[3-15] 'Commentary on the Galatians,' Chap. iii.
[3-16] Compare the closing paragraph in p. 45 of 'The Shrine of the Slaves.' Strangely, as I revise this page for press, a slip is sent me from 'The Christian' newspaper, in which the comment of the orthodox evangelical editor may be hereafter representative to us of the heresy of his sect; in its last audacity, actually opposing the power of the Spirit to the work of Christ. (I only wish I had been at Matlock, and heard the kind physician's sermon.)
"An interesting and somewhat unusual sight was seen in Derbyshire on Saturday last—two old fashioned Friends, dressed in the original garb of the Quakers, preaching on the roadside to a large and attentive audience in Matlock. One of them, who is a doctor in good practice in the county, by name Dr. Charles A. Fox, made a powerful and effective appeal to his audience to see to it that each one was living in obedience to the light of the Holy Spirit within. Christ within was the hope of glory, and it was as He was followed in the ministry of the Spirit that we were saved by Him, who became thus to each the author and finisher of faith. He cautioned his hearers against building their house on the sand by believing in the free and easy Gospel so commonly preached to the wayside hearers, as if we were saved by 'believing' this or that. Nothing short of the work of the Holy Ghost in the soul of each one could save us, and to preach anything short of this was simply to delude the simple and unwary in the most terrible form.
"[It would be unfair to criticise an address from so brief an abstract, but we must express our conviction that the obedience of Christ unto death, the death of the Cross, rather than the work of the Spirit in us, is the good tidings for sinful men.— Ed.]"
In juxtaposition with this editorial piece of modern British press theology, I will simply place the 4th, 6th, and 13th verses of Romans viii., italicising the expressions which are of deepest import, and always neglected. "That the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit....For to be carnally minded, is death, but to be spiritually minded, is life, and peace....For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."
It would be well for Christendom if the Baptismal service explained what it professes to abjure.