LECTURE XXIX.

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION.

BY REV. JOHN FLETCHER.

DEFINITION.

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION! why should the harmless phrase offend us? Perfection! Why should that lovely word frighten us? Is it not common and plain? Did not Cicero speak intelligibly when he called accomplished philosophers, perfectos philosophos, and an excellent orator, perfectum oratorem? Did Ovid expose his reputation when he said that "Chiron perfected Achilles in music," or "taught him to play on the lute to perfection?" We give the name of "Christian perfection " to that maturity of grace and holiness which established adult believers attain to under the Christian dispensation; and thus we distinguish that maturity of grace, both from the ripeness of grace which belongs to the dispensation of the Jews below us, and from the ripeness of glory which belongs to departed saints above us. Hence it appears that by "Christian perfection" we mean nothing but the cluster and maturity of the graces which compose the Christian character in the church militant. In other words, Christian perfection is a spiritual constellation, made up of these gracious stars, perfect repentance, perfect faith, perfect humility, perfect meekness, perfect self-denial, perfect resignation, perfect hope, perfect charity for our visible enemies, as well as for our earthly relations; and, above all, perfect love for our invisible God, through the explicit knowledge of our Mediator Jesus Christ. And as this last star is always accompanied by all the others, as Jupiter is by his satellites, we frequently use, as St. John, the phrase "perfect love" instead of the word perfection; understanding by it the pure love of God shed abroad in the hearts of established believers by the Holy Ghost, which is abundantly given them under the fulness of the Christian dispensation.

AN ADDRESS TO IMPERFECT BELIEVERS WHO CORDIALLY EMBRACE THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN PERFECTION.

Your regard for Scripture and reason, and your desire to answer the end of God's predestination by being conformed to the image of his Son, have happily kept, or reclaimed, you from Antinomianism.

Ye see the absolute necessity of personally fulfilling the law of Christ; your bosom glows with desire to "perfect holiness in the fear of God;" and, far from blushing to be called Perfectionists, ye openly assert that a perfect faith, productive of perfect love to God and man, is the pearl of great price for which you are determined to sell all, and which, next to Christ, you will seek early and late, as the one thing needful for your spiritual and eternal welfare. Some directions, therefore, about the manner of seeking this pearl cannot but be acceptable to you, if they are scriptural and rational; and such, I humbly trust, are those which follow: :

I. If ye would attain an evangelically sinless perfection, let your full assent to the truth of that deep doctrine firmly stand upon the evangelical foundation of a precept and a promise. A precept without a promise would not sufficiently animate you; nor would a promise without a precept properly bind you; but a Divine precept and a Divine promise form an unshaken foundation. Let, then, your faith deliberately rest her right foot upon these precepts:

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Hear, O Israel: thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Deut. vi. 5. "Thou shalt not hate thy neighbor in thy heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people; but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord: ye shall keep my statutes." Lev. xix. 17—19. "And now, Israel, what does the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good? &c. Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart, and be not more stiff-necked." Deut. x. 12, &c. "Serve God with a perfect heart and a willing mind; for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth the imaginations of the thoughts." 1 Chron. xxviii. 9.

Should unbelief suggest that these are only Old Testament injunctions, trample upon the false suggestion, and rest the same foot of your faith upon the following New Testament precepts: "Think not that

I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, &c.; that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, &c. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Matt. v. 17, 44, &c. “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Matt. xix. 17. "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." Gal. vi. 2. "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you." John xv. 12. "He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law for this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, &c.; Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill, &c.; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law." Rom. xiii. 8-10. "This commandment we have from him, That he who loves God love his brother also." 1 John iv. 21. "If ye fulfil the royal law, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well. But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors." James ii. 8, 9. "Circumcision is nothing, uncircumcision is nothing," (comparatively speaking,)" but " (under Christ) "the keeping of the commandments of God" is the one thing needful. 1 Cor. vii. 19. "For the end of the commandment is charity; out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned." 1 Tim. i. 5. "Though I have all faith, &c., and have not charity, I am nothing." 1 Cor. xiii. 2. "Whosoever shall keep the whole law," (of liberty,)" and yet offend in one point," (in uncharitable respect of persons,) "he is guilty of all, &c. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty," which requires perfect love, and therefore makes no allowance for the least degree of uncharitableness. James ii. 10, 12.

When the right foot of your faith stands on these evangelical precepts and proclamations, lest she should stagger for want of a promise every way adequate to such weighty commandments, let her place her left foot upon the following promises, which are extracted from the Old Testament: "The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." Deut. xxx. 6. "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isa. i. 18. That this promise chiefly refers to sanctification, is evident, 1. From the verses which immediately precede it: "Make you clean," &c.; "Cease to do evil, learn to do well,'

&c. And, 2. From the verses which immediately follow it: "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel," (or disobey,)" ye shall be devoured with the sword. Again; "I will give them a heart to know me that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God" in a new and peculiar manner: "for they shall return unto me with their whole heart. This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people." Jer. xxiv. 7; xxxi. 33. "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you; a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them." Ezek. xxxvi. 25

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And let nobody suppose that the promises of the circumcision, the cleansing, the clean water, and the Spirit, which are mentioned in these Scriptures, and by which the hearts of believers are to be made new, and God's law is to be so written therein that they shall "keep his judgments and do them ;"— let none, I say, suppose that these glorious promises belong only to the Jews; for their full accomplishment peculiarly refers to the Christian dispensation. Besides, if sprinklings of the Spirit were sufficient, under the Jewish dispensation, to raise the plant of Jewish perfection in Jewish believers, how much more will the revelation of the horn of our salvation, and the outpourings of the Spirit, raise the plant of Christian perfection in faithful Christian believers! And that this revelation of Christ in the Spirit, as well as in the flesh, these effusions of the water of life, these baptisms of fire, which burn up the chaff of sin, thoroughly purge God's spiritual floor, save us from all our uncleannesses, and deliver us from all our enemies; that these blessings, I say, are peculiarly promised to Christians, is demonstrable by the following cloud of New Testament declarations and promises: —

"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath raised up a horn of salvation for us, as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without" unbelieving "fear," (that is, with perfect love,) "in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life." Luke i. 68— 75. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, who thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled." Matt. v. 3, 6. "If thou knewest the gift of

God," &c., "thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water: and the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water springing up to everlasting life." John iv. 10, 14. "Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believeth on me," (when I shall have ascended up on high, to receive gifts for men,) "out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water," to cleanse his soul, and to keep it clean. "But this he spake of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given," (in such a manner as to raise the plant of Christian perfection,) " because Jesus was not yet glorified." John vii. 37, &c.; and his spiritual dispensation was not yet fully opened. Mr. Wesley, in his "Plain Account of Christian Perfection," has published some excellent queries, and proposed them to those who deny perfection to be attainable in this life. They are close to the point, and, therefore, the first two attack the imperfectionists from the very ground on which I want you to stand. They run thus: 1. "Has there not been a larger measure of the Holy Spirit given under the gospel than under the Jewish dispensation? If not, in what sense was the Spirit not given before Christ was glorified? John vii. 39. 2. Was that glory which followed the sufferings of Christ (1 Pet. i. 11) an external glory or an internal, viz., the glory of holiness? Always rest the doctrine of Christian perfection on this scriptural foundation, and it will stand as firm as revelation itself.

It is allowed, on all sides, that the dispensation of John the Baptist exceeded that of the other prophets, because it immediately introduced the gospel of Christ, and because John was not only appointed to " preach the baptism of repentance," but also clearly to point out the very person of Christ, and to "give knowledge of salvation to God's people by the remission of sins." Luke i. 77. And, nevertheless, John only promised the blessing of the Spirit, which Christ bestowed when he had received gifts for men. "I indeed," said John, "baptize you with water unto repentance; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Matt. iii. 11. Such is the importance of this promise, that it is particularly recorded, not only by the other three evangelists, (see Mark i. 8, Luke iii. 16, and John i. 26,) but also by our Lord himself, who said, just before his ascension, John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." Acts i. 5.

So capital is this promise of the Spirit's stronger influences to raise the rare plant of Christian perfection, that when our Lord speaks of this promise, he emphatically calls it "the promise of the Father;" because it shines among the other promises of the gospel of Christ as the moon