What is Evangelicalism?

Evangelicalism (whether in national or dissenting bodies) takes its stand (at least it used to do so) on the truth of Christ dying for our sins. This is most true, and a capital truth; without which there is no bringing of the soul to God, no divine judgment of our iniquities, no possible sense of pardon. But it is very far from being the truth even of the Saviour's death, to speak of no more now. Hence evangelicalism, as such, having no real apprehension of our death in Christ, never understands the force and place of baptism, is habitually infirm as to christian walk, and is apt to take the comfort of forgiveness by the blood of Christ so as to mix with the world and enjoy the life that now is, often helping on the delusion of ameliorating man and improving Christendom.

Two ladies being in conversation, one said to the other, in reference to a gentleman who had recently died, "Was he a Christian?" "Was he - a what?" the other instantly replied, with a puzzled and indignant air. Again, the same lady asked a similar question of a clergyman, respecting a neighbour cut off in the prime of youth. "I don't understand you," he answered in an embarrassed way; but, recovering himself, added, "Oh, certainly; she regularly attended my church, and was most attentive in taking the sacrament!" The indignant answer of the lady was due to the question having implied, as she thought, that possibly the deceased was an infidel, a Mahommedan, or a Jew. The clergyman's answer disclosed his conviction that observance of ordinances and attendance on the so-called "means of grace," conclusively gave title to be termed a Christian. No doubt in each case, were it a question of outward profession and responsibility, distinguished from what does not own the name of Christ, the term could be rightly applied; but the enquiry referred to a state of soul before God, for each of the persons in question had passed out of the sphere of nominal Christianity into another in which the having a name to live while dead could only aggravate eternal guilt. But there is a third class - the great evangelical body - who, utterly rejecting mere nominal Christianity, and equally so a religion of ordinances, insist upon a doctrinal soundness, especially on justification by faith, as the alone ground of approach to God, escape from wrath to come, and making sure of heaven after this life. To be sound upon these doctrines with them constitutes the Christian.

This brings us to the other fundamental error of Plymouthism, we mean the use it makes of the word of God. The evangelical principle, that of the Reformation, is the exclusive authority of the holy scriptures, and consequently, the assertion that those scriptures are fully sufficient. At the same time it is taken for granted that, by this, the churches of the Reformation mean an authority in that sphere of things of which the Bible speaks, a sufficient light in those questions which tend to salvation. It has never otherwise been understood or explained … But … the sixteenth century itself was not always consistent.

The Church of England holds within its communion two sections with very decided views—the Evangelicals and the Anglo-Catholics. The former stress conversion, believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures, and are sound on the fundamental doctrines of the Christian Faith. They are seriously alarmed at the prospect of the Composite Prayer Book being authorized by Parliament and by the King, as Head of the Church of England. Many are prepared, to our knowledge, to sever their connection with the Church of England if such a calamity come to pass. To many it will entail great anguish of heart, to others the surrender of stipend and emoluments. All honour to such faithful men and women.

At the dawn of the eighteenth century this lifeless profession had reached its deepest depths of darkness and decline. "Natural theology without a single distinctive doctrine of Christianity, cold morality, or barren orthodoxy, formed the staple teaching both in church and chapel. Sermons everywhere were little better than miserable moral essays utterly devoid of anything likely to awaken, convert, or save souls." But when all was at the worst there was amongst English speaking races, in the early part of the eighteenth century a second great movement of the Spirit of God, who wrought in mighty saving power. Evangelists were raised up to proclaim the glad tidings. Whitfield, Wesley, Grimshaw, Berridge and very many other earnest and devoted servants of the Lord went throughout the land warning sinners of judgment to come, arousing consciences to a sense of need, and bringing relief and salvation to thousands upon thousands through the preaching of Christ and Him crucified. We may truly thank God for this devoted band of preachers without shutting our eyes to the weakness of the movement in the hands of men. It is manifest that at its best it did not go beyond a gospel that aims to meet the need of man. It stopped short of that fuller gospel preached by the Apostle Paul that, entirely setting aside man in the flesh, links the believer with Christ in the glory, thus constituting the Christian a heavenly man. It brought blessing to the sinner, but left him in the world with the idea of making it a better and a brighter place. The result has been that worldliness, ecclesiastical and political, has become a prominent characteristic of the evangelical movement. In the sincere desire to reach the masses, every endeavour has been made to popularise the truth and make it more or less attractive to the natural mind. Every effort has been made to impress the natural man by the aid of music and other human means. Hence the levity, and often even vulgarity, that so largely disfigures this movement in the present day. Moreover, another great weakness of the movement is its individualism. Its great aim and end is the blessing of individuals; it presents no true conception of the Church whether in its formation, its present administration or its future glory. All these essential truths of Christianity are entirely outside the scope of the Evangelical movement. Souls are truly converted, for which we may thank God, but the movement as such leaves the converted souls in the various religious systems of men.

When it pleased God of late to awaken the slumbering virgins by the midnight cry, not only were the wise roused, but the foolish. Nor did Satan delay to set up counterfeits, so as to bring the discredit of heterodoxy and evils of various other kinds on the recovered hope. Evangelical men were at a manifestly low ebb, even the most devoted of them betraying their ignorance of church or even christian privilege by periodical gatherings for prayer that the Holy Spirit might be once more shed on souls, and meanwhile eagerly forming societies to do thus anomalously the work which was the common responsibility of God's church. There was no real faith in the presence of the Spirit, no looking for His free action in the assembly, no expression of the one body of Christ, nor even sense of the church's ruin-state, any more than really waiting for God's Son from heaven. There was not even the consciousness of the true deliverance and heavenly associations of the christian. The evangelical revival, whether of Wesley or of Whitfield, or outside the borders of either, was a pious reaction, which insisted on the new birth and earnestness on behalf of perishing souls, from the cold ethics and formality, if not deism, of the century before. But the calling and the inheritance of saints, the purposes of God for the glory of God in Christ, never fully dawned on evangelical hearts, any more than on Puritans, or even the Reformers that preceded. It is needless to say that it would be vain to look for aught better, or as good, in the middle ages, or among the Fathers. Even redemption in any adequate conception of it had quickly faded away, before men had to contend for the truth of Christ's person or the Holy Ghost. Nobody doubts that grace saved all through; but for more than a dozen centuries where is there a single sentence which proclaims salvation as the apostles once taught and all saints enjoyed?

As the first thing, however, we have Job himself introduced. We see a man sincere, true, and blameless; in the enjoyment of every element of happiness on earth, blessed in his circumstances as well as his family, and God-fearing habitually. If he was the greatest of the sons of the east, this was what gave the more point to the trial. But was he not blest? Exceedingly so. He had seven sons and three daughters. He had the most ample possessions of that in which wealth lay in those early days, and in that quarter; for it was not a pilgrim and a stranger that we find in Job. To that God called out the fathers. But Job was not of the fathers; he was outside the covenant of Abraham, yet evidently blest, and expressly by God. God doubtless blessed the fathers; but in keeping His promises He never bound Himself not to step beyond them. This is what we see in Job, and it is exactly what grace loves to do. Grace is never limited to promise; while it does faithfully accomplish the promise, as it most surely will, in the fullest manner and before all the world, by-and-by; but grace maintains its own sovereign title to bless beyond that measure. Covenant is in no way the measure of grace, which can go forth in its own boundless strength where promise cannot follow. Nor is there any excuse for us at least not to know this well, because, as individual Christians and as the church of God, we are in Christ brought into a fulness of blessing, to the glory of His grace, incomparably beyond the promises. And indeed it is one of the saddest causes of the ruined state of Christendom, and the low character of that which is taught, that men seldom rise beyond the promises, even those who hold what is called evangelical doctrine. For the very essence of evangelicalism as a system is to deny the special favour and glory displayed in the mystery of Christ and the church, and make the law the rule of Christian life, thus reducing the New Testament to the standard of the Old, instead of learning that each of the so-called Testaments has its own proper character and distinct aim; and that it is no mere question, therefore, of promises for the earth, nor even of a deeper and higher promise than they, but that there had been always a secret in God, which in other ages and generations was undivulged, and, consequently, that our richest blessing in Christ was no question of promises revealed to man at all. If it is at all to be called a promise, it was a promise between the Father and the Son; but this is not what men commonly mean by promises. It was entirely outside Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. What did they know of the purpose for heavenly glory revealed by the Spirit, as between the Father and the Son? But now it is made known; and therein is seen to be exactly where the New Testament claims for itself a totally new character, impossible to exist while God was dealing with Israel, till the rejected Christ had accomplished redemption, and the Holy Spirit was sent down from heaven in consequence to baptize Jew and Gentile that believe into one body. It is Christ exalted on high and the church united to Him, a mystery hid in God till the time came to reveal it all, and now to us of the Gentiles, who least of all could have expected it; for God would thus show out the full character of grace on every side — on the heavenly, in its being entirely above the fathers, however honoured; on the earthly, in its going far beyond the children of Israel in indiscriminate mercy, and consequently finding objects, not only for salvation, but for union with the heavenly head among the most despised and abject of this world.

The evangelical notion is, that a man is justified, and then sanctified and made meet for heaven. This throws his justification back into uncertainty and clouds; for, if he does not become meet, either he enters heaven unmeet, or he is justified and never gets there at all, but has to answer for his sins though justified by the blood of Christ. This is human confusion, not scripture, yet this is the evangelical doctrine. In denying this, and shewing that sanctification has another place in scripture, which it has, some (and many outside brethren) have denied progress in holiness, which scripture does speak of. Negatives are dangerous things. I state a truth. One passage suffices to prove I have reason. If I say there is no such thing in scripture, I must know every passage to be able to say it. The Holy Ghost teaches by positive truth. They are wise who hold fast to it.

But when we take a closer view of Protestantism as 'the religion of the Bible,' do we find that holy Book a witness for or against its claims? First we must ask, Are national Churches, with their various man-devised ordinances and appointments, things of scriptural origin or authority? Again, Is sectarian division, with its dissonant and barbarous nomenclature, a thing of God? I do not stop to ask what countenance the Scriptures give to the manifold varieties of creed or view which now prevail, and to which men commit themselves as readily as if they really thought that truth, instead of being one, is many, and that the 'narrow way' to life eternal, of which the Saviour speaks, and in which His first disciples walked, had brought their modern successors past the strict limits of all positive and authoritative doctrine into the boundless field of speculative choice — in one word, to compare Protestant theology generally with the declared counsel of God. I will confine myself to that which is known distinctively by the somewhat insidious term 'Evangelical.' Now what place has heaven mostly in the daily thoughts of those who boast outwardly of the gospel of free grace? A perfect reply to this inquiry belongs only to the Searcher of hearts; but if things visible and audible afford authentic evidence in such a case, the answer surely must be that what is present and immediate to the mind of the Spirit is contemplated remotely only by a large majority of the avowed partakers of 'the heavenly calling.' In what relation, again, do the bulk of modern Evangelicals stand to the course of this world and its politics? Is it one of dissociation or association? Do they combine with other men for merely temporal objects, or do they shun all fellowship with that which is not of the Father? Is the sanctifying power of that Name plainly visible in their ordinary habits and associations?9 Are they, as a class, distinguished by their disregard of the usual objects of natural interest or ambition? Are they so 'joying in God,' and looking at the things unseen, as to be weaned effectually from the visible and tangible allurements of Babylon? Is their standard of morality higher than that of the children of this world? Do they, as a rule, suffer patiently when wronged, not caring even for the spoiling of their goods, because of their sure hold upon their better heritage in heaven?1 Or are they, on the other hand, sharp and self-assertive, litigious and commercially enterprising, eager in the pursuit of worldly wealth, and studious to discover lawful means of personal gratification and aggrandisement; lovers still of pleasure, only hampered somewhat in its pursuit by a conscience ill at ease? Are honour and scrupulous fidelity in the ordinary intercourse of life their undisputed praise? Such questions, and they might be multiplied, need here no elaborate reply.

Insubjection to the declared will of God, as revealed to us in the Apostolic writings, and a disregard of the sure warnings of prophecy, are but too often found in company with an even ostentatious assertion of an evangelic doctrine. Instead of expectations founded on the express declarations of the Spirit of truth, men's minds are inflated by the fallacious hope of an indefinite Christian progress here below, and anticipate in their imagination a millennium of evangelic ease and temporal prosperity. With minds averted from the true hope of their calling, and a lustful eye towards the heritage of Jacob,2 they are systematically 'minding earthly things.' The kingdoms of the world are to be brought, they would fondly persuade themselves, gradually but surely, under the sceptre of Christ, through an increasing conviction in men's minds of the manifold practical blessings of Christianity, and its adaptation to the best interests of the race. But appeals to an enlightened self-interest are not to be confounded with the effectual calling of God's elect, who never can be other than suffering strangers upon earth. For they have been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. And well they know that His kingdom is not now from hence. But popular Evangelism has for its immediate aim not God, but the people. Its promises of liberty address themselves to the old man rather than the new. The real or imaginary benefits which are to follow the adoption of Evangelical principles are alluringly displayed, and men follow where their interests seem to lead. They are willing, like the eaters of the loaves, to take Christ by force, and have Him for their king.3 Alas, they perceive not that the true Lord has withdrawn Himself from earth and earthly things, until the time come for His return in judicial power to reclaim His right, and that this dream of a universal Christendom will end only in the world's going unanimously after the beast.4 For if grace does not root us firmly in the faith of God's elect, and lead us in the path of the just, its doctrines only foster, and will gradually ripen to its full measure, the evil growth of natural wilfulness. And thus it is that, in these solemn warnings addressed to the saints by all Christ's Apostolic witnesses, there is everywhere presented, under various forms and descriptions, the same appalling picture of religious perversion, culminating at last in open renunciation of the living God, or rather in an actual transfer of men's homage from truth to falsehood, from a Christ long dishonoured by an insincere and earthly-minded worship to that 'man of the earth' who will be welcomed as their true king by all whose names are not written in the Lamb's book of life. As Christ is Himself the true vine, whose living branches yield fruit acceptable to the Father, so the vine of the earth is the prophetic name and symbol of that which falsely bears His name.5 A lifeless form of godliness must end in Antichrist, and the critical result of earthly-minded Christianity is Armageddon, where the collected strength of human wilfulness meets truth in its victorious judicial energy. The name of the Victor on that great day of decision is the Word of God, and the hosts of His vanquished enemies will perish through their systematic opposition to that Word. It was well, therefore, that Paul, while addressing approvingly a Church which had thus far run well and obtained a just renown as a zealous defender of the Gospel, should warn his brethren against the insidious beginnings of that spiritual wickedness which must end in the destruction of that day.

This terrible state of things was but partially rectified at the Reformation, the Church of England was but half reformed; baptismal regeneration and apostolic succession were doctrines never eradicated from its tenets, and we are now living to see the result in a frightful relapse into Romanism, or in the giving up of all faith and even profession of Christianity for blank infidelity, these being the two poles of unbelief, as to the Scriptures, and as to the power of God, through the Spirit. Of supreme importance to the individual, and consequently to the church, as evangelical truth is, experience has proved that there is a tendency, when too exclusively dwelt on, to disregard, either as though it were non-essential, or as though it could have no practical importance, the teaching of Scripture as to the church — her calling and destiny. We do not say this evil goes to the same lengths, or is fraught with such dire effects, as that of being absorbed with, and trusting almost exclusively to, a spurious sacramental system. Very far from this, evangelical truth, i.e., a clear and full gospel, is of paramount importance — there could be no true church, no happy and intelligent Christians without it.