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INQUIRE OF THE FORMER AGE
by
H. G. LANG
Job 8:8
Notes upon the modern recovery of truth concerning the church of God and prophecy
1
The purposes of God centre in His Son, Jesus Christ, and are directed
to His glory. The revelation of these purposes to man advanced through long
ages and was completed through the apostles and prophets of New Testament days.
At once it became the necessary effort of Satan, the Enemy of God and man, to
obscure that light and corrupt men's understanding of God's purposes and ways.
Confusion as to these spread rapidly. Not only were the emissaries of Satan
used to diffuse darkness, misunderstanding, and false opinions, but also
devoted Christians. Perhaps the earliest known post-apostolic instance is
Ignatius, the martyr bishop of Antioch,
who greatly exaggerated the office of a single elder to rule each local
assembly.
Not many centuries had passed before there spread a general blindness,
in nominal Christian spheres, as to four main matters:
a) The nature, order, and future of that society of persons termed in
the New Testament "the church
of God".
b) The nature, course, and future of the Jewish people.
c) The nature, course, and future of the nations of the world.
d) The nature, character, and circumstances of the personal return of
the Lord Jesus Christ in relation to these matters and to the fulfillment of
the plans of God.
This blindness lay heavily and almost undisturbed through the thousand
years of the Dark Ages. Only now and then and here and there did individuals or
groups gain from the Word of God gleams of light upon one or another of these
principal themes or their subordinate subjects. And these individuals were
faced with suppression by that vicious and fierce "Jezebel" who had
usurped the place of Christ in the nominal Church.
Yet God did not forget to be gracious. As that millennium of darkness
rolled slowly on a Wycliffe here, a Huss there, and a Savonarola yonder gained
light and diffused light, and in the sixteenth century morning broke by the rediscovery
and wide proclamation of the mighty truth that the justification of the sinner
is procured through the perfected redemption wrought by Christ on the cross and
is secured by faith without legal works.
2
But as to the four great matters mentioned the Reformation period
remained in much obscurity. Luther did indeed see clearly the true character of
a local church of
Christians, but he turned
from that light and agreed to the subjection of religion to the State. In this
matter the Reformed Churches became more definitely anti-biblical than the
Roman Church they had left. That Church asserts that the State should be
subject to the Church. In its principle this is Scriptural, for it is the
purpose of God that the saints shall judge the world and angels (1 Cor. 6:2,3);
that is, the church glorified is hereafter to share the rule of Christ over
earth and also heaven. The error of the Catholic claim is that this sovereignty
is to be exercised in this age and be the means of establishing on earth Augustine's
City of God.
The pursuit of this aim betrayed the Papacy into the embrace of Satan, for he
has the same principle and purpose. Pride, cruelty, and much ungodliness
followed.
Yet the Reformed error is still worse. It takes the sphere which God
has created and reserved for Himself, the church, of which Christ the Son of
God is the sole Head, and gives it to Caesar. The acting head of the State
becomes automatically the head, in his realm, of God's house, even though he
may be an immoral tyrant like Henry VIII of England
or the unspeakably licentious Frederick
the Great of Prussia, the notorious sodomite and atheist. Thus, as in the
earliest days, good and devoted Christians like the great Reformers were
beguiled by Satan into serving his foul ends. Still may a lover of Christ like
Simon Peter be, wholly unconsciously, Satan's agent to put a stumbling block
before Christ and His people.
This disastrous system prevailed in nearly all the Reformed countries.
Freedom of religion, but lately won at so stern a cost, was withdrawn, and
those believers who refused submission were bitterly suppressed by these State
Churches, as before the Roman Church. For example, early in the eighteenth
century, Defoe, in the Preface to an edition of Thomas De Laune's Plea for the
Non -Conformists, stated that so lately as in the reign of Charles II of England
(1660-1685), nearly 8000 Dissenters perished in the plague-ridden jails of this
country.
Even when Dissent at last gained liberty (1689, the Act of Toleration)
the various bodies retained features which were of man, not being shown in the
Word of God as part of His ordering for His church. Much confusion of teaching
continued upon the four chief themes mentioned. A dominant idea in Protestant
theology was that Israel
had no national future, the Old Testament promises and prophecies being
transferred to the church, to receive only a "spiritual" fulfillment. The
course of world events was to be a gradual amelioration of human society by the
?leaven? of the gospel, until all mankind should have been brought unto God,
and only then would the Lord return to rule the earth. No notion is more
thoroughly contrary to Scripture and history than this.
In the eighteenth century, the grace of God moved afresh in England. The
evil, worldliness, and deadness which had largely paralysed the Reformed
regions, were disturbed powerfully by travelling preachers such as Wesley,
Whitefield, and many others. But this gracious movement still left confusion
upon the chief topics in vies. Wesley remained to the end a clergyman of the State Church.
Even when clerical opposition compelled him with reluctance to form separate
Societies they were gathered on a wholly inadequate basis: it was enough that
applicants for membership have ?a desire to save their souls?; whereas the true
church of God is limited to those who have been
actually born again and indwelled by the Spirit through faith in Christ. Nor
was the darkness much dispelled as to things future, though probably the
Wesleys themselves saw that the personal return of Christ is the true hope of
His people. One may infer this from remarks by John Wesley and from his brother's
fine hymn "Leader of faithful souls", with its closing lines "With joy upon our
heads arise, And meet our Captain in the skies," an evident allusion to 1
Thess. 4.
3
But the strong emphasis of that period upon personal holiness of heart
and life had blessed effects beyond those which had followed the Reformation.
People rendered their heart susceptible to advance, and the Spirit of God led
such people onward in the understanding of His Word.
In the third decade of the nineteenth century, eyes were opened to see
the true nature and unity of the church
of God, the difference between the
church and Israel
and the Gentile nations, and the purposes of God for each group. The opening up
of the plans of God, as stated in His Word, was nothing less than revolutionary
from the standpoint of the Established Church and Nonconformity. To meet this
situation God had taken a step that was at least most unusual, if not without
precedent. His movements to recover lost truth and to revive Christian practice
have regularly started among persons of lowly social status and only later have
reached out to people of higher rank. In the present case this was reversed.
The group of men who first saw and spread the truths in question were mostly of
good social position and first-class education. Many of them had won the
highest academic honours at various universities, a fact which stopped their
ecclesiastical opponents from saying that if only these men knew Hebrew and
Greek, and had studied theology and history, they would not hold such opinions.
And being men of leisure and means they were in a position to spread the light
widely, by speech and pen, and they knew how to state it lucidly and with
conviction.
The movement that grew out of this beginning became known as "The
Brethren," though they disclaimed the term as limited to any but the whole
family of God.
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