In the words, from which I hope, with God’s blessing, to speak this morning, we have this union with Christ very experimentally and sweetly set forth. And depend upon it, friends, unless we know something in our souls of the solemn realities that are set forth in these words of Scripture, there is no evidence that the God of all grace has begun his work upon our hearts. We will then, with God’s blessing, endeavour, so far as the Lord shall enable us, to trace out, how this union with Christ is manifested in the way of experience, that the Lord may encourage us to believe, that we have felt and known something of the fruits of an eternal union with the Lord of life and glory.
He goes on later to explain that it is through the experiences of life, i.e. suffering, that we gain knowledge of our Union with Christ. I have a feeling that more than just eyebrows were raised while he preached this sermon.
In proportion, then, as we suffer with Christ in these things, shall we reign with him, that is, his powerful reign and government and authority are made manifest by means of, and amidst the suffering. It is impossible to know anything of the reign of Christ in the soul, as Lord of all might and power, unless we are placed in circumstances where that reign is needed. What a flimsy, scanty, superficial thing is modern Calvinistic religion! I do not mean what is called "moderate Calvinism," but what is often called "high Calvinism," such as most of my hearers here profess. What a flimsy, superficial thing this for the most part is! Men take certain truths out of the word of God, and they hammer this pure gold upon the anvil of hard hearts and seared consciences, until it becomes as thin and as light as gold leaf. This gold leaf they spread over their hearers, and they go forth in all the gilded glare of gospel truth; But how different is this outside gilding, these plates from Uphaz, from the massive, weighty gold which the Spirit inwardly communicates! But those that preach and those that profess this flimsy, superficial religion, if they are of God’s family, will be thrown into the furnace with their book of gold-leaf in their hands, that the fire may burn up the ochred pages, and melt the gold-leaf down into one solid ingot. If any of you have a work of grace in your hearts, and yet are gilded over by doctrinal truth beyond your experience, you will be thrown into the furnace of affliction and of fiery temptation; and this furnace will burn away everything but the gold that is within you, though it may melt into the gilding that is without you. But depend upon it that the furnace will bring your religion into a very small compass, as the gold-leaf, which covers such an extent of surface, would make but a very small piece when reduced to a solid shape.
Orthodoxy (correct doctrine), Orthopraxis (correct actions) and Orthocardia (correct heart). The Puritans used to talk about the need to have all three. We tend to think a lot about the first two. Let us not forget that, "The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith."
Showing posts with label Philpot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philpot. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
"A dry doctrinal ministry disturbs no consciences"
So, who preached the words on the previous post?
It was Joseph Charles Philpot(1802 - 1869) known as ³The Seceder´. He resigned from the Church of England in 1835 and became a Strict Particular Baptist. He seceded from the Apostate Church of England. Philpot knew first hand what nominal Christianity was all about. Neither did he mince words in his preaching against a dead profession as opposed to vital godliness and true religion! Of these dead religionists he said- ³µIf your religion is only in the Bible, and has no existence out of the Bible in your own soul, which is the case with thousands who are considered great Christians, the same fire that will at the last day burn up the Bible will burn up your religion with it´!
He wrote:
Consider this point, ye ministers, who Lord's day after Lord's day preach nothing but doctrine, doctrine, doctrine; and ask yourselves whether the same Holy Spirit who revealed the first three chapters of the epistle to the Ephesians did not also reveal the last three? Is not the whole epistle equally inspired, a part of that Scripture of which we read,
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all goodworks´ (2 Timothy 3:16, 17)? To despise, then, the precept, to call it legal and burdensome, is to despise not man, but God, who hath given unto us His Holy Spirit in the inspired Scriptures for our faith and obedience.
Nothing more detects hypocrites, purges out loose professors, and fans away that chaff and dust which now so thickly covers our barn floors than an experimental handling of the precept. A dry doctrinal ministry disturbs no consciences. The loosest professors may sit under it, nay, be highly delighted with it, for it gives them a hope, if not a dead confidence, that salvation being wholly of grace they shall be saved whatever be their walk of life. But the experimental handling of the precept cuts down all this and exposes their hypocrisy and deception.´
He also wrote:
Humble, lowly, contrite souls, who are deeply acquainted with the workings of grace and of corruption, whose consciences have been made tender, and who have landmarks of the dealings of God with them, cannot long continue where they have fellowship with neither minister nor people. And, indeed, so opposed is the whole principle and practice of the Church of England to the work of grace upon the souls of the elect, and ‘to simplicity and godly sincerity’, that a minister, who is not a hypocrite or a formalist, must, when he has reached a certain point in Christian experience, either flee out of her or awfully sin against the convictions of his own conscience. He may remain in her as a presumptuous dead Calvinist; he may take the highest tone of doctrine, and preach Sunday after Sunday about assurance of personal salvation; but if once he describes the work of the Spirit on the soul he must, at a certain point, either come out of her or, by remaining contentedly within her pale, manifest himself a hypocrite in experience, of all hypocrites and of all hypocrisies the most deceiving and the most dreadful.
Can a man, for instance, who has known the work of regeneration in his own soul, and whose conscience is made tender by the blessed Spirit, go on long to lie unto God by thanking Him for regenerating infants?
Can he who has been sprinkled with the blood of Christ, and been fed with His flesh, continue long to give the elements of His body and blood to the unbeliever, the self righteous, and the ungodly?
Can he who has tasted the covenant of grace, and experimentally entered into the everlasting distinction between the sheep and the goats, go on long to mock God by declaring at the grave’s mouth of every departed unbeliever, swearer, and drunkard, that he is a ‘brother’, and is ‘taken to be with God’?
Notions in the head, however correct, doctrines, however high, a presumptuous confidence of salvation, however loud and lofty, may allow a man thus to trifle with the living JEHOVAH. But a tender conscience, a godly fear, and a trembling sense of God’s holiness and majesty, such as the blessed Spirit works in the soul, must sooner or later bring a man out of this dreadful mockery.
It was Joseph Charles Philpot(1802 - 1869) known as ³The Seceder´. He resigned from the Church of England in 1835 and became a Strict Particular Baptist. He seceded from the Apostate Church of England. Philpot knew first hand what nominal Christianity was all about. Neither did he mince words in his preaching against a dead profession as opposed to vital godliness and true religion! Of these dead religionists he said- ³µIf your religion is only in the Bible, and has no existence out of the Bible in your own soul, which is the case with thousands who are considered great Christians, the same fire that will at the last day burn up the Bible will burn up your religion with it´!
He wrote:
Consider this point, ye ministers, who Lord's day after Lord's day preach nothing but doctrine, doctrine, doctrine; and ask yourselves whether the same Holy Spirit who revealed the first three chapters of the epistle to the Ephesians did not also reveal the last three? Is not the whole epistle equally inspired, a part of that Scripture of which we read,
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all goodworks´ (2 Timothy 3:16, 17)? To despise, then, the precept, to call it legal and burdensome, is to despise not man, but God, who hath given unto us His Holy Spirit in the inspired Scriptures for our faith and obedience.
Nothing more detects hypocrites, purges out loose professors, and fans away that chaff and dust which now so thickly covers our barn floors than an experimental handling of the precept. A dry doctrinal ministry disturbs no consciences. The loosest professors may sit under it, nay, be highly delighted with it, for it gives them a hope, if not a dead confidence, that salvation being wholly of grace they shall be saved whatever be their walk of life. But the experimental handling of the precept cuts down all this and exposes their hypocrisy and deception.´
He also wrote:
Humble, lowly, contrite souls, who are deeply acquainted with the workings of grace and of corruption, whose consciences have been made tender, and who have landmarks of the dealings of God with them, cannot long continue where they have fellowship with neither minister nor people. And, indeed, so opposed is the whole principle and practice of the Church of England to the work of grace upon the souls of the elect, and ‘to simplicity and godly sincerity’, that a minister, who is not a hypocrite or a formalist, must, when he has reached a certain point in Christian experience, either flee out of her or awfully sin against the convictions of his own conscience. He may remain in her as a presumptuous dead Calvinist; he may take the highest tone of doctrine, and preach Sunday after Sunday about assurance of personal salvation; but if once he describes the work of the Spirit on the soul he must, at a certain point, either come out of her or, by remaining contentedly within her pale, manifest himself a hypocrite in experience, of all hypocrites and of all hypocrisies the most deceiving and the most dreadful.
Can a man, for instance, who has known the work of regeneration in his own soul, and whose conscience is made tender by the blessed Spirit, go on long to lie unto God by thanking Him for regenerating infants?
Can he who has been sprinkled with the blood of Christ, and been fed with His flesh, continue long to give the elements of His body and blood to the unbeliever, the self righteous, and the ungodly?
Can he who has tasted the covenant of grace, and experimentally entered into the everlasting distinction between the sheep and the goats, go on long to mock God by declaring at the grave’s mouth of every departed unbeliever, swearer, and drunkard, that he is a ‘brother’, and is ‘taken to be with God’?
Notions in the head, however correct, doctrines, however high, a presumptuous confidence of salvation, however loud and lofty, may allow a man thus to trifle with the living JEHOVAH. But a tender conscience, a godly fear, and a trembling sense of God’s holiness and majesty, such as the blessed Spirit works in the soul, must sooner or later bring a man out of this dreadful mockery.
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