"Answer". (John xvi. 14.) Now where Christ is, there is the holy Spirit. The text saith plainly, "The holy Ghost shall glorify me, &c."
Now Christ is in the faithful (although they have and feel sins, do confess the same, and with sorrow of heart do complain thereover); therefore sins do not separate Christ from those that believe.
All in this page is true, and necessary to be preached. But O! what need is there of holy prudence to preach it aright, that is, at right times to the right ears! Now this is when the doctrine is necessary and thence comfortable; but where it is not necessary, but only very comfortable, in such cases it would be a narcotic poison, killing the soul by infusing a stupor or counterfeit peace of conscience. Where there are no sinkings of self-abas.e.m.e.nt, no griping sense of sin and worthlessness, but perhaps the contrary, reckless confidence and self-valuing for good qualities supposed an overbalance for the sins,--there it is not necessary. In short, these are not the truths, that can be preached [Greek: eukairos akairos], _in season and out of season_. In declining life, or at any time in the hour of sincere humiliation, these truths may be applied in reference to past sins collectively; but a Christian must not, a true however infirm Christian will not, cannot, administer them to himself immediately after sinning; least of all immediately before. We ought fervently to pray thus:--"Most holy and most merciful G.o.d! by the grace of thy holy Spirit make these promises profitable to me, to preserve me from despairing of thy forgiveness through Christ my Saviour! But O! save me from presumptuously perverting them into a pillow for a stupified conscience! Give me grace so to contrast my sin with thy transcendant goodness and long-suffering love, as to hate it with an unfeigned hatred for its own exceeding sinfulness."
Ib. p. 219-20.
Faith is, and consisteth in, a person"s understanding, but hope consisteth in the will. * * Faith inditeth, distinguisheth and teacheth, and it is the knowledge and acknowledgment. * * Faith fighteth against error and heresies, it proveth, censureth and judgeth the spirits and doctrines. * * Faith in divinity is the wisdom and providence, and belongeth to the doctrine. * * Faith is the "dialectica", for it is altogether wit and wisdom.
Luther in his Postills discourseth far better and more genially of faith than in these paragraphs. Unfortunately, the Germans have but one word for faith and belief--"Glaube", and what Luther here says, is spoken of belief. Of faith he speaks in the next article but one.
Ib. p. 226.
"That regeneration only maketh G.o.d"s children.
"The article of our justification before G.o.d (said Luther) is, as it useth to be with a son which is born an heir of all his father"s goods, and cometh not thereunto by deserts."
I will here record my experience. Ever when I meet with the doctrine of regeneration and faith and free grace simply announced--"So it is!"--then I believe; my heart leaps forth to welcome it. But as soon as an explanation nation or reason is added, such explanations, namely, and reasonings as I have any where met with, then my heart leaps back again, recoils, and I exclaim, Nay! Nay! but not so.
25th of September, 1819.
Ib. p. 227.
"Doctor Carlestad (said Luther) argueth thus: True it is that faith justifieth, but faith is a work of the first commandment; therefore it justifieth as a work. Moreover all that the Law commandeth, the same is a work of the Law. Now faith is commanded, therefore faith is a work of the Law. Again, what G.o.d will have the same is commanded: G.o.d will have faith, therefore faith is commanded."
"St. Paul (said Luther) speaketh in such sort of the law, that he separateth it from the promise, which is far another thing than the law. The law is terrestrial, but the promise is celestial.
"G.o.d giveth the law to the end we may thereby be roused up and made pliant; for the commandments do go and proceed against the proud and haughty, which contemn G.o.d"s gifts; now a gift or present cannot be a commandment."
"Therefore we must answer according to this rule, "Verba sunt accipienda secundum subjectam materiam." * * St. Paul calleth that the work of the law, which is done and acted through the knowledge of the law by a constrained will without the holy Spirit; so that the same is a work of the law, which the law earnestly requireth and strictly will have done; it is not a voluntary work, but a forced work of the rod."
And wherein did Carlestad and Luther differ? Not at all, or essentially and irreconcilably, according as the feeling of Carlestad was. If he meant the particular deed, the latter; if the total act, the agent included, then the former.
Chap. XIV. p. 230.
"The love towards the neighbour (said Luther) must be like a pure chaste love between bride and bridegroom, where all faults are connived at, covered and borne with, and only the virtues regarded."
In how many little escapes and corner-holes does the sensibility, the fineness, (that of which refinement is but a counterfeit, at best but a reflex,) the geniality of nature appear in this "son of thunder!" O for a Luther in the present age! Why, Charles! [3] with the very handcuffs of his prejudices he would knock out the brains (nay, that is impossible, but,) he would split the skulls of our "Cristo-galli", translate the word as you like:--French Christians, or c.o.xcombs!
Ib. p. 231-2.
"Let Witzell know, (said Luther) that David"s wars and battles, which he fought, were more pleasing to G.o.d than the fastings and prayings of the best, of the honestest, and of the holiest monks and friars; much more than the works of our new ridiculous and superst.i.tious friars."
A cordial, rich and juicy speech, such as shaped itself into, and lived anew in, the Gustavus Adolphuses.
Chap. XV. p. 233-4.
"G.o.d most certainly heareth them that pray in faith, and granteth when and how he pleaseth, and knoweth most profitable for them. We must also know, that when our prayers tend to the sanctifying of his name, and to the increase and honor of his kingdom (also that we pray according to his will) then most certainly he heareth. But when we pray contrary to these points, then we are not heard; for G.o.d doth nothing against his Name, his kingdom, and his will."
Then (saith the understanding, [Greek: T phronaema sarks]) what doth prayer effect? If A--prayer = B., and A + prayer = B, prayer = O. The attempt to answer this argument by admitting its invalidity relatively to G.o.d, but a.s.serting the efficacy of prayer relatively to the pray-er or precant himself, is merely staving off the objection a single step.
For this effect on the devout soul is produced by an act of G.o.d. The true answer is, prayer is an idea, and "ens spirituale", out of the cognizance of the understanding.
The spiritual mind receives the answer in the contemplation of the idea, life as "deitas diffusa". We can set the life in efficient motion, but not contrary to the form or type. The errors and false theories of great men sometimes, perhaps most often, arise out of true ideas falsified by degenerating into conceptions; or the mind excited to action by an inworking idea, the understanding works in the same direction according to its kind, and produces a counterfeit, in which the mind rests.
This I believe to be the case with the scheme of emanation in Plotinus.
G.o.d is made a first and consequently a comparative intensity, and matter the last; the whole thence finite; and thence its conceivability. But we must admit a gradation of intensities in reality.
Chap. XVI. p. 247.
"When governors and rulers are enemies to G.o.d"s word, then our duty is to depart, to sell and forsake all we have, to fly from one place to another, as Christ commandeth; we must make and prepare no uproars nor tumults by reason of the Gospel, but we must suffer all things."
Right. But then it must be the lawful rulers; those in whom the sovereign or supreme power is lodged by the known laws and const.i.tution of the country. Where the laws and const.i.tutional liberties of the nation are trampled on, the subjects do not lose, and are not in conscience bound to forego, their right of resistance, because they are Christians, or because it happens to be a matter of religion, in which their rights are violated. And this was Luther"s opinion. Whether, if a Popish Czar shall act as our James II. acted, the Russian Greekists would be justified in doing with him what the English Protestants justifiably did with regard to James, is a knot which I shall not attempt to cut; though I guess the Russians would, by cutting their Czar"s throat.
Ib.
"But no man will do this, except he be so sure of his doctrine and religion, as that, although I myself should play the fool, and should recant and deny this my doctrine and religion (which G.o.d forbid), he notwithstanding therefore would not yield, but say, "If Luther, or an angel from heaven, should teach otherwise, _Let him be accursed_.""
Well and n.o.bly said, thou rare black swan! This, this is the Church.
Where this is found, there is the Church of Christ, though but twenty in the whole of the congregation; and were twenty such in two hundred different places, the Church would be entire in each. Without this no Church.
Ib. p. 248.
"And he sent for one of his chiefest privy councillors, named Lord John _Von Minkwitz_, and said unto him; "You have heard my father say, (running with him at tilt) that to sit upright on horseback maketh a good tilter. If therefore it be good and laudable in temporal tilting to sit upright; how much more is it now praiseworthy in G.o.d"s cause to sit, to stand, and to go uprightly and just!""
Princely. So Shakspeare would have made a Prince Elector talk. The metaphor is so grandly in character.
Chap. XVII. p. 249.
"_Signa sunt subinde facta, minora; res autem et facta subinde creverunt_."
A valuable remark. As the substance waxed, that is, became more evident, the ceremonial sign waned, till at length in the Eucharist the "signum"
united itself with the "significatum", and became consubstantial. The ceremonial sign, namely, the eating the bread and drinking the wine, became a symbol, that is, a solemn instance and exemplification of the cla.s.s of mysterious acts, which we are, or as Christians should be, performing daily and hourly in every social duty and recreation. This is indeed to re-create the man in and by Christ. Sublimely did the Fathers call the Eucharist the extension of the Incarnation: only I should have preferred the perpetuation and application of the Incarnation.
Ib.
A bare writing without a seal is of no force.
Metaphors are sorry logic, especially metaphors from human and those too conventional usages to the ordinances of eternal wisdom.