with the very words and forms of speech in which God speaks to man. We love the lowliness, simplicity and humility of Jesus. It is the manifestation of infinite wisdom and goodness. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are vain.” He takes the wise in their own craftiness.
TRUE MISSIONARIES.
THE early members in our great movement in this country were nearly all preachers. They read the Scriptures to and talked with their neighbors, explained matters to them, and, in many instances, when the preacher came they were already convinced and ready for baptism; or, if they had been baptized ready for uniting on the Bible. This accounts for our having such large success by preaching a few discourses. Much of the preaching was done before the preacher came, by private members and in private circles. These were missionary people in the true sense. They were in the work all the time. They did not need games of amusement for pastime. They had no time to spare. They were all busy, and all alive and at work. The love and spirit of God were in them, and the divine influence was shed all round. They did not have a little missionary spasm, pray a week for the spread of the gospel, give a few dollars and do no more for three months or a year, but they prayed for the spread of the gospel all the time; kept at the work of spreading it all the time. They had no trouble about plans, but kept at the work, and spread the gospel. It can be spread in the same way again, and is being thus spread largely now wherever it is spread at all. If we honestly desire to spread the gospel of the grace of God, to turn sinners to the Lord, free them from the manacles of sin and death, and save them, let us go to work and do it. There is nothing to hinder us, if we have the faith and love and zeal, from carrying it forward to any extent. The people are weary of sectarianism, and ready to hear something intelligible on the way of salvation.
NO DEPARTURE FROM THE JERUSALEM CHURCH.
IF we are to depart from the Jerusalem Church because it was in its infancy, and not reproduce the primitive church, we should like to know how far we are to depart from it, and in what. If the faith and practice, the precept and example of the primitive church may not be adopted now and followed; if in all things we should not now have the same faith and practice, precept and example they had, we should be pleased for some expounder of the new doctrine to explain to us in what the departure shall consist, and what rule we are to adopt now. If we let go of the rule that governed the first church, what rule shall we adopt? If we cut loose from the divine, shall we adopt a human rule? If so, what human rule? Some one of these already made? or shall we have the presumption and folly to think we can make a better one than these human rules already in use?
We are not ready to cut loose from the Jerusalem Church, its rule of faith and practice, its precept and example. We have more confidence in the old ground than ever, and have no idea of departing from the Jerusalem Church, its faith and practice, precepts and example. The men that will not stand on apostolic ground, the faith and practice of the first church, will not stand on anything long. We want something reliable, permanent, sure and steadfast—a kingdom that cannot be moved. In the old Bible, the old gospel and the old church, we find it. Here is something to lean upon living and dying, for this world and the world to come. If we leave this, all is uncertainty, darkness and night. Let us “hear what the Spirit says to the churches,” and not he of those who “depart from the faith,” giving heed to seducing spirits, and not listen to “unstable souls,” or those “ever learning and never able to the knowledge of the truth.”
BORN OF WATER AND THE SPIRIT.
THERE is but one birth mentioned or alluded to in the conversation with Nicodemus.
There is but one kingdom mentioned or alluded to in the conversation.
The conversation is about one birth and entering into one kingdom. The whole is in the phrase, “You must be born again,” or the previous phrase, “Except a man be born again he can not see the kingdom of God.” This figurative expression “born again,” is precisely the same, or includes the same as conversion. A man born again is a man converted. In being born again precisely the same agencies are employed, and the same thing is accomplished as when a man is converted. This is literally a man turned from darkness to light, from the world to God. This is not done by the agency of water without the agency of the Spirit. There is no such thing as a birth of water without the Spirit. A man is “born again,” not by water without the Spirit, nor by the Spirit without the water, but “born of water and of the Spirit,” no matter how many fine theories are spoiled. Nothing leads to more useless theories and speculations than attempts to build a theory on a figurative expression. The literal must always explain the figurative. The clear and unfigurative language of the commission has precisely the same in it as the phrase, “born of water and of the Spirit.” “He who believes and is immersed shall be saved.” Believes, in this passage, is literal. Born of the Spirit, or, which is the same, “begotten of the Spirit,” is figurative. The meaning is the same as, “I have begotten you by the gospel,” or made you believers by the gospel. Begotten of God is made a believer of God. Begotten of the Spirit is made a believer by the Spirit. It is in some instances ascribed to God in view of his being the Author of it. It is ascribed to Christ in view of it being through his mediation. It is ascribed to the Spirit in view of his inspiring the apostles or speaking in them, and thus making believers, and those thus made believers are said to be begotten of the Spirit, and, when immersed, said to be “born of water and of the Spirit.” This is precisely all there is in it.
There is nothing about the resurrection in it, the first resurrection or any other resurrection, unless it be a resurrection to a new life. Nor is anything in the resurrection ever called “a birth of the Spirit.” We are perfectly aware that the dead will be quickened by the Spirit, and that the Spirit of Christ will quicken their mortal bodies; that Christ was the “first-born from the dead,” the “first-born among many brethren,” and that the dead will be raised at the sound of the trumpet, but there is not one word about all this or an allusion to it in the conversation with Nicodemus. Nor is there one word about or allusion to the everlasting kingdom in that conversation. We must not make something out of that conversation that is not in it.
Nicodemus was standing on his birth-right, “born in thy house,” as expressed Gen. xvii. 13, for membership. The Lord sweeps this away in one sentence: “Except a man be born again he can not see the kingdom of God.” His being born in the house or family of Abraham availed nothing. “Flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God.” No matter in whose family he was born nor whose blood coursed in his veins, a man must be born again, born from above, born of water and of the Spirit, or he cannot enjoy the kingdom of God. As the Spirit is the agent through whom the gospel is preached, and the gospel the instrument by which the Spirit makes believers, the agent is mentioned for the effect, which is belief—made believers by the Spirit and baptized into Christ, into one body. It is of God, of Christ, of the Spirit, of the apostles and by the word.
There
