as respects what I have stated of myself,
as
the Holy Ghost personified.
Letter quoted in The Heresy of Mr.
Prince, p. 10; by J. G. Deck,
5. See
R. Govetts The Trinity, the Christ, and the Antichrists. For a careful estimate of these prophets
so radically distinct from later Quakers in creed and character see also the
Rev. Charles Leslies Works, vol. 2., London, 1721. A valuable summary of both Montanism and the
Camisards will be found in Dean Goodes Modern Claims to
the Gifts of the Spirit, pp. 105-152, and 169-196; London,
1834. Other prophets were too
grotesque, as among the Mormons, or too full of corrupt doctrine, as among the
Gnostics, to be seriously discussed as recipients of the Holy Ghost, even
though supernatural utterance be admitted; and others, as the prophets that
hindered the Reformers, bore marks of falsehood from the first. For Luthers encounter with the latter, see DAubignes History of the
Reformation, vol. iii., ch. viii. Among
Mormon vagaries, time has falsified the foretold restoration of
6. As in Dr. Newmans Two Essays on Miracles, pp. 129, 133.
7. Ibid, pp. 129, 130, 134.
8. Ibid,
pp 119, 122, 123, 128, 131. Cf. Dr.
Trench, On the Miracles, p. 55.
9. It is significant that the epoch between Scriptural miracles
and the early Roman, in which they should have continued unbroken, is just the
epoch in which any evidence for miracle at all is faintest. Early Christian writers admitted that
decisive miracles ceased with the Apostles.
See Mozley, On the
Miracles, p. 165. The
defence of the Roman signs set up by Cardinal Newman is vitiated by an amazing
blunder. He recognises no supernatural
powers in Satan. The agency of God, he says (Essays,
p. 30), is the only known
cause of supernatural power.
This enormously simplified the Cardinals task; for proof of reality in
the Romish wonders was thus equally proof of their Divine origin. But to us, who are actually experiencing an
outburst of demonic energy, such a blunder is impossible. If genuine, to whom but to deceptive powers
can be due apparitions of the Virgin, Loyolas inearthly
lights and levitations, and cures by tomb and shrine and relic?
10. Essays,
p. 220. The
miracles of Christ and His Apostles, Dr. Trench rightly observes (On the Miracles, p. 53), we have a right to consider as normal, in their chief
features at least, for all future miracles, if such were to continue in the
Church.
11. Rationalism in
12. It is needless to add that Spiritualism, now
propagated with ardour inside the Churches by such clergymen as the Rev. C. L. Tweedale, is a pure and elemental apostasy. Mr. Tweedale says,
for example: The Churchs doctrine of the
Resurrection of the flesh is a fundamental error. Spirit Phenomena
and the Churches, p. 5.
See the forst two Persent
Day Pamphlets on Spiritualism (Thyme & Jarvis).
ASSOCIATES AND SUCCESSORS OF MR. IRVING
Far
the most plausible, elaborate, and impressive claim to the exercise of
miraculous powers, incomparably one open to examination than Montanism, and far
closer to its Apostolic model than the modern Tongues Movement, was that put
forward under the ministry of Edward Irving, and sustained by his successors:-
certain congregations who, abiding in the Catholic
faith, are waiting the appearing of our Lord from heaven1 - built
up, not on the [Page 9] mere word of deceased ministers, but on the
offices of living apostles and prophets.2 This original hope of
Christians, in the words of an official publication, which declined with the first
love, has been revived by the voice of the
Comforter, speaking, as of old, by the members of the Body of Christ, and enabling
them to receive, with faith and obedience, Apostles, whom the Lord, by the same
Spirit, has sent to prepare His way before Him.3 We are able to testify,
say the angels of the London churches, in the
presence of the Church of Christ, that God has vouchsafed to restore Apostles
and Prophets.4 A restoration of apostles, with supernatural powers
to compel attention, and with high utterance thus authoritatively upheld, is not in itself impossible; the hope of it
is not, so far as I am aware, negatived in the Scriptures; and, however
various the channels through which conflicting schools of thought would expect
such a restoration, probably no body of Christians is unprepared to take such a
claim so upheld [Page 10] into consideration. Apostles,
it is probable, would be restored with restored gifts of miracle. But it is obvious that a claim so lofty, so
fascinating, and if unfounded so arrogant, demands the most circumspect
caution, and careful sifting in the light of the words of those beyond doubt apostles. For it is possible for a church to be
deceived by false apostles. I know thy works, says Christ to the Ephesian Angel,
and thy toil and patience, and that thou canst not bear evil men, and didst try them that call themselves apostles, and they are not, and didst
FIND THEM FALSE (Rev. 2: 2). Certain
outstanding landmarks prevent us from straying far. Without the signs
of an apostle, apostleship does not exist: successors of apostles, without their
signs, are not apostles: and apostles with signs, but not apostolic signs, and wonders, and mighty works (2 Cor, 12: 12), are false apostles. Satan has his apostles (2 Cor. 11: 13), in
presence of whom the church, without such definite tests recollected and
applied, would be - in some cases, has been - a prey to supernatural imposture,
or the mistaken or arrogant claims of ecclesiasticism. Beware, said
our Lord, of FALSE
PROPHETS (Matt. 7: 15). God never sent any
prophet, says Luther, who was not either
called by proper persons, or authorized by special miracles, no, not even His
own Son. Their bare assertion of a
Divine afflatus is not sufficient ground for your receiving them. Nor are the successors of Mr. Irving unaware
of these dangers. The enemy, say the angels,
has come down in great wrath, knowing that his time
is short. False prophets, deceivers in
the spiritual and in the natural world, have arisen, and are busily at work
upon the errands of hell,5. We act then with the approval of sound judgment, of
the Catholic Apostolic Church itself,6 and above all of Him whose
discriminating tests we would reverently apply, when we [Page
11] put all apostles and prophets to
proof.7 Paul himself was content to submit his
apostleship to an appeal to facts (2 Cor. 12: 12). Nor is
this inquiry unfriendly, or unsympathetic; for we remember that the claim is
advanced by some who preach Christ crucified, and look for His return; and to all
such gentleness, not hostility, love, not censoriousness, are due in Christ;
for all down the ages, counterfeits of Apostolic gifts have always ensnared the
holy on
their holiest side.
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1. Preface to Hynms
2. Pleadings, with the
Church in
3. Preface to Hymns.
4. Circular letter To all who Profess
the Faith in Christ, 1856.
So also Testimonies to the Rulers in all
Churches and States, to the King and Privy Council, and to English Bishops. This church was thus constituted. After the appearance of the gifts, a prophet,
at a meeting for prayer, declared one of those present an apostle; later an evangelist
was called to the apostleship; others - clergymen, lawyers, doctors - were
named, to the number of twelve. Together
with seven prophets, the apostles withdrew to Albury
Park, and, under the general direction of the supposed supernatural utterance,
complied portions of the present ornate service. Directed by this utterance,
they dispersed, beginning their testimony, as commanded, with the Pope. All ritual and doctrinal developments have
been effected by the utterance,
which has dominated its adherents as the voice of God. The selection of ministers is thus described
by an eye-witness:- The Prophet comes down from the
platform, and calls them to the different offices, either to serve in that
church or in any other, in this or in any foreign lands; this takes place at
different times in the course of the service, with a voice so loud that it
pierces the ear of every one that is present; and I have seen them so excited
by the violence of the speaker, that any one would have thought they were
struck with death. An Address to Irvingites,
p. 22; by James Crabb,
5. Circular Letter.
Have mercy, runs a prayer of the Liturgy,
upon all who are oppressed and invaded of the devil,
or who have fallen under the possession of evil spirits.
6. Let all who are teachable
and open to conviction, says a member (Some
Popular Objections Considered, p. 15; London, 1876), inspect it and inquire for themselves what God is doing.
7. The Apostles thought it possible for believers to be
deceived by a false spirit. 2 Thess.
2. So also the Holy Ghost is careful to
guard us against credulity. After the
clearest possible revelation of spirit-intercourse as the spring and
inspiration of the coming apostasy, all profane and
old wives fables (1 Tim. 4: 5) - ghost
stories, mahatmas, raisings from the dead by
Father Ignatius or in the Tongues Movement, the fabulous emanitions of the Gnostics: all allegations
insufficiently evidenced or inherently grotesque - are (He warns us) to be
mentally dismissed, springing, as they do, from fatuous superstition or
garrulous age.
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APPEARANCE OF SUPERNATURAL GIFTS
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1. E.
Millers History and Doctrines of Irvingism,
vol. i. p. 46;
2. Its actual source was a Mary Campbell, living near
3. Acts 2: 1-4, 10: 44-46.
4. Acts 8: 18, 19: 6.
5. Acts 9: 17.
6. Mr.
7. The Unknown Tongues,
p. 6; by an Earnest Contender for the Faith,
8. Frasers Magazine,
March, 1832.
9.The Unknown Tongues, p.5
10. Work and
Counterwork, p. 11. Dr.
Carson, Junr. (Plymouth Heresies,
pp. 314, 343, 359), himself heard this unearthly tone
the nec mortale sonans of the
Oracles - in the Irish revivals; and those prostrated
saw visions, and prophesied, sometimes falsely.
A credible and Christian informant - the godliest black woman I have
ever known - tells me of the hold obtained over her in the
11. Phantoms of the
Living, p. 47. I was surprised,
says one of the Camisards, with a shivering all over
me, and my tongue and lips were of a sudden forced to pronounce words with
vehemence that I was myself amazed to hear.
12. Proceedings
of Society for Phychical Research, vol. 12., p. 280. A chance
visitor to Mr. Irvings church reports having seen a luminous phantasm swaying
with extended arms immediately behind the preacher. A friend who accompanied him also saw
it. Morning Watch,
vol. 5., p. 421.
13. The Unknown Tongues
Discovered, p. 17; by E. Pilkington,
14. Narrative,
p. 129; by H. J. Marks, 2nd. ed.,
15. Restoration of
Apostles and Prophets, p. 19; by Rev. Dr. Norton,
16. Encyclopaedia Britannica.
17. Frasers Magazine,
March, 1832.
18. Narrative of Facts,
p. 22; by Robert Baxter,
19. Recent Inquiries in
Theology, p. 123.
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THE APPLICATION OF DIVINE TESTS
The
immunity of the church, now for long periods of time, from the open assaults of
demonism, or the subtle inroads of seducing prophets, has tended to obscure
those definite touchstones, chiefly doctrinal, to which supernatural utterance
can be infallibly brought, and without which Christs flock would be exposed to
the ravages of scarcely disguised wolves.
We are given tests for a spirit, - that Jesus the Christ has
come in flesh (1 John 4: 1-3), and will
again so come (2 John 7); also, a test for
the prophet;
- that, while energised by the external power, and thus speaking
supernaturally, he can, or cannot, say Jesus anathema,
or Jesus is Lord (1
Cor. 12: 3);1 and, in addition to [Page 16] these, the inspired 2 can be put to proof by analysis of their works (Matt. 7: 15-20) and
doctrines (Gal. 1:
8), which determine whether they speak on
behalf of God, or of Satan. 3 Mr. Irving, himself ungifted, and therefore, like all
ungifted with the discernment of spirits, unable to discriminate infallibility,
4 was persuaded
at
the outset to accept the new gifts as divine; and that the tests he
professed to apply, whether their exact nature, 5 were without effect, is proved by the mutual
anathemas of gifted persons after
he had judged them inspired of God.
But a certain anonymous writer speaks of a discrimination definite and
scriptural; the tests in 1 John 4: 2, 3, and 1 Cor. 12: 3, he
says, have been brought to bear on the cases in
question by opponents, as well as by friends, in public and in private, in
every form of application, and under every variety of circumstance; and the
present manifestations have stood these Scriptural tests.6 To an unprejudiced
inquirer, anxious to learn the truth and [Page 17] conscious not only of the futility, but of the sin,
that would withstand the finger of God once seen in undoubted operation, this statement must appear to give
importance. Yet opposing facts equally
grave at once confront us. The frequency
of unweighed and careless assertion, though accompanied by no wish to deceive,
compels us to take notice of a wider field of fact: the more so, as the issues
dependant on our inquiry are spiritual in their nature, and momentous in their
importance. (1) The Apostle Johns test
(1 John 4.) - to
which only, or chiefly, other defenders of the utterance
refer - was confessedly not applied in its usual sense; since this author
himself defines it as an appearance in real and true
flesh of our flesh, of the fallen virgin, not the unfallen Adam.7 To put
the question, even though only my mental reservation, - Did Jesus Christ come in sinful flesh? is
no test at all; or rather, if put with the approval of the visiting spirit, and
answered in the affirmative, it is an instant exposure. But, further, (2) divine inspiration
presents harmony and consistency, is penetrated with a surpassing sweetness,
moves with dignity and power, is wise and accurate, and untroubled by the
thousand discrediting incidents that attend demonic utterance, or the frothy
speech of unprophesying prophets. Such was
not the character of the new utterance.
Noisy and terrifying, it was not cast in the massive mould, nor vital
with the rich suggestiveness, of the prophetic scriptures. It consisted,
says Dr. Goode, an ear-witness, of a few sentences of
exhortation to repentance, repeated over and over again, with a poverty of
expression and a paucity of ideas, which I was quite astonished to find in [Page
18] connection
with so much of enthusiastic excitement. 8 (3) The Scriptures were not always read accurately by
gifted persons in
the power. My ear was struck, says Mr. Mc Neile,
by deviations from the authorised version. I had a Greek Testament in my hand, and
perceived, at a glance, that the deviations were palpably incorrect. One of them was the omission of an important
word, to the utter marring of the sentence.9 (4) Moreover, defections occurred among
the gifted themselves; defections not
as of Judas, but of men who are revealed by their narratives as straightforward
and honest, and who had been in close and vital connection with the new
movement. Mr. Baxter, whose Narrative
of Facts 10 is conspicuous for its candour, is, perhaps, the best
known; but [Page 19] others, including an apostle,11 withdrew. A system is not proved to be in error by the withdrawal
of disciples; but it is possible, or have we precedent to suppose, that men
divinely gifted with inspiration and miracle can withdraw finally from Gods
work, and even judge it demonic? (5) Nor were the prophets
unanimous in the call of the apostles. The MacDonalds in
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1. But it must be the express statement that Jesus is
Lord. I was
seized, said one of the Camisards, with
violent convulsions; and in this fit I repeated often the words, Lord
Jesus, so loud that I was heard all over the house. But upon my first vigorous resistance of this
officious spirit, I never after found myself assaulted. Dean Goodes Gifts of
the Spirit, p. 195.
2. With confidence I reassert this translation. It has three clear grounds of superiority.
(1) On the view I suppose, the Apostles language is definite; no mine, it is
exact. (2) This is the sense it bears in 1 Cor. 14: 37:- if any may think himself to be a prophet or inspired. (3) The sense given on the other theory is untrue. As they repeat the Creed, thousands of the
unconverted affirm that Jesus is Lord (Govett).
3. These
texts are in advance on those given through the Law (Deut.
13: 1-3) and the Prophets (Jer. 28: 9).
4.
Neither Irvingite angel nor prophet, as a matter of fact, is able to discern the
character of spirits. An angel was rebuked by an apostle
for failure to silence evil spirits in the church: yet Mr. Irving, when a fully
constituted angel, was rebuked by the
utterance of a prophet for attempting to so
discern. To claim the gift of
discernment before the entire supernatural movement that confers it has itself
been searchingly tested on independent grounds, and by Divine tests, is
childish, and merely plays into the hands of deceptive powers.
5. See
Baxters Narrative, pp. 129-133; Pilkingtons Unknown
Tongues, pp. 25-26; and Mrs. Oliphants Life of
Edward Irving, vol. 2., pp. 212, 485, etc.
6. A Word of Inquiry, p. 23; by One of the
Congregation,
7. A Word of Inquiry, p. 35. Now, says
the Morning Watch (vol. 4., p. 376), if the supernatural voice affirms, and bears witness to, the
essential Godhead of Jesus of Nazareth; to Him as the sole source of power,
authority, and rule on this earth; to the Christ having taken the fallen flesh
of the Virgin Mary into personal subsistence with Deity; and to His
coming in that flesh again; that supernatural voice is God the Holy
Ghost Himself speaking. Now
all these points we have heard the voices proceeding from divers persons affirm.
(My italics.) Does this not also invalidate 2 John 7?
8. Modern Claims to the Gifts of the Spirit, p.
14. I have
heard some thousand so-called prophetic utterances, but (with two exceptions)
they have contained nothing beyond the ability of any ordinary man to
speak. They were largely composed of
quotations from Scripture, and all else they contained had been better
expressed from the pulpit. My Reasons for Retiring from the Catholic
Apostolic Church, by H. M. Prior, 1873.
9. Letters to a Friend, p. 113; by Hugh Mc Neile,
10. For
its self-analysis, first-hand evidence, and Christian spirit, the Narrative is probably the most important work
on Irvingism issued during the lifetime of Mr. Irving. A later important booklet is The Catholic Apostle Church by a minister of
fifteen years standing in the body, who was closely acquainted with its
organisation and principles and in official contact with its highest
officers. Both are sober and searching
indictments. Of importance also are Letters to a Friend, by the Rev. Hugh McNeile, rector of Albury, where
for two years the apostles were assembled; Modern Claims to Gifts of the Spirit, by Dr.
Goode, Dean of Ripon; and the History and
Doctrines of Irvingism, by the Rev. Edward
Miller, a careful and thoroughly informed narrative. Perhaps Mr. Sitwells
volume, The Purpose of God in Creation and Redemption (2nd. ed.,
11. This
apostle seceded after the failure of the
twelve in their gigantic attempt to convert
12. The Catholic Apostolic Church, p. 3. Their letters rejecting the apostles will be found in Memoirs
of J. and G. Macdonald, p. 215; by Dr. R. Norton, London,
1840. The utterance
itself came solely from Mary Campbell and the Macdonalds.
13. It was so with the French Prophets. One of themselves, when disillusioned, wrote:
We may see, and all the
world may be satisfied, that these mew prophets are not from God, by their
contradicting one another in ecstasies by turns; in which, also, they upbraid
and condemn one another as false and self-exalting. The Falsehood of
the New Prophets Manifested, p. 18; by H. Nicholson,
14.
Millers Irvingism, vol. i., p. 215.
THE
EXPERIENCES OF MR. BAXTER
In Mr. Baxters Narrative,
recognised by all as an important criticism even if the inaccuracies alleged by
his critics be admitted, we possess a first-hand, experimental testimony from
an able, shrewd, and devout critic, possessed of a friendship for Mr. Irving
which is not the least ouching episode on the pathetic drama of the great
preachers life. Slowly, but
effectually, the sundering power of conviction drove
him apart from the little knot of disciples that listened to the new utterance
as the voice of God. He had felt
that others only applauded or condemned.
At his own fireside,1
if we are to believe him, the influence - sudden, fitful, unintelligible -
wrought upon him with a power beyond automatic, or the mere impulse of
spiritual agitation. Words, then
sentences, and lastly harangues, issued from his passive tongue. He could restrain the impulse, but painfully.2 When no words were suggested to his
mind, utterance was a harsh and discordant jargon. Excitement there was at times, but [Page
21] always the consciousness of a
power beyond the excitement.3 While my mind was perfectly
calm and composed, my whole body was convulsively agitated, 4. Words were spoken, not only without forethought, but sometimes contrary
to his intention.5 Answers in one room were given by a gifted person to prayers offered in another.6 But Mr. Baxter, at first
convinced of his divine inspiration, viewed with alarm incidents that suggested
another interpretation. The utterances shunned publicity and examination, and
were visibly weakened, and sometimes silenced, by the presence of sceptics.7 Directions were given that
utterances should not be recorded.8 Absolute submission to them
was taught, even though they should appear to contradict the Scriptures. They were bitter and [Page
22] hasty in denunciation.9 Prophecies were profuse,
but rarely fulfilled. A day was named
for pentecostal effusion of
power. The day arrived, and with a
command - Kneel down, and receive the baptism of fire;
but, kneel and pray as they might, nothing ensued.10 It was definitely predicted, and preached in the
public streets by over fifty evangelists,11 that Christ would return in twelve hundred and sixty
days. The utterance
said that the Trinitarian Bible Society made a proselyte twofold more a child
of hell than before.12 A discussion arose among a few on the mystery of
iniquity, and Mr. Baxter prayed that God would open their eyes to see it, when
he was suddenly impelled, without intention or expectancy, to assert
emphatically [Page 23] that this mystery of iniquity was then powerfully at work in that very
assembly.13 Mr.
Baxter saw that Mr. Irving preached the fallen humanity of Christ
unrebuked. He fell back on the
conjecture that the spiritual agency was mixed, and that, as Mr. Irving
contended, a prophet might be inspired by God and Satan alternately.14 But the gifted were sometimes inspired simultaneously.15 The prophets, including himself, had announced in power that God would never suffer them to be
energised to utterance by Satan.16 Mr. Baxter grew convinced, with pain and reluctance,
that the gifts could not spring from two [Page 24] sources. He
reviewed the failures in prophecy, the contradictions, the mutual anathemas,
the unscriptural doctrines: he remonstrated with Mr. Irving, and left his
church. But the invading power was not
easily shaken off. Long after I gave up the work as [Satanic] delusion, he says, the
power so continued with me that I was obliged to resist it continually. When in prayer the power would come and carry
out my utterance in power, and I was obliged to stop to resist it.17 After the lapse of four
years, judging, as he remarks, on ample evidence, and without the excitement in
which he one participated, Mr. Baxter says: The work
is not the mere effort of enthusiasm, produced by natural causes, and excited
to its highest pitch, but it is a manifest power of the spirit of delusion.18 Mr. Irving speaks of Mr.
Baxter as a dear friend of my own who
lately spoke by the spirit of God in my church -
as
all the spiritual of the church fully acknowledged, and almost all acknowledge
still.19.
-------
1. All of those who profess this new inspiration, says
a contemporary of the Camisards, say that their
agitations constantly accompany their private devotions.
2. Narrative of Facts, p. 5
3. Ibid, p. 5
4. Ibid, p. 148.
5. Ibid, p. 19.
A similar experience attended the French Prophets. I here declare
solemnly, says one of them, without any
equivocation whatsoever, by this public act, upon the oath I make of it before
God, that I am in no wise the farmer of whose bodily agitations I suffer in my
ecstasies; I do not move my own self, but am moved by a power independent that
overrules me; and for the words that proceed from my mouth, I protest with the
same awful solemnity, they are formed without my intention, and glide forth of
my lips without my direction, my mind bearing no ways any part in that
marvellous operation by preceding forethought, or any intending will to deliver
what I do at that instant. See A Cry from the Desert, pp. 37-44; 2nd., ed.,
6. So
among the Camisard Prophets, who, in
7. Narrative of Facts, p. 48. This paralysis in the presence of a sceptic
often occurs in the Spiritual sιance. The avoidance of scrutiny is a damaging fact,
and has characterised the organisation from the first. Every kind of
investigation and discussion, says an ex-member, is discouraged; and nothing is allowed by the governing
powers to be printed, except permissu superiorum.
The Catholic Apostolic Church,
p. 4.
8. Ibid, p. 126.
In later years, an official reports the prophetic
speech, as the prophets are impelled to
utterance during the services; but, together with apostolic
epistles, etc., these records are strictly reserved for Irvingite perusal.
9. Ibid. p. 128.
Contemn opposition! was an early reply
of the utterance (Pinkingtons Unknown Tongues, pp. 19, 27). Arguments are always useless in supernatural
movements for those already convinced; for, however irresistible, they are at
once put aside, by a reference to what is assumed to be the Voice of God. In vain, says Mr. McNeile
(Letters to a Friend, p. 114), I inquired for proof, that the voice, to which such
implicit defence was paid, is the voice of God.
The demand for evidence was indeed denounced with awful severity, as
carnal, as tempting God, as fighting against the Spirit. Another
characteristic, says Mr. Baxter, is the
bitterness of denunciation and hastiness of spirit found in the manifestations
of the power (Narrative,
p. 127). But
the fruit of THE SPIRIT is love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness,
meekness, temperance
(Gal. 5: 22). The
heavenly wisdom is meek. But of ye have bitter jealously and faction in your heart,
glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom is not a
wisdom that cometh down from above, but is
earthly, sensual, DEMONIC (Jas. 3: 15). This arrogant
spirit, says a contemporary author (see Eusebius, History,
book v.), taught them [the followers of Montanus] to revile the whole and
every particular church, because this spirit of false prophecy received no
honour or countenance from it.
10. Narrative of Facts, p. 90.
11. Irvingism, p. 22. An Old Testament cause shows how offensive to
God is false prophecy in His name.
Hananiah suffered death for this sin.
Jer. 28. Forty-three prophecies of Mr. Baxter, says
the Churchs Broken Unity (p. 253) where signally unfulfilled. So of one of the chief prophetesses of
Montanism a contemporary says:- More than thirteen
years have now elapsed since that woman died, who predicted wars and tumults
near at hand; and there has been no war in the whole world.
12. Narrative of Facts, p. 34.
13. Ibid, p. 36.
14. See Irvingism, in its Rise, Progress, and
15.
Gods prophetesses exercise the gift privately, and are silent in the assembly
(1 Cor. 14: 34); the
contrary conduct is a sign of false prophecy (Rev.
2: 20). The Tongues Movement in
16. Narrative of Facts, p. 116.
17. Ibid, p. 145.
Mr. Baxter had been a prophet for
several months. Says another of the gifted: I renounced the
doctrine [of the fallen flesh] a few months
after, but a deliverance from a belief that this visitation was of God has only
now taken place, more than two years after, and that by the most unexpected
means. Letter to the Gifted Persons,
p. 14.
18. Irvingism, p. 33.
19. Life, vol. ii. p. 474. (My italics.) This honest, but damaging, view of Mr.
Baxters inspiration, is endorced by the able
Irvingite author of a Letter (p.
19; London, 1856) written in reply to articles in The Old
Church Porch. While therefore I believe Mr. Baxter received a great gift
from God, and in the exercise of it spoke many true words from the Holy Ghost -
I strongly incline to believe that he also spoke many things out of his own
heart. Here is a proof that the
evidence that Mr. Baxter and the prophets
spoke by the same spirit is too strong to be gainsaid: yet how could it have been the
Holy Ghost? This Letter, in the judgment of an apostle (Mr. Sitwell, Creation and Redemption, p. 169), is the best
reply to Mr. Baxter ever issued. The Morning Watch admitted (vol. vii., p.
203) Mr. Baxters honesty and sincerity, and can scarcely be said, by an
impartial observer, to have attempted to refute his facts; and it is admitted
(p. 204) that the spirit in him was the spirit in the other gifted
persons. A later review (vol. vii., p. 391) of the Narrative,
distinguished by its violence, impugned Mr. Baxters accuracy, but relied
mainly for his refutation on Mr. Douglass The Spirit in Mr.
Baxter Tried by Scripture.
A copy of the latter work I have not been able to obtain. Nothing short of imperative need could lead a
critic to asperse Mr. Baxters honesty or ability; but even if, as with many
adherents of the utterance, his testimony be
bitterly impugned, other narratives, hardly less informed and energetic,
corroborate it. Failure to meet and
disprove seriatim the facts alleged by such writers is a grave weakness
in Catholic Apostolic evidences; the more so,
as these are not scurrilous attacks, but fatal flaws in the inspiration
advanced by men of known weight and probity; and on the nature of the
inspiration all that is peculiar in Irvingism critically turns.
[Page
25]
DECEPTIVE
GIFTS
All the signs and wonders of apostolic power the utterance promised:1 ninety years, lavish in
promises and hopes, have been spent in abundant prophecies,
and an active propaganda:- has the Church been subdued by very stress of
miracle, and has God sealed the work as His?
(1) The promise of apostolic powers was never fulfilled: the Spirit has
never been ministered: 2 every apostle is
dead: absolutely no miracles, beyond such as are known to the sιance,
have ratified, with Divine approval, the lofty apostolic claim. (2) The utterance
has revolutionised the ritual of a church once Presbyterian, and brought it to
the threshold of
-------
1. Irvingism, p. 18.
2. It is
alleged that some became gifted through the
laid-on hands of an apostle; but in the
church of the Scriptures all so touched spoke with tongues
and prophesied (Acts 19: 6).
Irvingism lays claim to two gifts, tongues and prophecy: it
has failed to reproduce, from among Pauls nine (1 Cor. 12: 8-10), gifts of healings, workings
of miracles. interpretation of tongues - to reproduce them so indubitably that
men should exclaim, God is among you indeed (1 Cor. 14: 25). Its reproduction has been a shadow.
3.
Millers History,
vol. i., pp. 123, 230, 257, 302.
4.
The Catholic Apostolic Church, p. 73. One morning, when
[apostles] were in a church in
5. Original Constitution of the Church, p. 129:
by Presbyter [Rev. J. Hodges],
6. Narrative of Facts, 2nd ed., p.
44. Mr Shillingford, once a member on
7. Irvingism, p. 44. It argues so low a grade of intelligence in
demon powers, who frequently hazard prophecies the inevitable collapse of which
they must know will be their own exposure, that false prophecy probably has a
deeper source - namely, that, cauterized in conscience (1 Tim. 4: 2), they love lies, and do not always know when
they do
lie. Truth, past or future, can be of
little consequence to a being in whom conscience has
been obliterated.
8. Letters to a Friend, pp. 109, 131. So utterly untrustworthy have the prophecies become, that they are held
unauthoritative and invalid until sanctioned by the apostles;
and the prophetical gift, which at one time attempted to over-ride all
authority, has gradually lost influence, and been restricted within narrow
limits. Already in the Tongues Movement
the gift of discerning of spirits needs to be
governed by the apostle. Showers of Blessing, Jan. 1923. Mormonism, which had its simultaneous tongues, twelve apostles, prophets, and salvation by
sacrament, subordinated its apostles to its prophets, and thus giving full reign to a spirit of
delusion, became involved in ruin. See
Millers History, vol. ii., pp. 46, 86. In
1880, Mr. H. M. Prior, for twenty years a minister in the body, said: I have never heard one clear and definite prediction of
anything which could be tested. My Experience of the Catholic Apostolic Church,
p. 33;
9. See
Mr. Baxters Narrative, p. 31; Mr. Millers History, vol., pp. 70, 247; Mrs. Oliphants Life, etc.
So among the Camisards, dreadful judgments to fall on
10. Human Nature of our Lord, p. 13;
11. Human Nature of our Lord, p. 24.
12. Edward Irving and the Catholic Apostolic Church,
p. 7; by One of its Members;
13. Liturgy, 1892 edition, pp. 166, 169.
14. Edward Irving and the Catholic Apostolic Church,
p. 4. (My italics.)
So also Dr. Nortons Restoration of
Apostles, p. 40; Millers History,
vol. i., p. 223; and Remarks on Mr. Burnetts Irvingism, p. 11 [by the pillar of the apostles]; London, 1867. Whether Mr. Irvings successors hold the full
doctrine or a modified form of it is not material to our inquiry; for it was
the doctrine preached by Mr. Irving himself (never withdrawn) which
the utterance upheld. It is curious how the sinlessness of the
believer and the sinfulness of Christ are doctrines which, separately or
together, have haunted supernatural movements.
The Shakers, for example, holding both, said:- The
opinion which obtains so extensively among mankind that no man, not even a real
Christian, is able to live without committing sin, is one of the most
destructive errors that ever proceeded from the powers of darkness. So, in a protest against the Tongues
Movement, the Evangelical leaders in
15. Human Nature of Our Lord, pp. 8, 10, 30, etc.
16. For
an adequate discussion of the doctrine, see Appendix to the second edition of
Dean Goodes Modern Claims to the Gifts of the Spirit. The doctrine itself is best stated in Mr.
Irvings Human Nature of Our Lord and
the Morning Watch. See also Mr. J. N. Darbys Collected Writings, vol. iv.
17. See Deut. 13: 1-3, John 5: 31-39. Cf. Luke 16: 31.
18. A Letter to the Gifted Persons, p. 12; by D.
M. London, 1834. (My italics.) Cf. Preface to Reasons
for Thinking Mr. Irving Deceived; by the Rev. P, Blackburn, 2nd.
ed.,
THE FAILURE
OF IRVINGISM
Thus Irvingism 1 failed in great and systematic miracles; it never
rose above the level of Camisard prophecy, Romish cures, or utterances of the sιance;
it never flowed into mirabilia magna (Ps. 136: 4); never greeted the multitudes with a visible
Pentecost; never healed the stricken in
-------
1. It is
Scriptural (Rev. 2:
6) to speak of false teaching by the name of
its originator, and it is Mr. Irvings false teaching on the source of the utterance which is commonly understood as
Irvingism. The movement was too
wide-spread, and too much a design of unseen powers, to have been, strictly
speaking, with which it was so closely associated, is inseparable from it;
especially when we reflect that without his permission and encouragement its
very existence would have been problematical.
I use the term with no wish to offend his successors.
2. Some
cures, doubtless, may have been wrought, as is probably the case with certain
classes of mediums, but successful healings
are rare, obscure, and ambiguous. The
doctors testimony, in the Case of Miss Fancourt (p. 61; London, 1831), casts some
doubt on the best evidenced example; although the prejudice against miracle in
the compilers of this pamphlet is ably criticised in Eruvin (pp. 241-289; by Rev. S. R.
Maitland, D. D.D., F.R.S., 2nd. ed., 1850). Prophets and elders were once gathered round a dying son of Mr.
Irving: an utterance on the spot said he
would not die, but be restored; but, while they were bidding him rise, the
child expired. Errors
of Irvingism, p. 17.
Power was to be given to heal the blind and raise the dead both of
which failed irredeemably. See Rev. W. J. W. Bennetts The Church Broken
Unity: Irvingism, pp. 237-275;
3. A Mornings Visit to the Rev. Irvings, p. 7;
by Anti-Cabala,
4. The utterance was commenting on Dives, and addressing
itself to the kings of the earth.
5. Letters to a Friend, p. 120. It is commonly admitted by us, says an
Irvingite writer, that there is no essential difference between the prophetic
utterances now, and those which were heard among the Society of Friends in
their early days. (H. M. Priors My Experience of the Catholic Apostolic
Church, p. 67; London, 1880): why then the enormous gulf between the riteless Quaker and the Romanized Irvingite, unless both
inspirations were demonic?
6. The Lord grant - in the pathetic words of a
disillusioned Irvingite prophetess that when this sad conflict is over with the powers of
darkness, we shall meet where nothing that can defile shall enter. A Letter to the
Gifted Persons, p. 22.
Ignorance of former Satanic impostures, as well as ignorance of contemporary Spiritualism, has been
extraordinarily fruitful in disaster all down the ages, and in the modern
Church: for to rarely is it possible for us to say, as the Apostolic Christians
could, - We are not ignorant of his devices (2 Cor. 2: 22); and
none of us is free from the peril of some fresh subtilty of which we never
dreamed. Thus the study of
Irvingism, the closest of all counterfeits, by arming the mind with an expose
of Satanic strategy at its cleverest, goes far towards reducing the risk of
seduction when fresh supernatural movements arise, as arise they must with
increasing frequency.
DANGERS OF A
RESTORATION OF MIRACLE
We rise dazed from the study of Irvingism. Inevitably, after inquiry into haughty
utterance and ringing oracle, the doubt confronts us whether prayer for miracle
is a lawful prayer, or, as with the Jews of old, a snare and a stumbling
block. The prayer, it is obvious, may
spring from a secret and earthly ambition; from spiritual pride; from unbelief
in the Spirits indwelling in the disciples heart; from an inadequate
appreciation of Christian evidence:- altogether from
motives the least likely to bring about a restoration, or even akin to the
impulses of Simon Magus. It may be a
direct incitement to fanaticism, a Satanic suggestion
to force God to miracle, but not in the path of duty - the last temptation of a
supremely devoted soul (Luke 4: 9). Further
there confronts us, with dissuasive power, our own grave inability to discern,
in a path encompassed with spiritual deceptions; a path in which Satan appears
as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11: 14); and
which must culminate, as the [evil] age nears its close, in impalpable perils even to the
elect (Matt. 24:
24). An energy of delusion, 1 even over sincere minds, appeared in an Irvingite apostle; to whom Mr. Baxter wrote: I venture to [Page 33] appeal to you in the name of
Jesus to tell me whether you do not know, and your conscious bear you witness,
that you are not an apostle? - and who replied
that, though devoid of miraculous powers, in his conscience he believed himself
an apostle. 2 Mr. George Soltau,
investigating the Tongues Movement at its source in 1908, reports a case of a
woman speaking in German; and a German present was shocked to hear her saying
the most obscene things with a shining, radiant face. 3 In Spiritualism appear the
same powers to deceive, and the same unguarded and fatuous credulity. With almost
transfigured countenance, says Professor Zollner,
the medium Slade uttered,
with altered voice and head upturned, so fine a prayer that I shall never
forget the impression which the noble speech and the fervour with which the
prayer was spoken made upon me.4 Swaddling bands of the fairest fill the cradle of
Antichrist. Nor must the terrible fact
ever fade from our vision that the seductions of spirit-intercourse are yet to
create that landslide from all Faith, the horror of the Apostasy, out of which
the Antichrist will spring (1 Tim. 4: 1-3, 2 Thess. 2: 9-11). But, profoundly conscious of danger and the
possibility of a morbid appetite for miracle, truth yet demands of us the
recognition in past epochs of a pure and lawful desire for miraculous powers;
and, further, the admission that perils of imposture cannot be a final barrier
to a manifestation of Gods Spirit. For
such was the early Apostolic attitude. The first disciples, girded with demonic
manifestations, and after a lapse of the prophetic order for a prolonged
period, struck, at Pentecost, the new fount of Christian prophecy; and the
first recorded prayer of the Church (Acts 4:
30) included a petition that signs and
wonders might be wrought by believers 5 So also the discriminating tests can be as
relied on as can God Himself.
-------
1. 2 Thess. 2: 11; though
the delusion resting on Antichrists worshippers, referred to by Paul, will be
irremediable. Rev.
13: 8.
2. Irvingism, p. 45.
3. The Christian, Jen. 16,
1908.
4. Transcendental Physics, p. 196.
5. It
should further be borne in mind that with restored gifts would be restored the
gift to discern spirits; and that miraculous powers would now, as then (1 Cor. 14: 37), rest
on the Word, quick to unmask imposture.
[Page
34]
THE LAPSE OF
MIRACULOUS GIFTS
But, before observing the Holy Scripture the rightful
place in the hearts of disciples assigned to a desire for miracle, let us
observe the reasons, held by many Christian teachers as decisive, why Christian
miracle is thought to be neither desirable nor possible. These will be found to rest, not on any
alleged Scriptures, but, ultimately, on two main pillars:-
(1) on the argument that miracle was a temporary aid to the early missionary
church; and (2) on the fact of its absence.
The fact is more or less obvious: some writers are puzzled by it;
others admit that they see no insuperable barrier to the return of miracle;
others again bodily assert that the lapse of miraculous gift is a part of Gods
original plan. 1. But (1) the disappearance of Christian miracle is [Page
35] not a solution of the problem: it
is the problem itself. If God designed
that miracles should cease, their absence would be consistent with the design;
but that absence, unless justified from the Scriptures, cannot be held
sufficient proof, standing alone, that such was the Divine plan. To argue that the miracles were designed
to pass away because they have ceased is to use
the fact to solve the fact. Nor (2) is
the early churchs acute need, upon which commentators heap up the burden of
proof, more conclusive, or calculated to bear the vast load laid upon its
shoulders.
A day arrived, in the opinion of Dr. Trench, when to the wisdom of God it appeared that He had adequately
confirmed the word with signs following, and that this framework might be
withdrawn from the completed arch, these props and strengthenings of the tender
plant might safely be removed from the hardier tree.2 The supporters of this
explanation of the cessation of miracle point to the alleged missionary, and
therefore transient, character of the gift of tongues. But, even if a present diminished demand for
evangelising powers be granted, it becomes evident, on a study of Pauls
treatise on inspired powers (1 Cor.
12. - 14.),
that the gift of tongues, in the absence of an interpreter, was a gift solely
for the speakers own edification. For he that speaketh in a tongue speaketh NOT UNTO MEN, but unto God; for no man
understandeth; but in the spirit he speaketh
mysteries (1 Cor.
14: 2). He that speaketh in
a tongue edifieth himself (1 Cor. 14: 4).
The tongue, so far from having a purpose purely evangelistic, was rather
a supernatural energy poured forth in language often unintelligible, even to
the speaker himself. For if I pray in a tongue, my
spirit prayeth; but my understanding is
unfruitful (1 Cor.
14: 14). But Dr. Trenchs argument rests on the
assumption that no need exists in the modern church for miraculous powers. If grave needs call as imperatively as of
old; if inspiration and miracle were warp and woof in the church as it left the
hands of God; if the purposes served by miracle persist, [Page
36] contemporaneous with, and
inseparable from, the existence of a church on earth; if the gifts were
conditional on faith: - such facts, if established, would shake from under the
argument its basis of assumption, and strip it of all efficacy as a solution.
-------
1. Some,
as Rev. T. Boys (The Christian Dispensation Miraculous)
and Dr. Horace Bushnell (Nature and the
Supernatural), deny that divine miracles have never ceased. But the historical proofs are vague and
ambiguous, and strikingly unapostolic; and generally accompany fanaticism,
unscriptural doctrine, and even apostasy.
Can any serious thinker support the claims of Loyola, Swedenborg, Joanna
Southcott, or Joseph Smith to divine inspiration? Others, as the Brethren (Mr. J. N. Darbys Collected Writings, Ecclesiastical, vol.
iii., and Mr. W. Kelley, On the Gifts),
claim possession of the gifts, shorn of their miraculous character; but to a
critical student, the Scriptural Gifts were
in their very nature supernatural.
See Acts 2., 8:
14-18, 19: 1-7, 1 Cor. 12., 14. On this
point Mr. Govetts pamphlets present conclusive proof; and I would here
acknowledge my indebtedness to that profound thinker. See also, for an exhaustive exposition of 1 Cor. 12. - 14.,
his work entitled The Church of Old. Possibly the nearest modern approach to
inspiration lies in Mr. Spurgeons experience.
Often and often, he says (Lectures to my Students, second series, p.
9), when I have had doubts suggested by the infidel I
have been able to fling them to the winds with utter scorn, because I am
distinctly conscious of a power working upon me when I am speaking in the name
of the Lord, infinitely transcending any personal power of fluency, and far
surpassing any energy derived from excitement such as I have felt when
delivering a secular lecture or making a speech - so utterly distinct from such
power that I am quite certain it is not of the same order or class as the enthusiasm
of the politician or the glow of the orator. Yet Mr. Spurgeon was the first to
acknowledge the unbridged chasm that lies between such utterance and unalloyed
inspiration.
2. On the
Miracles, p. 58.
ORIGIN AND
NATURE OF THE GIFTS
The gifts of the Holy Ghost, foretold by Joel (2: 28, 29), by John (Matt.
3: 11),
and by our Lord (John 14: 12, Luke 24: 49),
were the Fathers promise (Luke 24: 49, Acts 1: 4, Gal. 3: 14, Eph. 1: 13) - a promise fulfilled on the ascension of
Christ (John 16: 17). Disciples,
in the hour the Lord ascended, were regenerate; they were His, and therefore
indwelt by the Spirit (
-------
1. Since
the New Testament holds no example of a baptism in the Spirit divorced from
miracle and inspiration - which are not only its invariable accompaniments, but
its indispensable proof - the modern appropriation of the terms for an access
of grace or a deeper consecration is both unfortunate and incorrect. To say that the
baptism in the Spirit has changed, and is now invisible, is to hide up the
humbling ruin (P. W. Heward).
2. Other believers beside the Apostles received the Holy Ghost,
enabling them to speak with tongues; but the Apostles alone appear to have been
endued with the power of conveying to others the gift of the Holy Ghost,
enabling them to speak with tongues (Chrysostom).
3. The
gifts were not, as is often assumed, outbursts of enthusiasm and ecstasy; but
were under control of the gifted (1 Cor. 14: 32); conduced to sober edification and teaching (1 Cor. 14: 12); and
could be exercised in order and discipline (1 Cor. 14: 26-33). They were not preceded by brooding,
accompanied by frenzy, or followed by exhaustion; but, unlike the injurious
possession by unclean spirits, were holy and healthful energies of the Spirit
of God.
[Page
38]
RULES FOR
THE EXERCISE OF INSPIRED GIFTS
One fact must rivet the attention of most casual. Pauls treatise on supernatural gifts (1 Cor. 12. - 14.) remains an integral portion of
Scripture. It regulates, with no hint of
their discontinuance,1
the assembly of God in full exercise of miraculous gifts. It is concerning the inspired that Paul
writes; disciples possessed, among other gifts, of powers of miracle, healing,
tongues, prophecy, interpretation, supernatural discernment (1 Cor. 12: 8-11); each of which was a manifestation (ver. 7), the manifest working, of the One Spirit
through the individual disciple; and all the result of baptism in the Holy
Ghost (ver. 13). The
Spirit outpoured upon all (vers.
12-14)
proved the unity of the one Body; and in this Body of Christ, the Church, were
set, apparently in permanent rank, apostles, 2 prophets, teachers, workers of miracle, of healing,
helps, governments, speakers in tongues (vers. 27-29). Love
and prophecy, both to be sought for earnestly (14: 1), are both treated as permanent elements in a
dispensation itself transient. Love is
superior (13: 8);
but both grace and gift, according to the command, are to be desired, and the
gifts regulated by the rules laid down. Paul emphasises the superiority of prophecy 3 [Page 39] over tongues (14: 1-11); on the
ground that the speaker in tongues edifies himself; but the prophetic
utterance, understood by the whole assembly, ministers to all. Therefore the speaker in a tongue must - not
cease so to speak, but - pray for the additional gift of interpretation. Wherefore
let him that speaketh in a tongue pray that he may interpret (ver. 13). 4 Paul assumes that, in the Christian church, all might
speak with tongues (ver. 23), or prophecy (vers. 24, 31); for each came to the assembly already
possessed of some utterance prepared by inspiration (ver. 26):
the especial need, therefore, was regulation of the gifts, for their
proper subordination and employment. Two
or three might speak in tongues, if an interpreter were present (ver. 27); otherwise, the tongue-gifted was to speak
only to himself, and to God (ver.
28).
Each prophet, whose gift was under perfect control (ver. 32),
and whose utterance was analysed as Divine, or demonic, by the prophets present
(ver. 29), must speak in turn, two or three for each
gathering; but, on a sudden thought or discourse from the Spirit, the speaking
prophet was to be silent. But if a revelation be made to another
sitting by, let the first keep silence (ver. 30).
5 For the miracle-gifted primitive assemblies, as
portrayed in this locus classicus
of Apostolic worship, did not quote Scripture, they spoke
it; for which pregnant reason the passage nowhere records [Page
40] the reading of Scripture in
public worship. 6 These rules, followed in all the churches (ver. 33), served, by their acceptance or rejection, as
a test of inspiration applicable to all claimants of prophetic or inspired
powers (ver. 37), as commands from the Lord himself. Wherefore, my brethren, sums up the Apostle, desire earnestly to prophecy, and
forbid not to speak with tongues.
But let all things be done decently and in order.
-------
1. 1 Cor. 13: 8 refers
to a future age.
2.
Apostles were an order, not a select number (Eph.
4: 11, 1 Cor. 12: 28); ten of
whom are named (Acts 14: 14, Rom. 16: 7, I Cor. 9: 5, Phil. 2: 25; 1 Thess. 1: 1; cf. with 2:
6), and the last two referred to as apostles of churches (2 Cor. 8: 23), beside the original twelve (Luke 6: 13).
3.
Whether as pure prediction, or as the Holy Spirits motions on the mind (2 Pet. 1: 21) so as to inform and expound through the
prophet, scriptural prophecy, shaped to the ends of edification, comfort, and
consolation (1 Cor. 14: 3), is
proved by its contexts a miraculous gift.
It is always supernatural speech, whether on behalf of God (as in Neh. 9: 30), or for
the purpose of foretelling (as in Mark 7: 6): see 2 Pet. 1: 21; 1 Sam. 10: 10; 1 Kings 22:
22; Ezek. 12: 27; Eph. 3: 5, etc.
Thus our Lord, struck from behind, was bidden to prophecy - to divine -
who struck Him. Matt. 26: 68. The prophet could reveal the secrets of an
unbelievers heart. 1 Cor.
14: 25. For no prophecy ever
came by the will of man. 2 Pet. 1: 21.
4. These
two gifts equalled in value the prophetic (v.
5) - a proof that the latter also was
supernatural. The counterfeit is
instructive of the true. Here is a
description of his gift by one of the
Camisards:- I do not so much
as understand the English of many of them [i.e., the Latin prophecies], but as
the inspiration itself does at the time teach inwardly the sense of them, nor
do I at all know the conjugations, and even yet, when out of the ecstasy, I am
utterly incapable of composing anything of that kind, though upon the utmost
deliberation and thought. Hundreds in
this city can attest that the French I speak at other times is far short of
what is here delivered in that language.
The Greek words mentioned in some of these discourses came likewise from
my mouth, and the sense of them is clearly impressed upon me in the moment of
pronouncing, though the words I otherwise understood not.
5. The
prophetess was to exercise her gift in private (vers. 34,
35). Cf. 1 Cor. 11: 3-16.
6. For
the exceedingly important bearing of the doctrine of miracle on Inspiration,
and the consequent infallibility of Scripture, see Our Seat
of Authority (Thynne & Jarvis).
JUSTIFICATION
BY FAITH THE BASIS OF CHRISTIAN MIRACLE
The Scriptures are silent on the lapse of gift. No
forecast is given of the day when these affluent channels of Divine energy
should fail from ministry and worship, and the Church, stripped of her heavenly
jewels, should conduct, by the aid alone of gifts of nature, the assemblies and
ministries of the saints. The apostles
assume miraculous gifts as the basis of the churchs corporate life. Passages which expound them reach down to the
foundations of gospel truth, and intertwine with the taproot of all
revelation. Paul, for example, is
content to prove, from the presence of miracle as the crucial point, the
superiority of the Gospel over Law. This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit 1 by the works of the law,
or by the hearing of faith? (Gal. 3: 2). If out of the Gospel, argues the Apostle,
sprang the gifts, it would be folly to return to the Law, out of which sprang
no such continuous and general miracle.
He therefore that supplieth to you the Spirit,
AND WORKETH
MIRACLES AMONG YOU, doeth he
it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of
faith? (ver.
5).
The issue is explicit. By the
hearing of faith answers Paul; for to Abraham God promised the Spirit, 2 [Page 41] and that solely on the ground of his faith
(vv. 6-14).
Disciples of Christ are sons of Abraham by faith; therefore, inheritors
of this special promise; and, consistently with the argument, in place of the
driblet of miracle under the Law,3
the Church received an outpoured flood.
Important inferences flow from the argument. (1) If miracle be thus a
crucial difference between Law and Gospel, it must be because it is an essential,
not an accidental, difference; that is, miracle must spring out of the essence
of the Gospel, to prove its superiority to the Law. For, if not, not only would Pauls reasoning
be proved futile by the lapse of gift, but later disciples, tempted to
legalism, would have found, and would now find, no deterrent in his words. Again (2) it must be an abiding
difference. If the superiority be
temporary and local, so must be the gifts out of which that superiority rose:
and, conversely, if the gifts, in which Paul detects the superiority, were to
be temporary, so also must be the superiority.
A church devoid of miraculous gift could not be Pauls argument. But the Apostle employes it as a final argument. This only
would I learn of you. Thus Pauls inspired insight perceives in the
miraculous supply of the Spirit an essential and abiding excellence of the
Gospel, in which it transcends the Law.
(3) Nor would the apostolic miracles alone satisfy the argument; for the
Law, equally with the Gospel, was proved Divine by miracle in its inception. The decisive advantage of Faith, the critical
superiority, lies in the introduction of general miracle and inspiration, not
in an isolated order of prophets, but distributed throughout the church. Received YE the Spirit.
He that supplieth to
you the Spirit.4 Thus the Apostle clamps together as with [Page
42] iron links the promise of Abraham
and the supernatural gifts, miracle and justification by faith. Christ redeemed us
from the curse of the law
that we might
receive the promise of the Spirit THROUGH
FAITH (Gal. 3: 13, 14). Nor
does the argument over-reach itself. For
it is fully possible to possess a promise, unclaimed; to lose the use of a
gift, though not the title to it; and the fact that, among ourselves, from the
hearing of faith springs no miracle, by no means disproves the possibility of their
vital union in the design of God, or that disciples may be, not only not
exhausting, but scarcely drawing upon, their unsearchable riches in Christ.5
-------
1. The
Spirits reception, as the contexts show, was proved by the presence of miracle
and inspiration. See John 7: 37-39; Acts 2: 33, 38, 8: 14-19, 10: 47, 19: 2. According to Scripture precedent, the
supernatural element seems always to have accompanied the reception of the Holy
Spirit.
2. The
promise of the Spirit was a promise of miracle: see Luke
24: 49; Acts
2: 33;
Eph. 1:
13.
3. Even
miracle under law was worked by faith. Heb. 11.
4. It is
true that God uses economy in miracle; there is no waste of power: and it is
also true that universal miracle would cease to be miraculous. But be it noted that the promise was to
disciples (Mark 16:
17); - in all ages a little flock whose exercise of supernatural powers
would render miracle no more trite or wasteful than in the apostolic age
itself.
5. If
the additional supply of Oil (Matt. 25: 4), which
the Prudent Virgins carried in their cans, is the miraculous supply of the
Spirit in inspiration and miracle incomparably the best exposition yet
offered then the inaugural banquet ushering in the Kingdom, a brief scene of
joy in the Heavenlies, will be shared by the gifted
alone; and Jewish Apostles, it would appear - the vendors of the oil (ver. 9) - must again be abroad in the earth at the
last. [i.e. in this restored
earth.] It is enough for the
interpretation to show that the virgins suppose that there would be such on
earth. Whether they will be borne out by
fact I am not bound to show, though even that may be made to appear; for if Elijah
comes first to restore all things, he must restore the spirit of prophecy among
the number; and it is in this character that he is presented as the Olive-tree
supplying with oil the bowl of the Lamp (Govett). For the only adequate exposition of this
parable (so far as I know) ever given, see R. Govetts All
Believers Interested on the Parable of the Virgins and Supplement to the Ten Virgins.
THE PURPOSES
ANCIENTLY SERVED BY MIRACLE
Beneath the superstructure of the apostolic Church lay
the unshakable basis of miracle, the bed-rock of its power, and the halo of its
saintship. Its foundation was apostles
and prophets (Eph.
2: 20). For (1) the gifts proved to the world the
mission of the church. As credentials of
evangelists and teachers (Rom. 15: 18, Gal. 2: 7, 8):-
confirming the word preached (Mark 16: 20, Heb. 2: 4), [Page
43] and the word written (Acts 15: 27); -
winning hearers to obedience (Rom. 15: 18):- miracle bore the Gospel forth with the seal
of God. When early evangelists taught,
God bore witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers,
and by gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to His own will (Heb. 2: 4). Thus
Paul made the Gentiles obedient by utterance and deed,
through mighty signs and wonders, by the power if the Spirit
of God (Rom. 15: 18).1 (2) The gifts strengthened
and guided individual disciples.
Believers were established more firmly (Rom.
1: 11);
the weakness of the flesh was overcome (Gal.
3: 2, 3), and courage implanted (Acts 4: 29-31); the power of his Lord followed the disciple (John 14: 12); direct guidance was given unto all the truth (John
16: 13), the servant was prepared for
his Lords return (1 Cor. 1: 4-7) and the future [millennial] Age foreshadowed (Heb.
4: 4, 5). Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that
believeth on Me, the
works that I do shall he do also; and
greater works than these shall he do;
because I go unto the Father (John 14: 12). (3)
The gifts sustained and directed the church.
Officers were so chosen (1 Tim. 1: 18);
discipline was thus exercised (1 Cor. 5: 4); 2 ability was given to the inspired to judge all things
(1 Cor. 2: 15); the
sphere of work was strictly defined (Acts 16: 7).
Miracles and powers of inspiration were the riches of the Church. I thank my God
always concerning you, for the grace of God
which was given you in Christ Jesus; that in
everything ye were enriched in Him, in all utterance
and all knowledge; even as the testimony
of Christ was [Page 44] confirmed in you; so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1: 4-7). Do not
these strenuous needs persist undiminished, and urge, as imperatively as of
old, the need and fitness of supernatural endowment? It is not obvious why miracles have ceased. The love, the order, the
power of the miracle-gifted churches contrast sadly with the pitiable
conflict and chaos of modern belief. The
infidel, keenly alive to the impotence, is by that impotence confirmed in his
infidelity. Sapped in faith, in holiness,
in aloofness from the world, the Church relaxed its grasp of the gifts, which,
as manifestations of the Spirit, invited persecution; relied less on the
Spirit, as it learned to lean more on the State; abandoned the powers of faith,
as it fell back to justification by works; until the divine and marvellous
glory of the first splendid powers was replaced by scarlet robes and crosses
and censers of gold, and over the portal of Gods spiritual temple was
inscribed Ichabod.
-------
1. So Mark 16: 20: the Lord confirmed the word preached
by means of the signs following.
2.
Supernatural judgment on hypocrites (Acts 5:
1, 13)
awed the churches, and dissuaded the ungodly from simulation. But grotesque judgments, such as occur among
modern Tongues, were unknown. One man,
says Mrs. Woodworth Etter (Signs
and Wonders, p. 30), was mocking a woman of whose body God had taken
control. She was preaching with
gestures. When in that mocking attitude God
struck him dumb. He became rigid and
remained with his hands up, and his mouth drawn in that mocking way for five
hours, a gazing-stick for all in the house.
THE
SHECKINAH TYPE
Most striking is the obviously designed type. In the moment of the Temples dedication (1 Kings 8: 10),
the Sheckinah Glory descended, and abode in it - so the Spirit descended, and,
in the fires of Pentecost, consecrated the Spiritual Temple: for several
centuries the Sheckinah remained, a corporate gift, designed as the permanent
glory of the Temple - so the manifestation of
the Holy Ghost abode, for several centuries, in the Church, a gift of God
without repentance: finally, for appalling corruption within the Temple
precincts, the Sheckinah, pausing in reluctant flight, returned to Heaven (Ezek. 10: 19) - so, from a Church promptly and incredibly
corrupt, miracle and inspiration - not by the plan of God, but by the
unfaithfulness of man - finally lapsed.
As with the Sheckinah, so with the Church, none but a corporate
restoration can repair a corporate loss, or recover a corporate gift. Nevertheless, as He stood in the dimness of
the temple when shorn [Page 45] of its Sheckinah Glory, the Lord Jesus is still in the midst of the
assemblies of His faithful and obedient people.
Lo, I am with
you all the days, even unto the end of the age
(Matt. 28:
20).
Miraculous orders and gifts are of the bene esse, not of the esse, of the Church. Be it observed, however, that prophecy has
been peculiarly Gods instrument in a dispensation involved in failure: the Sheckinah
withdrew, but Prophets arose.1
-------
1. The
Churchs eclipse was foreshadowed, almost foretold, by Paul (Rom. 11: 22). See
also Matt. 13: 33; Luke 18: 8; Acts 20: 29; 1 Tim. 4: 1; Rev. 2.,
& 3., 17.
MIRACLE AND
THE NEEDS OF THE CHURCH
The needs thus supernaturally met, embedded in the
nature of church work and worship, and inadequately served by purely natural gifts, survive unshorn of their original urgency. Whether by discernment of spirits and powers
to heal; knowledge of all truth, or revelation of things to come (John 16: 13);
edification of the disciple by tongues, or the church by prophecy; momentous
purposes, unimaginable in their issues, would be served by a restoration of
miracle to the Church. Apostles,
founding churches (1 Cor. 9: 1, 2), administering the baptism of the Spirit (Acts 8: 14-18), revealing Gods mind by word and letter,
ruling individual churches (2 Cor.
8: 23,
see Greek), guarding Christian assemblies from false apostles (Rev. 2: 2), and bearing personal witness to a risen Christ
(1 Cor. 9: 1), would
once again bear up the pillars of Christs Church. Powers of word and cure would, if restored,
confirm Gods message through His pastors, arrest Satans hand on the sick and
the demoniac, and convict, with tenfold persuasiveness,
a heathen darkness that glows by leaps and bounds with mere growth of
population. Order and unity in
discipline, worship, and doctrine accompany the tremendous preface to apostolic
[Page 46] injunction - Thus
saith the Holy Ghost. 1 Nor is such a restoration an impossible dream. For (1) inspired orders, together with orders
not necessarily inspired,2 were to work together, in Gods design, until the
Church had reached its perfect growth. And He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; [why, and for how
long?] for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto
the building up of the Body of Christ: TILL we all attain
unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge
of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ (Eph.
4: 11-13). The promise of supernatural illapse was
unlimited by local or temporal restrictions, and unhampered by condition except
of faith. And
these signs shall follow THEM THAT
BELIEVE: in My name shall they cast out
demons; they shall speak with new tongues;3 they
shall take up serpents, and if they drink any
deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them;
they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover (Mark
16: 17,
18). Nor was the promise of
miraculous enduement in any shape or form confined: [Page 47] no hypothetical dispensation
of the Acts, no temporary outburst of miracle, no alleged substitution
of grace for gift can be made to square with a catholicity of promise vast as
all the churches, and prolonged as all election:- for to you is the promise, and
to your children, and to AS MANY AS THE LORD OUR GOD SHALL CALL UNTO HIM (Acts 2: 39). (2) Moreover, the prayer for gifts of
inspiration and miracle is not only legitimate, but commanded. Paul addresses all disciples (1 Cor. 1: 2) in these
words: And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles,
then gifts of healings, helps,
governments, divers
kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? are all prophets?
are all teachers? are all workers of
miracles? Have all gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But DESIRE EARNESTLY
THE GREATER GIFTS (1 Cor. 12: 28-31). It
will hardly be contended that here the greater gifts are the unmiraculous. I would have you all,
says the Apostle, speak with tongues (1 Cor. 14: 5). Before and after mention of gifts of tongues,
prophecies, powers of cure and miracle, Paul says: DESIRE EARNESTLY SPIRITUAL GIFTS, but rather that ye may prophecy
(1 Cor. 14: 1). Shall we withstand God, and pronounce such
gifts undesirable? Wherefore, my brethren,
sums up the Apostle, DESIRE EARNESTLY TO PROPHECY, and forbid not to speak with tongues (1 Cor. 14: 39). So also (3) our Lords promises attached to
faithful prayer, so unconditional, so unlimited, so exhaustive, verbally
embrace the gift of the Spirit. If ye then, being evil,
know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit TO THEM THAT ASK HIM? (Luke 11: 13). Ye have not,
says the Scripture (James 4: 2), because ye ask not. Finally (4) even those who hold most strongly
that miracles ceased by Gods design are free to acknowledge - some insistently
urge - that a returned junction of dispensations, bringing back the old needs,
will restore the old powers; that this is predicted; and that, standing on the
threshold of that era, it is for us to be alertly ready, in mind and spirit,
for such a crisis.
-------
1. Here is the kernel of unity and
infallibility. What
is infallibility,
asks Cardinal Manning, but the revelation
perpetuated, and inspiration produced by illumination the extraordinary by
the ordinary the immediate by the mediate action of the Holy Spirit? Purcells Life, vol. i., p.
602. This is Roman infallibility
- an enormous claim confessedly shorn of evidence, a shadow, an
imposture. Infallibility in apostles was
proved by accompanying miracle; it was the immediate, not the mediate, action
of the Spirit; it was extraordinary gift, imperatively calling for
extraordinary proof.
2. But
all disciples, irrespective of office, might be gifted. Philip the evangelist did great
miracles (Acts 8: 6, 13); so did the deacon Stephen. Acts
6: 8.
3. A
language, sometimes, not of any earthly race.
1 Cor. 13: 1.
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[Page
48]
THE RIGHT
ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH
Thus certain truths emerge:-
that the last days will be perplexed with powers, signs and wonders; that
miracles, as known to the apostles, have long ceased in the Church; that
Irvingism, an instructive counterfeit, is not a manifestation of the Holy
Spirit; and yet that [Divine] promises, purposes, and apparent design entitle us to
miraculous gifts, which have never been revoked. Several thoughtful disciples have been
impressed with the stupendous and pregnant inference. They will be
revived without fail, said Dr. Horace Bushnell, whenever the ancient reason may return, or any new
contingency may occur demanding their instrumentality. 1 Two
forces, says Mr. Govett, one from within and
one from without, must sooner or later compel the saints to come to settled
conclusions on the question. (1) The
development of Christian truth, which under the [Holy]
Spirits gracious enlightening is now fast taking place, must draw on the
question - In what relation
do believers in our times stand to the gifts of old?
And (2) force from without, either the infidel, or the exhibition of
seeming or real miracle and inspiration on behalf of false doctrine, must
enforce the discussion, at least, on the attention of the most unwilling. 2 Were these, says
Dr. Elder Cumming, and other miraculous gifts - such
as [Page 49] healing diseases and casting out devils - intended to
disappear from the Church, or were they meant to become her perpetual
possession? There is not a little to
encourage the thought that God was willing to continue them, 3 that their use was dependant on the
spiritual preparation of believers to receive them, and that they have been
lost owing to a great decay in the spiritual life and power of the
-------
1. Nature and the Supernatural, p. 252.
2. The Church of Old, p. 198/ Nor is it conceivable, if it was a
secret of God hidden from Paul that with him miraculous gifts should cease,
since to him alone it belonged to confer them - a view embraced by Mr. Govett
at the close of his life - that no hint was ever dropt, in all the multiplicity
of their regulation, of their rapidity approaching cessation with the person of
one Apostle. It was Peter and John, not
Paul, who imparted miraculous gifts to the churches of
3. The
unbeliever is quick to detect this joint in our harness. The Bible,
says Mr. Lecky, neither
asserts nor implies the revocation of supernatural gifts; and if the general promise
that these gifts should be conferred may have been intended to apply only to
the apostles, it is at least as susceptible of a different interpretation. If these miracles were actually continued, it
is surely not difficult to discover the beneficial purpose that they would
fulfil. Rationalism
in
4. Through the Eternal Spirit, p. 170.
5. See Joel 2: 28 - 3: 2, Mal. 4: 5, Matt. 23: 34, 35, Mark 13: 11, Rev. 11: 5, 6, Rev. 18: 24. Are not prophetic hints of a restoration to
the Church involved in two or three of these passages? If
[* See Prov. 3: 32-35; 8: 13; 11: 18, 19, 31, R.V.
The immoral Christian Church at
Therefore,
it is absurd for any intelligent believer to imagine that supernatural and
miraculous gifts will be dispensed by God to anyone (within His redeemed
family) who is himself/herself disobedient, proud, immoral
and unrepentant! My son, give me thy heart; And
let thine eyes delight in my ways (Prov. 23:
26, R.V.).
The reward of humility and the fear
of Jehovah is riches, and honour, and life (Prov. 22: 4,
R.V.). He that
is steadfast
in righteousness shall attain unto life; And
he that pursueth evil doeth it to his own death
(Prov. 11: 19, R.V.).]
6. One thing
it is well to add. The withdrawal of the
spirit into the background, while he pushes forward his Christian victim to
answer Scripture questions, is a constant danger. We all knelt in prayer,
and soon the speaker with tongues began with a beautiful melodious voice under
the control of a spirit. I rose, and
demanded of the spirit inspiring the lady Has Jesus Christ come in the flesh? No answer was given by the spirit. After a short interval the lady again knelt,
and in an impassioned prayer expressed
her belief that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh. Some weeks later, she said to me, - The
reason I had no reply to my question was
the spirit had left me when you put the question. Shortly after, I put the test again. Do
let the spirit get complete control of me, she said, before you put the question to the spirit; and shortly commenced
to speak in a tongue. Again there was no
reply to my question. Some days after,
she told me - the spirit left me before
you asked the question (J. Sladen). It is obvious that the spirits studied
avoidance of the test is as self-revealing as a negative answer.
[Page
51]
1. NOTE ON
THE TESTS AND THE TONGUES MOVEMENT
How grave the peril of the uninvited descent of a
spirit to-day, and how acute the need of an instructed readiness for the
encounter, is proved by the startling experience of Dr. A. J. Harrison, as able
a Christian Evidence lecturer as the nineteenth century produced. He says:- On my way
to a Midland town to lecture, there came upon me quite suddenly and all but
irresistibly, the inclination to give, whilst adhering to the title, a lecture
quite different from, though not contrary to, the one I had prepared. The peculiarity in this case was its
suddenness and intensity, and its sequel.
When I rose to deliver my lecture, a sentence quite unlike what I had
prepared came from my lips. It was
followed by another and another. I was
quite conscious that I was not giving the lecture I had written, but I liked
the new one better, and did not mind. I
had been speaking in this way for an hour when the wish to give the closing
part of the prepared lecture overmastered the tendency to go on as I was
doing. Not without a violent effort did
I free myself from whatever it was that was acting on me, and began my
peroration. I noticed that it fell
rather flat, and would willingly have changed back to the other line, but that
was no longer possible. When I finished
I sat down in some humiliation. Almost
immediately rose an old man with a great dome of head,
and eyes that had in them a far-away look.
He said: Mr,
The extraordinary ignorance of the Tests, inexplicable
and disastrous, God suffered to be disturbed, though not removed, in
The inadequacy of the testing that followed history has proved; nor could anything but failure result from the
chaotic clumsiness with which the tests are almost invariably handled. Here is a confession, supposed to be the
triumph of a test, from one gifted with tongues
in
[Page
55]
Happily, all supernatural counterfeits of the gifted
Apostolic Church, however long they may survive to deceive - Montanism, two
centuries; the Camisards, several decades; Irvingism, so far, ninety years; the
Tongues Movement,6 now sixteen [and counting] - never fail
to betray, at last, by immorality, collapsed prophecies, or flagrant error,
their demonic origin; and only the horrible disasters to individual lives,
meanwhile, and the marring of the work of God, together with the discredit of
the miraculous, make instantaneous touchstones of discrimination
imperative. Such a summary of the
Tongues Movement as this, by a sober, godly observer, is the ultimate fate of
all:- False prophecies (proved so by time) have
abounded 7; contrary tongues have appeared in the
same individuals; demonic possession, or at least control, came to some most
deeply spiritual people, from which they were only delivered by faith and
prayer upon the part of others; anathemas have been pronounced upon those who
questioned, urged caution, or withstood the work; all other experiences of
grace have had no relish for many unless these were in some way connected with
tongues; experienced teachers, from whose tongues or pens great blessing had
hitherto come, became back members in a moment; fanciful [Page
56] strained, and the most
unreasonable interpretations of the simplest Scriptures were immediately
accepted, and without reflection were dogmatically and insistently preached to
others; quiet, retiring, teachable natures, who were charitable to a fault,
were transformed into dogmatic, unteachable, schismatic, and anathema-believing
souls; salvation by grace was buried under the doctrine that without the sign
of tongues you will be lost; manifestations (such as shaking of the body, etc.)
were urged and insisted upon - people were made to feel that they must have
these; loud praying, shouting, and screaming were taught as essential to
earnestness; mere noises, some being like the sounds of animals, passed for
tongues;8 necessary work was laid aside, and missionary work neglected;
responsibility to obligations was forgotten, and moral sensibilities benumbed,
as though the individual was under the effect of an opiate; impressions and
voices displaced the Word and providences in matters of guidance; messages in
tongues were sought, obeyed and placed - practically, though unconsciously -
above the more sure Word of
prophecy; some, when under
this power, beat their hands against the floor till they were bruised, so much
so that mats had to be placed on the floor, while others pounded their lower
limbs till the latter were bruised and blue.9
How dreadful can be the exorcism after a supposed
baptism of the Holy Spirit one of countless cases will show:-
A sister who had received the gift of tongues by the
laying on of hands at the Conference at
-------
1. An Eventful life,
p. 215; by Rev. A. J. Harrison, D.D. So
Robert Govett once told me how, while preaching, a spirit fell upon him, and
closed the address and prayer in power.
Without a word to anyone, he withdrew to the vestry, and asked that, if
evil, it might never be suffered to return, and it never did. Had the all too common spiritual pride been
here, which assumes that on me none but the Holy Spirit can fall, it
is probable that a fresh Tongues movement
would have been born on the spot.
2. Irvingism, vol. i.,
p. 94.
3. Christian Herald, Dec. 5, 1907.
4. Showers of Blessing, No. 11
5.
Tested, he may: during this trying of the spirits
[in
6. See
Note II. in Spiritualism: Its
Origin and Character, and Tests of the Supernatural
(Thynne & Jarvis).
7. I know of no
Tongues movement, a prominent adherent writes to me: a Movement,
nevertheless, it remains: originating in the alleged latter
rain in Los Angeles in 1907; spreading rapidly throughout the world, so
that at one time it was said that thirty thousand were speaking in tongues;
always manifesting identical physical phenomena; and ultimately breaking up in
bitter divisions - the Movement, one in its origin throughout the world, has
proved as impotent, as shorn of miracle, and now as moribund as any counterfeit
that has gone before.
8.
Missionaries were sent into the lands, with assurances, never fulfilled, that
they would speak in the new dialects. Before leaving
9. In
10. Life of Faith, June 3, 1908.
11. The
idea that no believer can experience the on-fall of an evil spirit is not only
in itself deeply erroneous, and contrary to actual cases unnumbered, but
establishes the error that whatever spirit does actually fall must
be the Holy Ghost if only the recipient is truly converted. Tests would thus be purely superfluous.
[Page
58]
2. NOTE ON
THE RETURN OF JUDGMENT MIRACLE
In every great crisis of the worlds history God has raised
up prophets, or - in an uninspired age - men of exceptional power, to meet
exceptional emergencies. Enoch and Noah
before the Flood; Moses and Aaron in
For suddenly, with no warning, no birth, no genealogy,
two Witnesses (Rev.
11: 3) - a witness is a man who says
that he knows, and knows what he says - appear on the earth endowed at once
with full miraculous powers, and miraculous powers so extraordinary as to
challenge the [Page 59] attention of the whole world.
If (as the Early Church believed) they are Enoch and Elijah 1, Gods last accredited
ambassadors are a Gentile and a Jew, sent to Jew and Gentile; prophets of the
first rank, who have sojourned with God for thousands of years; clothed in
sackcloth, because charged with woe for an entire world; sudden arrivals on earth
who are sent of God to mankind in its last dreadful extremity in order to
expound to men, beyond all possibility of misunderstanding, the coming
judgments in the light of human sin, and as witnesses of a mercy still
lingering. Peculiarly fitted by their past
history* to be Gods ambassadors - Enoch the prophet of
Antediluvian, and Elijah of Jewish, apostasy - no two persons so stand out in
the last drama, protagonists of their two mighty opponents - making up the last
world-four - the Antichrist and the False Prophet, who appear equally
miraculously, coming up from beneath as the two Witnesses came down from above,
and almost simultaneously. Against the
dreadful onrush of evil, Gospel agencies, now slowly collapsing, are superseded
by human instruments of unprecedented power, a final nexus between grace and
judgment.
For, as the public preaching of these two mighty
prophets lasts for three and a half years before the Antichrist appears [in his true colours, by demonstrating of his evil
intentions] their testimony is Gods merciful and stupendous
warning [against Christian apostasy and]
of the approach of the Kingdom of
Satan. They
shall prophesy a thousand, two hundred and
three-score days, clothed in sackcloth. They expound the Scriptures, foretell the
future, unveil coming damnation, demand obedience to Jehovah, and labour with
all their might to turn mankind to God.
And their preaching is unparalleled in its effect because, by the
authorization of God, they wield powers more tremendous than have ever been
committed to mortals. They have power to smite the earth with every plague, as often as they shall desire. So charged are they with power and wisdom,
not only by their [Page 60] experience in earlier apostasies, but by thousands of years sojourn
with God, and so filled with His Spirit, that they can be trusted with Heavens
most potent weapons. Their judgment warnings are constantly
illustrated and evidenced by judgment acts; and but for this extraordinary
evangel, by which
The self-defence with which the Witnesses are clothed
is an extraordinary revelation of the last state of the world.**
Sojourn with God for thousands of years
brings them down - as Moses descended saturate with light from the Mount -
steeped with miraculous power; and power not like the Apostles, to heal, but
charged with self-defence in an age of unsurpassed physical dangers. If any man desireth
to hurt them fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies; and -
armed as they are against the most stealthy attack,
and even against un unuttered conspiracy - if any man
shall desire to hurt them, in this
manner must be killed. Such will
be human violence and wickedness, at the end, that no gospel witnesses,
harmless as doves, could possibly survive for twelve hundred and sixty days:
God therefore introduces evangelists against whom the bullet, the bomb, the
gas, the arsenic, the dagger fall powerless.
So the crisis of the drama arrives. And when they shall
have finished their testimony - we are immortal [stop-gaps] only so long
as our witness lasts; immediately that is over, our immunity from physical
danger ceases the Wild Beast - appearing for
the first time as such - shall make war with them,
and overcome them, and kill
them,*** as
they confront one another in the streets of Jerusalem. After three years and a half the power from
the sojourn with God on high leaks and decays, even as the light on Moses face
slowly waned; assailed, in the unequal struggle - for the words imply a
prolonged combat - by an immortal whom Christ alone can consume with the breath of His [Page
61] mouth,
they ultimately fall dead before the Antichrist.+ Vast multitudes swarm into
But their very abandonment by God (as it appears) is a
masterstroke of mercy. For after the three days and a half the breath of life from God
- a phrase which reveals to us the secret of resurrection; one of the Seven
Spirits from before the Throne, the Spirit of life physical - entered into them, and they
stood upon their feet; and they went
up into heaven in a cloud; and their
enemies beheld them. One visible rapture is a more awful and more powerful rebuke
than the deaths of a thousand martyrs; for it contains the whole of the facts
of judgment demonstrated in a single act of God. Could God give the world a more potent, and
therefore a more merciful, demonstration that the Gospel facts are
true? For the revivified and ascending
corpses demonstrate our Lords empty tomb: the resurrection before their eyes
makes certain the far greater resurrection two millenniums earlier, and so
proves to all the world the truth of the Faith of
Christ. But beyond stunning and
staggering amazement, it seems to have little effect. Earths massed millions, playing for the
highest stakes and risking all on their final throw, suddenly discover, to
their horror, that they have staked and lost. Resurrection, rapture, heaven, [Hades
and] hell
- all the truths they most derided - burst upon them like a thunderbolt; and a
devastating earthquake rocks the physical under them, as the rapture had rocked
the spiritual. Heaven opens before their
eyes; but it is only to remove their murdered enemies into safety,
and to [Page 62] open
fresh horrors for men who love sin more than they love God. The fear that will fall on the terrified
nations - the rest were affrighted - is
curiously illustrated by a speech obtained in the death-throes of the French
Revolution by the secret service of the British Government. The Inner Circle of the Committee of Public
Safety, the all-powerful Nine - terrorists drunk with blood and now themselves
maddened with terror - met the secret conclave on September 3, 1793, and Herbert spoke as follows:- I cannot see light where it is dark: I cannot see roses
where there are only daggers. You will
all perish. It cannot be otherwise. I do not know whether it has been well or ill
done to bring the thing to where it is.
But there it is! We shall all
perish, and those who have done like us.
If they promised us an amnesty, you would only be stabbed or poisoned
instead of being quartered. In tying let
us leave to our enemies the germs of their own death; and in
-------
1. For proofs see Govetts Apocalypse: of all possible
books for the last days I can imagine none more needed, more urgent, or more
vital than this commentary on the Revelation.
* Others
believe Moses will appear as the unnamed Witness because of Gods
judgments in
** That
is, at the end of this evil age - which will introduce natures
promised rest (Heb.
4: 1, 11. cf. Num. 14: 20-24; Rom. 8: 18-25, R.V.).
*** Here is
Biblical proof that the heaven into which
Elijah ascended is not the highest heaven where our Lord Jesus is presently seated
at His Fathers right hand awaiting His inheritance here, (Psa. 2: 8. cf. Ps. 110: 1-3). No man, says
the Apostle John, hath ascended into heaven, -
presumably that highest heaven where Christ now bodily present - but he that descended out of heaven, even the Son of man, which is
in heaven (3: 13, R.V.).
For regenerate believers to enter that heaven requires a change
- from mortality to immortality - it is a Divine miracle at the time of the rapture
of those who will prevail to escape all these things {the
Great Tribulation events} that shall come to pass and
to stand before the Son of man (Luke 21:
36ff.).
There is no mention of this needed change
(1 Cor. 15: 44, 51, 52) to have taken place at the time of Elijahs
ascension into heaven: and all who believe that the
resurrection is past already
overthrow the
faith of some! (2 Tim. 2: 18,
R.V.)! It is a great misunderstanding of
the time of the Resurrection of the dead: and it is what the Spiritualists believe
and teach!
As the high priest of old obtained permission from God
to enter the holy of holies once a year, he
dared not enter without having on the special clothing commanded
by God; clothing which only he was permitted to wear for his
entrance into the most holy place! So,
also, with our High Priest, Jesus the Christ, His Resurrection and Ascension
took place after His sojourn of three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth (Matt. 12: 40), and consequently after he
also shewed himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing unto them by the space of forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God
(Acts. 1:
3, R.V.)
See John 20: 9, 17 and Acts 2:
29-36, R.V.
Always keep in mind: the Scriptures never speaks of
the RAPTURE of the DEAD, nor of the RESURRECTION of the LIVING;
for Resurrection
embraces the whole man - his disembodied soul together with his unredeemed body (Rom. 8: 23b, R.V.):
and animating spirit For
the body apart from the spirit is dead
(Jas. 2: 26a, R.V.).
To speak of the resurrection of
the body, (an expression I head used in a Presbyterian
Church) - is unscriptural: and on that occasion the expression was used when
the preacher was expounding 2 Tim.
See FOOTNOTE 1
Are the Dead
Alive? by Mr. W. H. Bacon
+ I have
used italics here to distinguish the Antichrist form all others who were types of the one
yet to appear, whom all nations will follow.
3. NOTE ON
PASSIVITY
Passivity, a most dangerous inducement of spirit
action, yields to a tyrannical control, often irresistible, which is a constant
characteristic of demon possession. Paul
has disclosed the truth once for all. If a revelation be made to another [prophet] sitting by, let the first
[prophet] keep silence; FOR ye all can prophecy one
by one ye have it in your power to speak supernaturally in
turn; and the spirits of the prophets -
the motions of the Holy Ghost in the inspired - ARE SUBJECT
to the prophets (1 Cor.
14: 30). The absence of the
article, as Dean Stanley observes, implies
that the control of the prophetic utterances by the wills of the prophets was
an essential part of the prophetic character.
So the early Christian authors found here a touchstone
if inspiration discriminating the Satanic from the Divine. Chrysostom says:- When anyone in the temples of the idols was possessed by an
unclean spirit and uttered divinations, he was violently removed like one who
is being forcibly carried away [1 Cor. 12: 2], being under
subjection to the spirit: for this is a peculiar mark of the soothsayer to be
in an ecstasy, to suffer constraint, to be under a violent impulse, to be
exceedingly removed, to be agitated like one mad. But a prophet is not so: for the prophets had
it in their own power either to speak, or not to speak; for they were not
impelled by force, but were honoured with power.
History confirms the judgment and illuminates the
revelation. One of the Camisards says:- I was surprised with a
shivering all over me, and my tongue and lips were of a sudden forced to pronounce
words with vehemence that I was amazed to hear. The supernatural utterance in Irvingism let
fall this threat:- If ye, O
vessel, who speak, refuse to speak the word, ye shall utterly perish; 1. [Page
63] and the earliest prophetess. unable to restrain
her utterance, hastened from the church, and in the hearing of the congregation
broke forth in an utterance - How dare ye to suppress the voice of the Lord? But far the most graphic is the experience of
Canon A. A. Boddy, of
Momentous thus becomes the decision - made by many
devout [and
regenerate] souls
- to yield to an untested spirit, for it may prove to be the acceptance of a
tyranny from which there is no escape. In May, 1909, in
-------
1. Narrative of Facts, p. 27.
2. The Modern Gift of Tongues, p. 36; by G. H.
Lang.
3. Ibid.,
p. 34.
* See 1 Kings 13: 18-24, cf. Gal.
1: 8.
* *
*
FOOTNOTE
ARE THE DEAD
ALIVE?
By Mr. W. H. Bacon.
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is
the law (1 Cor.
15: 56); and we venture to assert that the strength of
Spiritism is the lie, and faith in the lie, that the dead are alive, and since
these articles may fall into the hands of some who are not regular readers of Things to Come, we think it may be well to
follow up what has already been stated, and to prove from the Scriptures the
fact that death is death, for only be this means cam Spiritism be successfully
combated.
Let a man be thoroughly convinced that death is
actually the cessation of life, and he will surely cease from the folly and
wickedness of [believing what Spiritism
teaches and]
seeking to the dead; but man has so strongly imbibed the lie that there is no death,
what seems so is transition, and he so firmly believes that,
whatever it means for the ungodly, for the believer it is translation to
heaven, and that sudden death is sudden glory, and he falls an
easy pray to the Spiritist who tells him that he can summon his departed dear
ones from the mansions of bliss to assure him of their happiness and through
their enlarged capabilities guide him on his earthly path.
No! death is not yet
abolished. It shall be
in the coming day when Death and Hades shall be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20: 14). But as yet death reigns, and only One has escaped from its grasp. Hear what Paul writes of God to Timothy, Who saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works,
but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
but hath now been manifested by the appearing of our
Saviour Jesus Christ, who abolished death,
and brought life and immortality to light through the
gospel (2 Tim. 1: 9, 10).
Herein we learn the mind and purpose of God set forth
in regard to the future. Death is to be
destroyed; it has already been destroyed in
toto. The last enemy that shall be destroyed id death (1 Cor.
15: 26).
Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall
not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and
the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we
shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption,
and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have
put on immortality, then shall be
brought to pass the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in victory (1 Cor. 15: 51-54).
We have heard preachers say that death is a friend and
we have read it in their sermons. How
little do such preachers know or understand that they are fighting against God,
in denying the truth of His Holy Word. The last enemy that shall be
destroyed is death (1 Cor. 15: 26), and in
maintaining that death is a friend, ushering us into the [Heavenly] presence of the Lord, they are supporting the
Spiritist lie that There is no death, as do also
those persons who teach that death is translation,
for that is what present-day teaching amounts to.
As to the righteous, who are all at death sent to
heaven by the preachers, when shall we believe the doctrine of Christ, who,
when He was on earth, plainly declared the truth as follows: No man hath ascended up to
heaven, but He that came down from heaven even
the Son of man which is in heaven! And
note the significance of the words that immediately follow: And as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son
of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in
Him should not perish, but have eternal life
(John 3: 13-15).
Some may say, Ah! yes, that was said before His death and resurrection, but since His resurrection, all that die in
faith ascend into heaven at once.
Pray, then, where had they who died before Christs resurrection been in
the meantime? For the Word of the Lord
is that No man hath
ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven! And then
what are we to do with the revelation given after the Ascension of the Lord
Jesus by the Spirit of God, [speaking] through the Apostle Peter, and recorded in the
following words:- Men and brethren, let me
freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that
he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is
with us unto this day (Acts 2: 29), and in verse 34, David is not ascended into the heavens. Could words be plainer? Do we wish to wrest the Scriptures, to
overcome the Scriptures? The words
quoted express the exact state of the case, and that should be sufficient for
us all. David is
not ascended into the heavens.
He died in faith, and in due time will be raised from the dead,
according to the Scriptures, and this enhances the truth and value of
resurrection in our eyes, when we grasp the true position of things.
The hope set before us is Eternal Life with which are coupled
Glory, Honour and Immortality; which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and
steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; whither the Forerunner
is for us entered, even Jesus (Heb. 6: 19, 20). There is
manifestly only one Forerunner - THE Forerunner and this is surely confirmed by the Word of the Lord, for
the dead are spoken of as asleep, and sleep we know full well is
used as a figure of death, exemplified in the case of Lazarus. Lazarus sleepeth (John 11: 11). Then said
Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead (verse 14),
and resurrection is spoken of as an awakening out
of sleep. Note that Lazarus came forth
from the grave, not down from heaven (verse 44). But I would not have you be ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as
others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose
again, even so, them
also which sleep
in Jesus will GOD bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the Word of the
Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto
the coming of the Lord shall not prevent (anticipate, or go before) them which are asleep.
For the Lord Himself shall
descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the
trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds, to meet the
Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord (1 Thess. 4: 13-17), and
verily not until then. The reference is
not to bodies only, but to [whole] PERSONS.*
[*
For it is impossible for the souls
of dead, - (now in the underworld of Hades,
Acts 2: 27,
34. cf. Rev. 6: 9-11; Luke 16: 22, 31) - to
ascend into heaven without their bodies being redeemed (Rom.
8: 23,
R.V.) and reunited to them. Our
Lords death and His subsequent resurrection out of
dead ones (Lit. Greek). Only after His sojourn in Hades (Acts 2: 31) for three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth (Matt. 12: 40); and
the empty tomb, where His body lay motionless inside the grave-clothes, bound
together with a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight
with the spices (John 19: 39, 40, R.V.) did His RESURRECTION occur: and on that morning He said to Mary: Touch me not, for I
have not yet ascended to my FATHER
(John 20: 17).]
It may be asked, What has all this to do with Spiritism? We reply, A very great deal: for we desire
to prove from the Word of God that the
dead are actually dead [in Hades]; for if this fact is substantiated, Spiritism can
make no headway, where the Word of God is believed and accepted as
authoritative.
Spiritists are very fond of seeking to prove that the
dead are alive by the record of the appearance of Moses and Elijah
on the Mount of Transfiguration, and by the account of the bringing up of
Samuel, and we will therefore deal with these cases according to the Word of
the Lord.
Moses was the representative of the Law, but he had
sinned, and was not permitted to enter the
Now, if we turn to the Epistle of Jude (and it is not
a chance record, for it is the Word of God), we find these words (verse 9), Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke
thee.
To our mind it is obvious that Moses was required for
the Divine purpose. But Moses was dead
and buried, and, as all things are possible with God, Michael was commissioned
to raise Moses from the dead that he might converse with the Lord Jesus and
Elijah on the Mount.
We can well understand the resistance of the devil in
the light of Heb. 2: 14. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and
blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the
same; that through death He might destroy him
that had the power of death, that is, the devil. But death and the devil are not destroyed as yet,
although, of course, they will be in due time, and the Scripture is true: But now we see not yet all
things put under Him. But we see Jesus,
who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned
with glory and honour; that He by the grace of
God should taste death for every man (Heb. 2: 8, 9).
In all probability Moses when back to death [and
to that place where our Lord called Paradise (Luke 23: 43,
R.V.).] for the time being; but one
thing is certain, and that is that Moses had died, and it was therefore
necessary that he should be raised again before he could meet the Lord and
converse with Him.
In respect of Elijah he was removed from earth to
heaven without dying. And it came to pass, as they (Elijah
and Elisha) still went on and
talked, that, behold, there appeared a
chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them asunder; and
Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven (2
Kings 2: 11). We must
remember that there are heavens and heavens. Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lords thy God,
the earth also, with all
that therein is (Deut. 10: 14).
We are persuaded that Elijah is not in the heaven of
heavens in the immediate presence of God, for no man [not
having immortality, can enter THERE,] see
God and live. And He said, thou canst not
see My face; for there
shall not see ME, and live (Ex. 33: 20). We should
suppose that Enoch, who was translated, and Elijah, are together, and possibly ministered
to by angels, and that they are [as many within the early
Church believed] the two witnesses referred to in Rev. 11: 3-12, who are yet to die, and to be raised again
after three days and a half (verse
11).
Now, in regard to the raising of Samuel, this was
undoubtedly the over-ruling act of GOD. The Witch of Endor had a familiar spirit, a
demon who attached himself to her, who would personate the dead; and, from the
record (1 Sam. 28), it is
obvious that Saul did not see anyone but the witch, for he appeals to her in
the words, What
seest thou? the reply being, I see gods ascending out of
the earth. These evil spirits evidently came at the
bidding of the witch, and upon Sauls putting the question, What form is he of? the LORD GOD intervenes and raises up the Prophet Samuel
and the witch says now, An old man (not a
god or a spirit, please observe), cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived
that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face
to the ground, and bowed himself (verse 14). It is instructive to notice that Samuel came
up from the earth (gravedom [from Sheol = Gk. Hades]), and not down from heaven. The words of the witch were, An old man cometh up, and in verse 9 we learn that he went back to [the underworld
of the dead]
and the grave, for speaking to Saul, he says: To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me, i.e., in
death [into Sheol (see Gen. 37: 35, R.V.)] and the
grave. The temporary resurrection of
Samuel we affirm was the over-ruling act of God, and his appearance of Samuel,
therefore, is no proof at all that the dead are alive, as Spiritists and others
assert.
THE END