The Puritan Doctrine Of Apostasy
4
THE PURITAN DOCTRINE
OF APOSTASY
W. H. Davies
Apostasy—the very word sounds ugly; yet the most casual observer of the progress of the Christian faith cannot help noticing the constant recurrence, in both communities and individuals, of serious defections from Christian doctrine and practice.
The New Testament often addresses itself to this problem. The Epistle of James, for instance, as Thomas Goodwin reminds us, “is but a continued character and discovery of unsound professors.”1 The Puritans who themselves saw much active apostasy in their own days, gave serious thought to this phenomenon. The theological problems to which it gave rise could not but intrigue them. The relation of this falling away to the principles of gospel truth was a subject which exercised them considerably, and we find them carefully examining apostasy in the light of divine sovereignty, of the saints’ perseverance, and of the state in which the reprobates stood before they lapsed. Most of the Puritan writers who deal with this subject do so in the course of other studies, as, for example, Thomas Goodwin in his Discourse of Election; it was left to John Owen to give us a thoroughgoing discussion in a formal treatise. This work, written with his customary exhaustiveness and prolixity, was published in 1676, seven years before his death. The book’s full title is The Nature of Apostasy from the Profession of the Gospel and the Punishment of Apostates declared, in an Exposition of Hebrews 6:4–6; with an Enquiry into the causes and reasons of the decay of the Power of Religion in the world, or the present general defection from the Truth, Holiness, and Worship of the gospel; also, of the proneness of Churches and Persons of all sorts unto Apostasy. With Remedies and Means of Prevention. This being the fullest and best Puritan treatment of our theme, we shall use it as our main source.
The Nature of Apostasy
Apostasy in general denotes defection from the tenets of some religious community. For our purpose, Christian apostasy (if so improper a phrase may be allowed) is to be defined in broad terms as defection from the truth, holiness, and worship of the gospel. (The definition is Owen’s own.)
Owen founds his analysis of apostasy on Hebrews 6:4-6, the classical passage. He does not hide the fact that it presents considerable problems to the expositor. “Many have the difficulties been about its interpretation,” he notes; “for both doctrinally and practically, sundry have miscarried.”2 His own examination of it is meticulous, but too long to reproduce here; we must content ourselves with summarizing his conclusions. Before we do so, however, we must call attention to the two fundamental prin-ciples which govern Owen’s whole understanding of both the passage and the subject with which it deals.
The first principle is that distinction must be drawn between the various operations of the Holy Spirit. There are gifts and graces; there are workings ordinary and extraordinary; and as the Spirit’s workings differ in kind, so they may differ also in their consequences. All experiences of the Holy Spirit are not saving experiences, neither do all such experiences carry with them any certainty of saving grace. Owen writes of the people to whom the words of this passage were written:
1. They were such as not long were converted from Judaism unto Christianity, upon the evidence of the truth of its doctrine, and the miraculous operations wherewith its dispensation was accompanied.
2. He intends not the common sort of them, but such as had obtained especial privileges among them; for they had received extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, as speaking with tongues or working of miracles.
3. And they had found in themselves and others convincing evidence that the kingdom of God and the Messiah, which they called “the world to come,” was come unto them, and had the satisfaction and glories of it.
4. Such persons as these, as they have a work of light on their minds, so, according unto the efficacy of their convictions, they may have such a change wrought upon their affection and their conversation as that they may be of great esteem among professors; and such these here intended might be. . . .
But, he adds, “the least grace is a better security for heaven than the greatest gifts or privileges whatsoever.”3
The second principle is that enlightenment by the Holy Spirit is not necessarily a saving operation. The passage speaks of persons who were “once enlightened,” i.e. were given light and knowledge through teaching, were instructed in Christian truth, and were enabled by the Spirit to apprehend and know “the doctrines of the gospel concerning the person of Christ.”4 Owen is at pains to show how great a privilege and mercy it is to be thus enlightened and given actual spiritual knowledge by the Spirit; but he is equally at pains to show that it is a privilege that may be lost, and that in such cases its only outcome is to aggravate the sin of those who were made partakers of it, and increase their condemnation.
There is, says Owen, a knowledge that is “purely natural and disciplinary, attainable and attained without any especial aid or assistance of the Holy Ghost.” But “the illumination intended (in Heb. 6:4), being a gift of the Holy Ghost, differs from and is exalted above this knowledge that is purely natural; for it makes nearer approaches unto the light of spiritual things in their own nature than the other doth.” “This spiritual illumination gives the mind some satisfaction, with delight and joy in the things that are known.”5 In this sense, those who were “enlightened” enjoyed a real experience of the Holy Spirit: they “tasted” delight and pleasure in hearing, and a certain inward change of feeling and attitude took place in them. But that was all; and it was not enough. “Tasting” is at best a beginning. It should lead on to feasting and nourishing. But in the case envisaged it did not.
Here are Owen’s conclusions from this survey of the passage, in his own words:
I. All the gifts of God under the gospel are particularly heavenly.
II. The Holy Ghost, for the revelation of the mysteries of the gospel, and the institution of the ordinances of spiritual worship, is the great gift of God under the New Testament.
III. There is a goodness and excellency in this heavenly gift which may be tasted or experienced in some measure by such as never receive them in their life, power, and efficacy.
IV. A rejection of the gospel, its truth and worship, after some experience had of their worth and excellency, is a high aggravation of sin, and a certain presage of destruction.
Owen concludes that the people mentioned in the text are not true believers, for there is no mention of faith nor of anything else that is peculiar to believers in virtue of their saving relationship to God in Christ. And this is confirmed by the way in which those whom the writer regards as true believers are distinguished from such people in verses 9ff. The “falling away” of those who were “enlightened” Owen sees as “a total renunciation of all the constituent principles and doctrines of Christianity, whence it is denominated.” “For the completing of this falling away, it is required that the renunciation be avowed and professed . . . which cannot be without casting the highest reproach and contumely imaginable upon the person of Christ himself, as is afterwards expressed.” Such apostates cannot be renewed unto repentance; against them the greatest severity of God will come.
Total and Partial Apostasy
Owen now proceeds to distinguish total from partial apostasy. Total apostasy has already been described. Partial apostasy he defines thus:
When any important principle of evangelical truth is forsaken and renounced, especially when many of them are so; when the rule of obedience which the gospel prescrib-eth is habitually neglected; when men believe otherwise than it teacheth, and live otherwise than it requireth, there is a partial apostasy from it, whose guilt and danger answers the degrees and measures which in each kind it proceeds unto. . . . Men are apt to please themselves, to approve of their own state and condition. . . . Churches content themselves with their outward order and administration, and contend fiercely that all is well, and the gospel sufficiently complied withal, whilst their outward constitution is preserved and their laws of order kept inviolate . . . and it is known that the judgment of Christ concerning churches . . . is oft-times very distant from their own concerning themselves. . . . Only a few remain who fruitlessly complain that, under all these conflicts, the glory, power, and purity of the Christian religion are lost in the world.
In a pregnant phrase in his preface, Owen declares: “Religion is the same that ever it was, only it suffers by them that make profession of it. Whatever disadvantage it falls under in the world, they must at length answer for in whose misbelief and practice it is corrupted.” Note that Owen says misbelief, not unbelief; not refusing to believe, but believing wrongly. We might distinguish partial from total apostasy by saying that, while the latter is apostasy from the truth, the former is apostasy in the truth, since it does not involve a complete departure from all the fundamentals of the gospel. Partial apostasy, says Owen, is widespread (it was then; is it less so now?); and it is no less dangerous than it is dishonoring to God.
Partial Apostasy: Its Causes and Character
Owen distinguishes three spheres of submission to the gospel, in each of which apostasy may take place. Men may lapse from the truth of the gospel (its doctrines), the holiness of the gospel (the matter of Christian obedience), and the worship of the gospel (which Owen regards as “the trial of our faith and obedience, as to their profession” in public). Owen proceeds to review the nature and causes of apostasy in each sphere.
Apostasy from the Truth of the Gospel
This, he says, is the fundamental sphere of apostasy, for God’s truth is the foundation of all gospel precepts and institutions. “Without the real belief of it no man can be obedient as he ought.”6 Yet men have always been prone to forsake the truth. Owen illustrates this from the record of church history, from the apostolic age to his own day, and then considers the reasons for this condition of things.
First, he lists enmity against God and His word. The tendency of gospel truth is to renovate the mind and will, and engage and re-order the whole soul. But fallen man’s natural enmity against God’s word seeks to arrest its incoming and to inhibit its transforming work. There is something in every man that seeks to expel the word, and in apostates this principle has its way. “Hence spiritual truths are first neglected, then despised, and at last, on easy terms parted withal. For men, by conviction, and on rational grounds and motives, whether natural or spiritual, may receive that truth, and give an assent unto it, which, when it should be reduced to practice, the will and affections will not comply withal.”7 “For in such posture of mind, men’s corruptions will prevail against their convictions. First they will stifle the truth as to its operation, and then reject it as to its profession.”8 Truth has invaded the head, but sin stops it from reaching the heart, and finally routs it out of its bridgehead in the mind and expels it entirely.
Next, Owen mentions spiritual darkness and ignorance, “which abides in the minds of men under the profession of the truth.” The truth of the gospel, spiritually understood, creates certainty and provides a double support against the overthrow of faith by revealing the stability of God’s purpose to preserve His elect, and the means whereby this preservation is accomplished. Those who lapse, however, were evidently not enlightened to understand these things. “We may be assured concerning them all, that they never had that intuition into nor comprehension of spiritual things which alone could secure their stability. No man who forsakes the truth ever saw the glory of it, or had experience of its power.” God’s truth must be received as God’s truth, and God’s elect do so receive it. But men may profess the truth without any enjoyment of this evidence; and this is the state of darkness of mind which leads to apostasy.
The third cause listed is the pride and vanity of men’s minds, which prompts them to exalt their own imaginations and make themselves the sole judge of divine matters. When the gospel requires us, as it does, to believe things which are above human reason, as finite, and contrary to it, as depraved, pride of intellect prompts men to despise and reject the gospel on this very account; and there is great danger of apostasy along these lines, Owen insists, all the greater because it is so grievously underestimated.
Careless security and groundless confidence is the next factor mentioned. Owen shows how this presumptuous spirit disposes men to apostasy by prompting them to sinful negligence, indifference to the truth of the gospel, and vain confidence in their own ability to stand fast.
Love of this present world is a further factor.
The influence of Satan, whose aim is to keep men from knowing the gospel, and to turn aside those who have received it, must also be remembered.
God is no unconcerned spectator of apostasy from His truth, Owen adds; the action of those who lapse brings down from Him direct judicial consequences. “God will by one means or another, deprive them of the light and means of the knowledge of his truth, so that ignorance and darkness shall cover them and irresistibly increase upon them.” Thus, the marks of the apostate will be: ignorance of his need of Jesus Christ; want of experience of the power of the Spirit of Christ; want of submission to the sovereignty of God; want of evidence within oneself of the divine authority of the Scriptures.
Apostasy from the Holiness of the Gospel
The doctrine of the gospel is to Owen a doctrine of holiness. This internal holiness, Owen insists, differs from anything which other systems of teaching demand. Romanism, with its legalism, externality, and non-requirement of faith in Christ, moralism, with its reliance on natural light and ability, and non-requirement of regeneration, and perfectionism, with its non-requirement of constant conflict with sin, represent three forms of apostasy from Christian holiness.
The practice of gospel holiness is ungratifying to the flesh: for “that holiness which the gospel requireth will not be kept up or maintained, either in the hearts or lives of men, without a continual conflict, warring, contending; and that with all diligence, care, watchfulness, perseverance therein.” Also, evangelical holiness will not allow of, or consist with, the habitual omission of any one duty, or satisfaction of any one lust; and “indulgence of one sin will make way in the minds and consciences of men for the admission of other sins also, and divert the soul from the use of those means whereby all other sins should be resisted.” Thus one permitted sin sets a man’s feet on the highroad of apostasy straight away.
A worse form of apostasy from gospel holiness is an open lapse into profane and sensual living; and “the first occasion hereof in all ages,” Owen declares, “has been given by or taken from the public teachers or leaders of the people in the matter of religion.”9 Hence he takes occasion to remark that “the well being of the Church depends on the right discharge of the office of the ministry”10 and to charge ministers, first, that they “keep pure and uncorrupted the doctrine of the gospel, especially that concerning the holiness enjoined in it”;11 second, that they diligently teach this doctrine; third, that they give a true representation of both their doctrine and their Lord in their lives. Owen also takes occasion to give warning against the evil effects of contending for truth in a manner inconsistent with gospel holiness; he speaks of the offence taken “at the divisions that have been among them (professing Christians), and continue so to be, with the management of them in an evil contentious frame of spirit.”12
Apostasy from the Worship of the Gospel
This Owen treats with brevity, and so must we. He distinguishes two ways of lapsing in this sphere:
1. By neglecting, and refusing to observe, the appointments of Christ;
2. By adding to what Christ has appointed in a way inconsistent with and so destructive of it. The causes of such lapses are also two in number: (a) those who have already lapsed from gospel truth find gospel ordinances “no way suited unto, nor indeed consistent with, that faith and obedience which they have betaken themselves unto”; (b) “want of spiritual light to see through the veils of outward institutions, and of the wisdom of faith to obtain communion with God in Christ by them” leads men to multiply externals in worship, and to be exclusively occupied with them.
Remedies and Safeguards
We conclude by summarizing Owen’s final chapter, “Directions to avoid the power of a prevailing apostasy.” Here are his pieces of advice:
1. Labor for a true sense of the way in which God’s glory is involved in the situation; learn to mourn the declension which robs Him of His glory, and pray for its removal; and meanwhile remain constant in professing the truth openly, at whatever cost, and adorning your profession with exemplary holiness.
2. Watch over your heart, keeping it alive and awake to its own deceitfulness, constant and confident in looking to Christ for upholding grace, and “attentive unto its own frames, its progress or decays in holiness.”
3. Take care not to rest and trust merely in the outward privileges of the Church, or the possession of spiritual gifts, or as many do, in the gifts of others and the satisfaction they receive thereby.”13 Ask yourself constantly whether these privileges are having the effect of making your heart better and humbler, your faith stronger and your apprehension of spiritual things more vivid, your diligence greater, and your readiness to suffer for Christ more wholehearted. If they are not having this effect, you are neglecting to profit from them, and are in danger.
4. Take heed of being infected by national vices, so that you unthinkingly follow the crowd down the primrose paths of sin. “For commonness will take off a sense of their guilt, and countenance will insensibly take away shame.”
5. “Carefully avoid all those miscarriages of professors which alienate the minds of men from the gospel, and countenance them in the contempt of the profession of it.” There are three classes of such miscarriages that are found in, or charged upon, Christians: “(a) want of love and unity among themselves. (b) Want of usefulness and kindness towards all. (c) Spiritual pride and censoriousness, or rash judging of other men.” “For that judging, or condemning of others, wherewith they are so provoked,” Owen concludes, “there is but one way whereby it may be done, . . . and this is in our lives. The practice of holiness judgeth all unholy persons in their own breasts.”
Owen wrote his treatise with the spiritual decline of post-Restoration days in his view; but the character of apostasy, like that of other spiritual conditions, does not change with the passage of time, and in our own day apostasy from the gospel, in all those spheres that Owen specifies, remains a fact to be reckoned with, a problem to be handled, and a temptation which besets us all. Owen’s teaching is thus exceedingly relevant, and we shall do well to ponder it and take it to heart.