PREFACE.
PART I.
PREFACE.
Whoever you are, into whose hands this book comes, I presume to put you in mind of this divine command, binding on your conscience: Deu. 1.17, “You shall not respect persons in judgment; but you shall hear the small as well as the great.” Do not reject the book with contempt, or with indignation either, when you find it entitled The Marrow of Modern Divinity, lest you do it to your own hurt. Remember that our blessed Lord himself was “considered a friend of publicans and sinners,” Mat. 11.19. — “Many said of him, He has a devil, and is mad; why hear him?” John 10.20. The apostle Paul was slanderously reported to be an Antinomian; that he was one who, by his doctrine, encouraged men to do evil and “make void the law,” Rom. 3.8, 31. And the first martyr in the days of the gospel was stoned for his pretended “blasphemous words against Moses and against the law,” Acts 6.11, 13.
The gospel method of sanctification, as well as justification, lies so far outside the understanding of natural reason, that if all the rationalists in the world, philosophers and divines, had consulted together to lay down a plan for repairing the lost image of God in man, they would never have hit upon what divine wisdom has settled on; namely, that sinners should be sanctified in Christ Jesus, 1Cor. 1.2, by faith in him, Acts 26.18. Indeed not, for if laid it before them, they would have rejected it with disdain, as foolishness, 1Cor. 1.23.
In all those views which fallen man has towards the means of his own recovery, the natural bent is toward the way of the Covenant of Works. This is evident in the case of the vast multitudes throughout the world who embrace Judaism, Paganism, Mahometanism, and Popery. All these agree in this one principle: that men must live by doing, even though they hugely differ as to the things to be done for life.
The Jews, in the time of Julian the Apostate, attempted to rebuild their temple after it had lain in ruins for many years; by the decree of heaven it was never to be built again; and they did not cease till by an earthquake — which shook the old foundation and tore it all down to the ground — they were forced to forbear, as Socrates the historian tells us. But the Jews were never more addicted to that temple than mankind is naturally addicted to building on the first covenant. And Adam’s children will by no means quit it, until Mount Sinai, where they desire to work what they work, is on fire all around them. Oh, that those who have been frightened from it were not so ready to go back to it!
Yet that can never be the channel of sanctification, whatever way men prepare it and fit it out for that purpose, because by divine appointment, it is not the “ministration of righteousness and life,” 2Cor. 3.9.
Hence it is always to be observed that as the doctrine of the gospel is corrupted (to introduce a more rational sort of religion), the flood of looseness and licentiousness swells proportionately. Morality, substituted for doctrine in the place and stead of the gospel of the grace of God, never fails to be in effect, a signal for an inundation of immorality in practice. A plain instance of it is to be seen in the grand apostasy from the truth and holiness of the gospel, as exemplified in Popery. And on the other hand, real and thorough reformation in churches is always the effect of gospel light breaking forth again from under the cloud which had covered it; and the Church of Scotland, among others, has more than once had a comfortable experience of this.
The real friends of true holiness, then, exceedingly mistake their measures in affording a handle on any occasion whatsoever, to advance the principles of legalism, for bringing under contempt the good old way in which our fathers found rest for their souls, and for removing the ancient landmarks which they set.
It is now over eighty years since this book made its first entrance into the world, under the title of The Marrow of Modern Divinity, not unfitly prefixed to it at that time; but it is too evident that it has outlived the fitness of that title. The truth is, the divinity taught in it is now no longer the modern, but the ancient divinity, as it was recovered from underneath the Antichristian darkness; and as it stood before the tools of the recent refiners of Protestant doctrine were lifted up against it — a doctrine which, being from God, must be according to godliness.
It was to contribute to preserving this doctrine, and to withstanding its being run down under the odious name of Antinomianism (in the disadvantageous situation it has in this book, whose undeserved lot it is to be spoken against everywhere), that the following notes were written.
Two things chiefly have had weight in this. One is to avoid this doctrine being givne such a bad name, that it becomes the object of the settled aversion of sober persons, thus betraying them into legalism by it. The other is (in these days of God’s indignation that so much appears in his spiritual judgments) to avoid someone taking from the hand of this author and ancient divines, its principles for truths in such a sense, scope, and design (because of its now common fame) that they are betrayed into real Antinomianism.
Reader, lay aside prejudices, — look and see with your own eyes, — call things by their own names, and do not reckon Anti-Baxterianism or Anti-Neonomianism to be Antinomianism, and you will find no Antinomianism taught here; but you will perhaps be surprised to find that this same tale is told about Luther and other famous Protestant divines, under the borrowed name of the despised Mr. Fisher, author of The Marrow of Modern Divinity.
In the Notes you will find that obsolete or ambiguous words, phrases, and things are explained; truth is clarified, confirmed, and vindicated; and the annotator has no hesitation to declare his dissent from the author where he saw just ground for it.
I have no doubt that he will be thought by some to have constructed several passages too favourably; but it is nothing strange that he inclines to the charitable side, the book having been blessed by God to his own soul many years ago. So if he has erred on that side, it is the safest of the two for you and me, judging the words of another man whose intention, I believe with Mr. Burroughs, to have been very sincere for God and the reader’s good. However, I am satisfied that he has dealt candidly in that matter, according to his light.
Be advised always to read over a lesser section of the book, before reading any of the notes on it, so that you may have a clearer understanding of the whole.
I conclude this preface, in the words of two eminent professors of theology, deserving our serious regard: —
“I dread mightily that a rational sort of religion is coming in among us: I mean by that, a religion that consists in a bare attendance on outward duties and ordinances, without the power of godliness: and from this, people will fall into a way of serving God which is a mere deism, having no relation to Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God.”
“I warn each one of you, and especially those who are to be directors of the conscience, that you exercise yourselves in study, reading, meditation, and prayer, so that you may be able to instruct and comfort both your own and other’s consciences in the time of temptation, and bring them back from the law to grace, from active (or working) righteousness, to passive (or received) righteousness; in a word, from Moses to Christ.”