As well may we talk of a man's travelling both east and west at one and the same time, as of his following Christ in the regeneration, while living in the works of generation. The thing is impossible; because the work of regeneration is the operation of the Spirit of Christ upon the soul, which destroys the nature of sin, and raises the soul out of the fallen nature of the first Adam, into the spiritual life of Jesus Christ the second Adam. And this can never be gained by any soul short of crucifying the flesh with all its affections and lusts. Yet so unwilling are mankind to have the fallen nature of the flesh crucified in themselves, that they will use every means in their power to nourish and preserve it, as tho they were even unwilling to go to Heaven without it; and will therefore contrive any way to carry it along with them. But their contrivance will all be in vain; for that nature must die before the soul can ever live to God, or find an entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. All professors of christianity will agree that mankind are lost in Adam; and that there is no redemption but in and through Christ. "For as in Adam all die; so in Christ shall all be made alive." If in Adam all die, then it follows that the works of Adam bring death; consequently we must quit these works before we can be made alive in Christ. 66 Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." So testified Christ; and here let it be again repeated. It is impossible for souls to find salvation from sin, under the light of the gospel, revealed in this day, short of utterly renouncing the work of generation, and crucifying the flesh with all its affections and lusts. Nor will any soul ever pass through the new birth and be redeemed to God, until the whole of that fallen nature, root and branch, is entirely destroyed out of the soul; and the longer a soul lives in the indulgence of that nature, the more difficult, painful and distressing will it be for that soul to erucify it; and this, he will find, must be his own work, or he can never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. If a man "must be born again," he must, in passing through this birth, be raised out of that nature in which he had his first birth; and become dead to all its propensities

Objection 5. But if this be so, says the objector, what is become of the good old patriarchs and prophets? They lived in the works of natural generation, and, as you say, followed the example of old Adam, in this respect, and not the example of Jesus Christ; your doctrine must therefore exclude them from the Kingdom of Heaven and are they all lost?

Answer. They could not follow the example of Jesus Christ; because he had not then appeared; and he could not set them an example before he made his appearance. Those who lived before the coming of Christ, were under "the law of a carnal commandment;" and while they strictly obeyed that law, and lived up to

the light of God, given in their day, they found justification before God, and were blessed of God and protected from evil according to the measure of their light and obedience; and this was all they could do in that day. They could not be redeemed from a fallen nature, in that day; because, as Christ had not then appeared, the work of redemption could not take place. But Christ having been promised, as their Redeemer, to appear in the fulness of time, they lived and died in the faith of that promise; they looked forward to a future day, the day of full salvation and redemption.

Hence the apostle, in speaking of the faith of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the rest of the patriarchs and prophets, says, "And these all having obtained a good report through faith, re❝ceived not the promise: God having provided some better thing "for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." These having been faithful to walk according to the light which was revealed in their day, were owned and blessed of God: they departed in faith and rested in hope, believing that the time would come when the promised redemption would appear. Their having left their earthly tabernacles, and consigned those mortal bodies to the dust long before the day of redemption appeared, could not exclude them from its benefits when the time was fully come. For the work of redemption, being a spiritual work, must operate upon the soul, whether in the body or out of it; and therefore the separation of the soul from the body, cannot prevent this operation.

The patriarchs and prophets having been faithful unto death, and having rested in hope, and waited with patience God's appointed time, for the gospel of Christ to appear, their faith directed them into a willing obedience to it. They had now to pass through its purifying fire, in order to cleanse them from the fallen nature of the first Adam, before they could gain their redemption and be made perfect in glory. In this work of purification, they are united with those of the same faith in the body; so that those who are present in the body, and those who have departed out of it, become one in Christ; and being joined together in the same spirit, and under the operations of the same gospel, they are made perfect in righteousness together. Thus they become the real followers of Christ in their disembodied state, not having had that privilege while in the body; and in this manner, they with us are made perfect.†

This doctrine will doubtless appear new and strange to those who have always been bound, by the tradition of their fathers, to a different faith. And as they have been taught to believe no doctrine but what can be proved from the scriptures, they will naturally ask, Where is the scripture evidence of this? But let the dark veil of the flesh be removed from the eyes of the mind, and no one

will then ask for scripture evidence to prove a doctrine which must carry with it, and in it, the most certain conviction. As the scriptures are but a record of those events which were revealed and brought to pass in former dispensations, it cannot reasonably be expected that they should contain doctrines which were not to be made manifest until the fulness of time came, unless it were by types and shadows, or the mysterious revelations of prophecy, which are but imperfectly understood, if understood at all, before the fulfilment takes place. Yet the spirit of the scriptures, if not pointedly expressive on these subjects, is in every respect, conformable thereto, without a single instance of any thing to the contrary.*

CHAPTER III.

The subject continued, in which further objections are stated and answered, & the doctrine of continence and celibacy confirmed. WE shall proceed to answer a few more objections which are frequently advanced against the doctrine of celibacy and conti

nence.

Objection 6. The primitive christians did not all live lives of celibacy, but many of them lived in a state of matrimony, as we find in the New Testament, and the apostle Paul tolerated them in it, as appears in his first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 7th, where he gives directions concerning husbands and wives. Were not these people christians?

Answer. If they were christians, the same apostle calls them carnal, and severely reproves them for their carnality. But as the time had not then arrived for a full revelation of the man of sin to be made, and as that revelation was necessarily connected with the second coming of Christ; therefore these Corinthian christians, who were with so much difficulty persuaded to renounce their former licentious practices, were tolerated in living, in some measure, according to the course of the world. The same tolera

tion was also extended to other gentile churches; but the church at Jerusalem seems to have preserved a greater measure of purity than any other. And tho it is clearly evident that the primitive christians had received a far greater measure of divine light than had ever before been revealed on earth; yet while they were still under the vail of the flesh, they could not have a full sight of that way of redemption which they still waited for; and therefore they were justified in walking in obedience to that degree of light which they had received; and as this was all they could then do, God required no more of them.

*See Acts ii. 31. 1 Pet. iii. 19. & iv 6. Rev. vi. 9, 10, 11. † See 1 Cor. iii. 1 to 4

But the apostle Paul evidently saw further; he clearly saw that a day of further light and greater purity must necessarily take place, at the second appearing of Christ. Peter and John, and doubtless others, had similar views, and looked forward to a day of greater purity and holiness. But they also saw that a falling away would first take place, in which Antichrist would rise and exercise great power and dominion: "For that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first."*

The falling away of the primitive church, which was attended with the introduction of a flood of corruption, in morals and manners, was the occasion of those dark and deceitful doctrines which have blinded the eyes of the professors of christianity to the present day. In every age, the great object of the spirit of Antichrist, in all his works, has been to counterfeit the religion of Christ. And what more effectual method could he devise, than to attach erroneous meanings to the names of christian doctrines, and blend them with practices which have not the most distant connection with the pure gospel of Christ? Hence arose that universal deception which supposes that generation and regeneration are perfectly consistent with each other; that christains may practice the generation of the flesh, and at the same time be subjects of the regeneration of the spirit; that is, that they may at once live according to the flesh and walk according to the spirit, regardless of the apostle's testimony that, "these are contrary the one to the other."+ Hence also, the resurrection of the soul from the fallen nature of the flesh, is understood to mean, a resurrection of the natural body of flesh and bones, from the mouldering ruins of the grave.

The names of these, and many other doctrines of the gospel, are retained, while the real substance is wholly perverted and lost in antichristian darkness. This is undoubtedly the principal cause that modern professors of christianity do not discover the real distinction between the flesh and the spirit, and see the utter impossibility of following Christ in the regeneration of the spirit, while living in the practical generation of the flesh. Hence all those christians, so called, whether of primitive or modern times, who, under their christian profession, have lived in the practical works of generation, can be viewed in no other light than as carnal christians; and with all their christianity, they can never gain complete possession of the Kingdom of Heaven, until they are completely purified from the nature of the flesh and all its corrupt and debasing propensities. And tho in consequence of having obeyed the light which they had received, they may be free from condemnation; yet they cannot find their redemption short of passing through the purifying fire of the gospel.

Objection 7. The doctrine of celibacy appears to be condemned by the scriptures, particularly in Paul's epistle to Timothy, where he gives the following testimony in plain terms: "Now the Spirit "speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart "from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of "devils;-forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from

meats."*

Answer. Perhaps no passage found in the sacred writings has furnished a more popular argument against a life of continence than this. It is indeed considered by many as sufficient to condemn the doctrine of celibacy altogether; and it is often urged as a testimony of condemnation against every religious society whose faith leads them to maintain such a life, however far they may be from "forbidding to marry," or "commanding to abstain from meats." But a little examination will readily show that it furnishes not the smallest proof against a life of conscientious celibacy, either in a society or an individual.

The objectors evidently suppose that the apostle's expression is to be understood in a literal sense; otherwise it would be useless to advance it as an argument in their favor; and therefore, for the sake of a fair examination, we will admit their literal construction.

Forbidding and commanding then, according to this sense, must necessarily imply power to enforce what is thus forbidden and commanded; otherwise no effect could be produced thereby; and of course the prediction of the apostle would have been of little or no importance. In order therefore to render the passage applicable to any society or denomination of people, that society must not only positively forbid to marry, and command to abstain from meats, but it must actually enforce its commands and prohibitions by a power sufficient to effect the object. It must also fill up the whole character described by the apostle; otherwise the charge must fail in its application: for there can be no real consistency in the charge, unless it be applied to a people in whom that character is fully displayed; and certainly it cannot, with any consistency, be applied to the United Society. With this Society, a life of continence and celibacy is a matter of conscience, proceeding from their religious faith, and therefore needs no 66 forbidding to marry" in the case; because the cross of self-denial is a voluntary act and surely the apostle's prediction cannot apply to any such people.

Protestant writers have generally charged this, "forbidding to marry" upon the Church of Rome; and if we are to consider the apostle's expressions in a literal sense, there appears to be some foun

*Tim. iv. 1 & 3.

P