POSTSCRIPT

POSTSCRIPT

I am unwilling to pass over a collateral point, confirmed, as it has been, by many like statements which I have heard and connected with other points of a similar tendency.

It is in page 3 of tract 2. “Lastly, please consider the fact that from the day these chapters were first spoken, there never has been the slightest question raised of their true and exclusive address to the church, until the last very few years.”

You know I am no traditionist; but here at least is “universal consent” on one point.

This statement is not true in the use to which the writer applies it; because “universal consent” took the passage away from all present and future application to the church, and considered it as accomplished at the siege of Jerusalem, the coming, in any further sense, relating to the end of all things.

But it is not in view of this that I quote it now. It is with reference to the principle, the popish principle, of universal consent. Universal consent has nothing to do with tradition, nor tradition with universal consent. But universal consent is another form of the substitution of man’s authority for the word of God and the teaching of the Spirit of God in and by the word, and the responsibility of each saint to receive that word by such teaching; which alone constitutes faith. Universal consent is a rule of other men for binding to an opinion without scripture, or in the interpretation of Scripture. In either case it is the judgment of men, be they ever so many, and not the direct responsibility of the soul to God in receiving the word; nor the direct operation of the Spirit of God on the soul in respect of the word, which alone produces divine faith. It is faith in men. No matter if it is all the saints “from the day these chapters were spoken.” For the mass of saints it must result in faith in the statements of the teacher, which is not faith in God at all. It will always be connected with canons of interpretation made by men (or rather it is the thing itself), with receiving from teachers what they teach because God has raised them up, and with ecclesiastical authority, the process of which is connection of teaching with office — the result, office giving authority to all teaching. Now this is Popery, whose force lies in the practical denial of that to which the apostle appeals in the saints. “Ye need not that any one should teach you.” “Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” He did teach them; but he owned the Holy Ghost in them. The spirit of Popery is the spirit of the age as to religion. Self will soon in divine things work itself out to nothing, because it cannot hold men together in the things of God; but Popery can in form. Now the first grand principle which introduced Popery, and on which Protestants inclined to it always rest, is that announced here. It was first stated by a “father,” Vincentius Lirinensis, in these terms in Latin, “Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus” (what [has been believed] always, everywhere and by all); and became very famous in the church.

^[p. 22] Let the saints be on their guard. Self-will is always evil. Affectionate confidence in those who labour in the Lord is always happy. But “universal consent,” and the authority of teachers, are the instruments of the enemy for the church’s departure from God. In the perilous times of the last days the known security of the saints is the doctrine of the apostles themselves, and the written word of God (2 Timothy 3) — both now concluded in this last — the sole and sufficient resource available through the teaching of the Spirit to the saints of God. Teachers may aid them in it, but can never take away each man’s own direct responsibility as to what he receives. But when “universal consent” is thus publicly appealed to, it is high time to see where we are going.

^[p. 23] May beloved brethren remember that the written word of God, and the grace and teaching of the Spirit of God’, are the only security against error, and the devices of Satan — that ascribing authority to teachers, to “universal consent,” or anything else but to the written word of God, is departing from the only security of the saints in these dark and evil days; and yet, if dark and evil, blessed in the resources of grace to him that has faith. If the Spirit of God be looked at as residing in the teachers and not in the whole body, it is the full-blown principle of Romish clericalism. If saints do not prove for themselves all they hear, they cannot have faith now; but they cannot help being made answerable for it hereafter, because God has commanded them to do it, and given His Spirit to the whole body, and to each individually, to enable them to do it, and they will be held responsible for this whether they will or no.

I fully recognise the blessing of having those who can help us in learning the truth, or apply it in exhortation to the soul. But this does not alter the truth of what I have said. I do not in the least accuse individuals of being popish. But I say that the principle here printed and published, and which I have heard elsewhere appealed to, is an important popish principle, well known as such, one especially made use of where there is a tendency among Protestants to it — always connected historically with the authority of official teachers, and derogatory to the sole authority of the word of God, and the individual responsibility of the saints, and thus a departure from the ground of the faith of God’s elect — a very little beginning perhaps, but a beginning of a very great evil.