Philip Gell

“ Can you convert a sinner from the error of his way? Can you give me the heart of stone broken down and melted into the humble and contrite heart? Can you display a compassionate and crucified Saviour, till men love Him fervently, and mourn for their sins which pierced Him? Can you heal a wounded spirit? ”

“ But unless ministers continually prove by all the “fruits of the Spirit,” that the Spirit of God is with them, their ordination does nothing for p. 35them in our esteem, but load them with extraordinary sin and guilt. It is expected, that they be “not of the world;” though it is not by monasteries that they are to go out of it; but by keeping themselves unspotted from the sins and vanities and pomps of it; while their light shines before men in doing good in it, for the glory of their heavenly Father. Their love of souls dictates zeal and labour and self-denial and holy co-operation. ”

“ They are sins of the mind, it is true: but are the sins of purely intellectual evil spirits less than the sins of men, because they are sins of minds and not of fleshly bodies? And is Satan to be gently dealt with, and not rather the more indignantly repulsed, when, and because, he comes as an angel of light? He is the very best imitator in the universe, and will be amiable in commending heresies to men. And you may take him to your hearts in the very resemblance of the Spirit of God Himself, and assume that you possess the holy anointing of that blessed Spirit ”

“ A more complete removal of the Saviour out of His place in the great work of redemption, with a specious introduction of the Holy Ghost to aid in the removal, that man may do the work of his own justification, it is not easy to conceive. Whether this be right or not, judge ye. But that the Holy Ghost should testify both to this justification, and to that which is by faith only in the righteousness of Christ, which is the justification of the Protestant Reformers and their Evangelical descendants, it is clearly impossible to suppose. ”

“ If these holy and heavenly purposes be not evidently answered by us, what are we better than others? If they be but feebly and equivocally answered, why are we not afraid, and put upon inquiry as to the cause, and upon prayer, most earnest prayer, that we may not be disowned both of God and man? ”

“ Our guilt is also that of resisting the Holy Ghost, in His truth, in His work, in His people. If we have not known the ways of God aright, we have erred in our hearts and hardened them,—against what the Holy Ghost saith, “Harden not your hearts;” ”

“ And this Nehushtan is the doctrine of justification by faith; concerning which I refer you to the glory of our Articles, the eleventh; and then I close this point with the plain question, Who are the true members of the Church of England; and with whom is the Spirit of the Holy Scriptures, the Spirit of the martyrs of the Reformation, the Spirit of the living God, the Holy Ghost? He cannot be with both. ”

“ You find it concisely expressed in 2 Tim. iv. 1–5, “I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and His kingdom,—Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering p. 43and doctrine. Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.” And in 1 Tim. iv. 12, “Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. ”

“ For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ. Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? ”

“ We know of no condition, except that of blaspheming against the Holy Ghost, in which, “if we confess our sins, God is” not “faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness;” and, “if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation for our sins.”
g. I shall not go over the same ground again, p. 28with reference to the sacrament of the holy Communion, as I have done with respect to Baptism, but state little more than that the way, in which the Anglo-catholics treat it, is precisely similar. ”

“ It is contradictory also to testimony upon testimony from their own favourite Fathers and Divines, [13b] as well as the Reformers; and even to the plainest testimony of Holy Scripture itself. p. 14“From I child,” says the Spirit of God by St. Paul to Timothy, “thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation though faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God; and is profitable for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be PERFECT, THOROUGHLY FURNISHED unto all good works.” ”

“ On the other hand, we read, with reference to spiritual baptism, “He shall baptize you,” saith John, concerning Jesus, “with the Holy Ghost and fire;” [23a] where water is not contemplated: “By one Spirit are we all” “baptized into one body.” [23b] “So many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death. Therefore we are buried with Him by the baptism unto death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed;” ”

“ Few indeed are the clear instances of any other kind of religious persecutions unto death; while the thousands upon thousands of those who have been the usual martyrs for Christ, have been, not of the Anglo-catholic, but of the Evangelical faith. The Reformers are granted to us: the Huguenots, the Waldenses, the Lollards and Hussites, the Paulicians, the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne, &c., have all been of the same confession of faith and the same character. ”

“ The happy and heavenly deaths of those who had lived upon the doctrines of Evangelical Protestantism are immortal and irresistible testimonies in favour of that sort of Christianity, as the truth of God. They constitute an evidence, which Anglo-catholics will never be able to produce. ”

“ The wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, do receive the sacrament of so great a thing as regeneration to their condemnation. Not receiving baptism rightly, they have no true part in the privileges and ordinances of the church, which are thereby sealed to the faithful.
[20] When the invitation is received, “Arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord,” (Acts xxii. 16,) —our church has guided us at once to say, it is the mystical, that is, the significant, washing away of sins, that is then accomplished ”

“ The Holy Ghost himself, and all that religion which consists in spiritual experience, are expressly removed from full and ordinary teaching,—the glory and excellency of them being consigned to reverential reserve! ”

“ Spiritual communion in the body and blood of Christ, which we hold that believers always may enjoy by faith in the living words of Christ, the Anglo-catholics bind inseparably to the sign or sacrament thereof; namely to the bread and wine, and the sacred ceremonial. Their body and blood of Christ is the bread and wine made so by their priests, and given only by their means to the people. “The sacraments,” to the exclusion of other ordinances, “are (with them) the sources of divine grace.” [28a] One is the very and only womb of regeneration itself ”

“ But if the same precision were used in a review of our Liturgy and Catechism, as was exercised in the framing of our Articles, we might avoid asserting anywhere, as well as in the latter, that the sacraments are means of the grace signified, without the loss of anything essential; and so we should be saved from predicating that in the definition of a thing, which is proved not to be universally true of it. We might be saved from seeming to affirm that we are made children of God spiritually by formal baptism, when in fact it is only formally that we are thereby made so ”

“ This is that which, (as Anglo-catholic teachers affirm,) “to say the least, Scripture has never much recommended;” an assertion very much to be blamed, as very untrue. [39b]
Now they who are not sensible of the inconceivable importance of preaching, will not seek the Spirit of preaching, neither will they have Him, if they do not ask for Him to be given them. The word, to be “the power of God unto salvation,” must be “preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,” [39c] “not in the words of man’s wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” ”

“ Now, it is true that we hold, that an evil minister, incurring even deposition by our discipline, does not necessarily prevent the communications of divine grace to the souls of men in the ministration of the word and sacraments. ”

“ We cannot— (and in my heart I feel deeply what I say) —we cannot all be right. And it is my honest and heart-rending conviction, that some of our differences are such, as will separate us for ever, if we die in them. ”

“ Whatever might be the truths or errors brought into question,—whether concerning the Holy Ghost Himself, or other subjects of a different nature,—there were such effects of his labours to be seen, as would prove the presence of that Divine Spirit with his ministry, and not with the contrary. And hence we may infer, that though all teachers among Christians will assert their possession of the Spirit, all may not possess Him ”

“ And add to this, concerning the thousands of outwardly baptized sinners, the testimony of St. John, that “whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; in this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil, whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God;” [25b] and the proof is conclusive, that in the formal baptism of these thousands upon thousands, who do so commit sin, no regeneration of God was ever experienced at all. The separation is clear. Men are born, without water-baptism, by the Spirit and the word; multitudes have it, and are never born of God at all. ”

“ And so it is observable, that though our form of infant baptism prefers to implore regeneration then, to presuming certainly that the infant is regenerated ere he comes, yet the fact is presumed to be granted previously to the answers being made; for they are the answers of a new-born soul. ”

“ But something also is said about our being able to “obey unto justification,” [16d] in opposition to Luther; which intimates clearly that human works, resulting from this indwelling, are to be the substantial justifying material; and faith is to be the first of those works. For when they refer to the Article, asserting that “we are justified by faith only,” they say, “Faith, as being the beginning of perfect or justifying righteousness, is taken for what it tends towards, or ultimately will be. ”

“ A pledge has respect to a thing future. The proper order of regeneration is to precede baptism, which cannot correctly therefore be a pledge of it? Where does Scripture so represent it? Circumcision was not a pledge to Abraham of the righteousness he had: a “seal” it was. ”

“ The assigning of regeneration and remission of sins to outward baptism gives immediate occasion to many other errors: but to one in particular, of a very lamentable character. I mean the deplorable, and all but hopeless condition of those, who sin away their regeneration, and their plenary remission received in baptism; as innumerable multitudes are held to do. “The great majority,” p. 27say the Anglo-catholics, “die under the bond of their sins;” ”

“ They are deeply impressed by the fact that His work is equally essential to their salvation with that of Jesus Himself, and full of consolation and delight. And some perhaps may be the more intent upon preaching all that ever appertains to Him from a spirit of holy jealousy, knowing that it is a subject in which so many of us halt. ”

“ While they are labouring with most devoted assiduity at this achievement, we, on the other hand, are firmly maintaining our old Church of England ground, standing by our old appeals as resolutely as ever, and humbly believing that the same God, who has for years been gradually and steadily increasing our numbers and our strength, will still go on to increase them, until the Church of England shall stand in the full and undisputed possession of the sons of her reforming fathers ”

“ The new birth of the soul by the Spirit, (except as in baptism,) the fruits of the Spirit in holiness, the comfort of the Spirit, the witness of the Spirit, the seal, the earnest, the fellowship, the indwelling, the anointing of the Holy Spirit,—His work as a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, and the deep things of God,—a Spirit of intercession, a Spirit of adoption, a Spirit of p. ”

“ These forms their clergy can handle and talk about, and they reservedly hint at the work of the Spirit of God in them: howbeit of spiritual life and spiritual communion, as things distinct from them, and much more large, and of other times and places, and means also, they profess to believe nothing. They hold the Spirit of God mostly within their own sources ”

“ But come now, and let us reason together. We have all, by our outward vocation, one common interest in one common and most momentous work. We have to save our own souls, and the p. 4souls of them that hear us. ”

“ They consider the laying on of the hands of a bishop and others of the presbytery, to be the most scriptural Ordination of presbyters, and best for their own church; [33b] yet not so essential to p. 34the being of a church but that Ordination without a bishop may be valid, and is so in other churches, and has scriptural succession in its Presbytery. ”