Art. 1. THE HIGHER LIFE AND CHRISTIAN PERFECTION.* THAT the prevalent tone of Christian experience and holy living is quite below the level of scriptural standards and privileges; that there is an urgent call for the great body of Christians to rise to a much higher plane of inward piety and its visiblefruits; that none are so high that they should not make it their supreme endeavor to rise higher; that to struggle onward and upward through the strength, holiness and grace already attained to yet higher measures of them, so that receiving grace for grace, they may go from strength to strength toward the goal of sinless perfection whenever and wheresoever attainable; that so there is required the ceaseless effort to get free from sin and overcome indwelling corruption, are propositions which few will be found to dispute, unless, indeed, some Perfectionists dispute the last of them, claiming to have reached *The Higher Christian Life, by Rev. W. E. Boardman. Pioneer Experiences; or, the Gift of Power Received by Faith. Illustrated and Confirmed by the Testimony of Eighty Living Witnesses of Various Denominations. By the author of " Way of Holiness," &c. Introduction by Rev. Bishop Janes. The Rest of Faith, by Rev. Isaac M. See. Autobiography of Rev. Charles G. Finney. Chapter xxvii. Holiness the Birthright of God's Children, by the Rev. J. T. Crane, D. D. The Old Paths; a Treatise on Sanctification. Scripture the Only Authority. By Rev. Thomas Mitchell. Purity and Maturity, by Rev. J. A. Wood. A Plain Account of Christian Perjection, by Rev. John Wesley. entire sinlessness in this life. They are to the eye of true Christian insight their own evidence. To emphasize and magnify the "Higher Life" in this sense is simply to recognize and strive to give effect to the principles of our common Christianity; and in this all will or ought heartily to join. It is worth while to mark this distinctly at the outset. For this term "higher life" is constantly used now to denote something quite different, as if it were the peculiarity of a small select circle who make it their watchword, a badge of the chosen few who have reached summits of Christian experience quite above the great mass of the commonwealth of Israel. Theirs are the gifts and endowments to which Christians generally are strangers, and theirs the joys with which a stranger intermeddleth not. The distinctive views of the class we refer to, amid many minor and circumstantial variations, are for substance: 1. That sinless perfection is attainable, and by those who attain the higher life in question, actually attained in this life. 2. That it is gained instantaneously by an act of faith in Christ, which appropriates him for immediate and entire sanctification, in the same manner as for immediate and full justification; and that each is equally, with the other, immediate, equally complete, equally conferred co-instantaneously with the act of faith which receives it; and in equal independence of works, as in any sense either the procuring, instrumental, efficient or meritorious cause. 3. Therefore, that this perfect sanctification is not through any process of gradual growth, striving, or advancement toward sinless perfection, whether in this life or the life to come; but is at once grasped by faith, and held by it till let go by backsliding or apostasy-the latter being regarded by the Higher Life Arminians as liable, by those that are Calvinists as not liable, to occur. 4. This attainment is attended with the constant or ordinary presence of unclouded peace, joy and hope, such as the Bible connects with the highest grades of Christian experi ence. 5. Some, perhaps most, of this Higher Life school, so far especially as it has appeared in Calvinistic communions, maintain that this act of faith which instantaneously grasps perfect sanctity is preceded by an act of entire consecration to God in Christ. In other words, it is preceded by itself-for entire consecration is perfect holiness. In regard to all these points we think the position taken in our standards scriptural and impregnable, and that no more correct and adequate enunciation of Christian truth in the premises can be found. * We may remark, before going further, that with some the doctrine of Higher Life means merely the habitual possession and enjoyment of Christian assurance, in which they erroneously conceive themselves exceptional or superior to any recognized standards of Christian experience in evangelical churches. This, however, as our standards affirm, belongs to the normal development of Christian experience; not, however, so that it usually becomes firm and enduring, even if it appear at all, in the early stages of the regenerate life. It rather belongs normally, though not exclusively, to the maturer stages of Christian experience; it is confirmed by the culture and consequent evidence of the graces, which are also the fruits of the Spirit, and evidences of his saving work. These, however, are so wrought in us by the Spirit as to depend at the same time upon our "giving all diligence unto the full assurance of hope unto the end"; all "diligence to make our calling and election sure," the Holy Spirit herein and hereby witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God. It is too true that far fewer attain this blessed estate than might be looked for in a normal condition of the church; far fewer than those to whom the privileges of the gospel estate and Christian vocation open it, who might and should work up to and reach it. It is no less true that those who attain a sound assurance sustained by good Christian fruits, reach a higher than average Christian life, and generally higher than their own previous Christian life. In this sense a higher life than the average among Christians may be maintained. But this is not, or is only in part, the kind of higher life intended. This latter involves not only assurance, which rests on perfect justification duly proving itself by holiness of life, but perfect *See Larger Catechism, answers to questions 77 8-9 80. Shorter Catechism, questions 35-82. sanctification; and this sanctification received by some single act of faith as an accomplished fact, which keeps the soul in a continuous state of freedom from sin, and from all conscience of sin, and so of abiding peace and joy, by a sort of quietistic resting in Christ, not only for justification, but for sanctification. This peace and assurance, too, come not mainly from the sense of pardon through Christ's imputed righteousness, but of sinlessness through the perfect inherent righteousness or holiness wrought by him within us, and received by us, like his justifying righteousness, by faith, without personal works or strivings on our part to effect or to promote it. As we shall see more fully further on, this perfectionism is defined and vindicated in different and often inconsistent ways by its advocates. It is apt to run into some form of Quietism or Mysticism, or Antinomianism, or licentiousness, while a large proportion of those embracing some forms of it give every sign of leading holy lives. The Reformed and Calvinistic doctrine, as expressed in our standards, and as held by nearly all evangelical Protestants, the Methodists and Lutherans excepted, differs from the foregoing by asserting that sin, although subdued and growing weaker, is never entirely eradicated in this life; while the renewed spirit, ever struggling against it, is, notwithstanding possible occasional vicissitudes and backslidings, on the whole gaining the mastery over it, till the grand consummation of complete deliverance from sin is reached at death, which itself with sin-its cause-there dies. Hence it maintains that sanctification is a gradual work, growing with the growth, and promoted by the efforts, struggles and prayers of the Christian ; who, while in his predominating character holy, is yet never free in this life from the remains of sin, which, though ever dying, is not dead, but still maintains its dying struggle, till the soul, freed at death, passes to be one of the spirits of the just made perfect. In further clearing the issue before us, it is expedient to dispose of a number of inconclusive arguments, often and confidently advanced by the advocates of the theory in question. 1. Those passages of Scripture which attribute sanctification, holiness, or purity to believers, or which exhort them to seek, pursue or practise the same, or which promise deliver ance from sin in its guilt, pollution and dominion, or which covenant full and complete salvation-all these prove nothing in behalf of sinless perfection in this life. They prove nothing because they are applied to all Christians and saints as such in the Scripture, and not merely to a few select ones of a higher grade of Christian life than the mass. But it is admitted by this school that the mass of Christians have not yet attained, and in this life most of them never will attain, sinless perfection. Therefore, if they are actually addressed to those who are Christians, but yet not sinlessly perfect, then this demonstrates that they give no evidence of the perfect sinlessness of those to whom they are addressed, or for whom they are designed. Not only so, but the Christian to whom all pretensions of sinless perfection are alien and offensive, interprets these passages as applicable to himself and suiting his own case, without the least consciousness or suspicion of distorting, perverting, or overstraining their proper import. Full salvation is indeed promised and secured to all the faithful in Christ Jesus. But it is only in part or in its beginnings here; in its seed first implanted and quickened in regeneration, herein having the pledge of onward growth in holiness, and increasing christian fruitage upon earth. The soul is to be made perfect therein at death; then immediately passing into glory to await reunion with the body at the resurrection of the just, when Christ shall raise it again, and make it like unto his glorious body. So we receive a full salvation in Christ when we receive him by faith; but a salvation begun here, and completed only with respect to the soul when we pass by the gate of death to the realms of glory; and with respect to the body when it shall also be raised in glory. All these things are included in salvation, a part at once finished and perfect upon the first act of faith, as justification and a title to the heavenly inheritance; a part inchoate and germinant, to have a future development and growth, as sanctification and Christian maturity and fruitfulness; or part in promise and foretaste, as the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. He who receives Christ indeed, receives "all things pertaining to life and godliness." "Whom he did predestinate, them he also called; whom he called, them he also justified; whom he justified, them he also glorified."-Rom. viii. 30. Is not glorification here declared. |