of Truth, 1962), 224 – 25.
The Gospel According to Historic Christianity
with the help of the Holy Spirit, he is still "in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity." . . . Th e idea of "saving faith" apart from good works, is ridiculous. Th e saved man is not a perfect man, but his heart's desire is to become perfect, he is always panting aft er perfection, and the day will come when he will be perfected, aft er the image of his once crucifi ed and now glorifi ed Saviour, in knowledge and true holiness.
While I was minister at Waterbeach, I used to have a man sitting in front of the gallery, who would always nod his head when I was preaching what he considered sound doctrine, although he was about as bad an old hypocrite as ever lived. When I talked about justification, down went his head; when I preached about imputed righ teous ness, down it went again. I was a dear good man in his estimation, without doubt. So I thought I would cure him of nodding, or at least make his head keep still for once; so I remarked, "There is a great deal of difference between God electing you, and your electing yourself; a vast deal of difference between God justifying you by His Spirit, and your justifying yourself by a false belief, or presumption; this is the difference," said I — and the old man at once put me down as a rank Arminian — "you who have elected yourselves, and justified yourselves, have no marks of the Spirit of God; you have no evidence of genuine piety, you are not holy men and women, you can live in sin, you can walk as sinners walk, you have the image of the devil upon you, and yet you call yourselves the children of God. One of the first evidences that anyone is a child of God is that he hates sin with a perfect hatred, and seeks to live a holy, Christlike life." The old Antinomian did not approve of that doctrine, but I knew that I was preaching what was revealed in the Word of God.36
Bishop J. C. Ryle, an evangelical Anglican bishop, wrote these stinging words nearly a century ago:
I doubt, indeed, whether we have any warrant for saying that a man can possibly be converted without being consecrated to God! . . . If he was not consecrated to God in the very day that he was converted and born again, I do not know what conversion means. Are not men in danger of undervaluing and underrating the immense blessedness of conversion? Are they not, when they urge on believers the "higher life" as a second conversion, underrating the length, and breadth, and depth, and height, of that great
36. Charles H. Spurgeon, Autobiography: Volume 1: Th e Early Years, 1834 – 1859 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1962), 224 – 25.