TO DELIVER UP TO SATAN. [The following article, recently come to hand, is presented for the consideration of several querists on 1 Cor. v. 5; James v. 14, 15, THIS is a singular, but remarkably expressive phrase. It signifies to inflict bodily disease upon a person. This will appear from the following considerations:-1st. The introduction of disease and death into the world is referable to the transgression of the progenitors of our race at the instigation of Satan. The ancient Hebrews, who were very little versed in the study of natural philosophy, and not much accustomed to recur to physical causes, and consult physicians when they were sick, imputed their diseases generally to evil spirits, the executioners of divine vengeance. Leprosies, which were so common among the Jews, were treated as diseases sent by God; hence the priests and not physicians, were the persons who judged of the nature and qualities of this evil, shut up the diseased, and declared they were healed, or had their leprosy upon them; and after their recovery they offered sacrifices, as it were, to expiate for their faults. 2nd. In the New Testament, the cause of many diseases is attributed to Satan; and as a consequence of sin. There the daughter of Abraham, who had had an issue of blood, is said to have been bound by it of Satan for eighteen years. This hemorrhage is also called a spirit of infirmity, i. e. a sore disease inflicted by the evil spirit through sin. The phraseology of Jesus is remarkable in this respect. He often connected disease, sin, and Satan, as cause and effect. "Behold," says he to the man diseased thirty-eight years, "you are cured; sin no more, lest something (or some disease) worse befal you." Again, "his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind ?" And whenever Christ or his apostles had a mind to cure the diseased, they began with casting out the devils; and the cure immediately followed. Paul attributes the death and diseases of many of the Corinthian disciples to their communicating unworthily, "for this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep;" i. e. are dead. He also ascribes the infirmities with which he was afflicted to an evil messenger-"there was given me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me." There are a great number of diseases, or Satanic inflictions, recorded in Scripture, which were sent by God in the way of punishment for sin. "To be delivered to Satan," then, is to be buffetted or punished with disease, and sometimes to suffer death. We have apostolic examples of the delivery up of persons to Satan as a punishment for sin. The first that occurs after Pentecost is the case of Ananias and Sapphira, for lying to God. Peter and John, &c., who were elders and pillars in the church, delivered such persons up to Satan irremediably, as grand examples of the power they possessed of punishing evil-doers, as well as of rewarding them that do well, by alleviating their corporeal frailties. Another case was that of Elymas the magician, by Paul, in the presence of Sergius Paulus. He also tells us, in his first letter to Timothy, that he had delivered Hymeneus and Alexander up to Satan, that they might be taught by chastisement not to blapheme. Having then ascertained the meaning of this phrase, we pass on to consider the exercise of this power in the primitive congregations. And here I would observe, that during the age of spiritual gifts, the discipline of the church involved in it the issues of life and death: a fact which speaks volumes as to the estimation in which discipline is held by the Great Head of the mystical body. "Not by speech, but by power is the kingdom of God established." The Corinthian congregation came behind in no gift; hence it possessed the power of inflicting disease as well as of curing it; that offenders might be taught not to defame, &c. These are termed "powers" and "gifts of healing; and follow in order after apostles, prophets, and teachers. "To each," (of the eldership, I take it; for they were given "for the adapting of these saints to the work of the service, for the building up of the body of Christ ")-to each the Holy Spirit distributed his proper gifts as he pleased. In this congregation, then, constituted with a powerful, not a mere nominal, eldership, a case of incest occurred. This was communicated, as it would appear, by some of the family of Chloe to the apostle. It would also seem, to the aggravation of the apostle's grief, that a party had arisen in favour of the criminal; for some of thein, instead of bewailing the offence, were puffed up, and endeavoured to prevent his separation. This party, however, appears to have been a factious minority only of the congregation; for, in the second letter, he contrasts a part of you" with "the majority" or the many, who, upon receiving Paul's first letter, expressed great indignation at the offence, clearing of themselves, and sorrow; a sorrow, in which the apostle rejoiced, because it produced reformation, by an expurgation 66 of the leaven from among them that they might become a new lump. In this state of things, twelve months before he wrote the second letter, he determined to put their allegiance to him, as the apostle of Jesus Christ to the gentiles, to the test; for, in addition to the case of the incestuous person, his apostleship had been questioned by certain among them who were puffed up on account of favourite teachers. "For this end also I wrote, that I might know the proof of you, whether you would be obedient in all things." He therefore sent them an order, commanding them to "deliver this very person up to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus;" that they were not to associate, not even to eat, with such a character;""therefore," says he, "put away from among yourselves the wicked person." Notwithstanding their divisions, a majority (and the majority constitutes the church in fact) adhered to the apostle, and did his bidding. They assembled, and, at their meeting, and by the sanction of their presence, "in the name, or by the authority of, the Lord Jesus Christ, with the power (of infliction) of the Lord Jesus Christ," in the hands of them of the eldership, to whom the Holy Spirit had distributed "powers," they delivered the incestuous person up as a prey to a disease, by which his flesh was consumed. This disease appears to have been lingering; for, in the letter a year after, he exhorts them "to forgive and comfort him, lest he should be swallowed up by excessive grief." The most effectual way of doing this was by curing the disease, and so releasing him from the bondage of Satan. But how was this done? We shall consult another apostle that we may be instructed, "Is any one," says James, "sick among you ?" Let him send for the elders of the congregation, and let them pray over him, having anointed him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save (or heal) the sick person, and so the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." There were some cases, however, in which they were forbidden to pray; for John says, "this is the confidence we have with him (the Son of God), that if we ask any thing according to his will, he hearkens to us. And if we know that he hearkens to us concerning whatever we ask, we know that we shall obtain the petitions which we have asked from him. If any one see his brother sinning a sin, (i. e. transgressing some law) not to death (i. e. not punishable with death) let him ask, and he (the Son of God) will grant him life (i. e. he will not punish him with a fatal disease) for those who sin not to death. There is a sin to death (i. e. punishable with death). I do not say concerning it, that you should ask. All unrighteousness is sin; but there is a sin not to death. 1 Ep. v. 14-17. but are It is obvious, then, from what has been advanced, and from things as they exist, that life and death were, not now, in the hands of the eldership; because the gifts of the Spirit are not now imparted to them as anciently. It is clear, however, that whatever power the eldership may have possessed was, as it ought to be now, as a terror to evil-doers and a praise to them that do well. All responsibility resides with them who are in authority: where there is no power, there is no responsibility in relation thereto. The eldership, under the sanction of a majority of the church, cannot now deliver a person up to Satan for the destruction of the flesh; and God forbid that they should possess such a power unless it were accompanied by other gifts of the Spirit to regulate it. But that church is responsible to God, and fearfully so too, if it throws obstacles in the way of its eldership in the attempt to purge out the old leaven that it may be a new lump. No practice can be a correct one that prevents the fulfilment of an apostolic command. Some imagine that to deliver a person over to Satan is to turn him out of the kingdom. This cannot possibly be the fact; unless it can be shown that there is another way of entering the kingdom besides by "being born of water and the Spirit." The excluding a person from the congregation does not, therefore, exclude him from the kingdom. None but God could appoint the way of entrance; none but God can cast out. By way of illustration, a Spaniard may become an American citizen according to law; he may forfeit his rights, privileges, and immunities by crime, and so become the tenant of a gaol; but no power, save that which made the law of naturalization, can make him an alien again. The law may put him to death; but without a new or special enactment, he dies a citizen, though a vile one. The incestuous Corinthian citizen of heaven was excluded; but he was received again. Was he naturalized, then denaturalized, and afterwards naturalized again? Exclusion from the body of Christ declares unfitness for christian fellowship, and deprives of the privileges of God's housewhich are "all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ "—one of the heaviest calamities that can befal a man this side of the grave. Jesus J. T. 128 REPLY TO SCOTCH BAPTIST LETTER. IT has been justly remarked, that " Luther, who was born in the year 1483, and Calvin in the year 1509, began a great reformation, and ever since men have been quarrelling about what Luther and Calvin meant; and thus people get to hating one another on account of religious opinions. "Whenever men will make the belief of Christian facts, and not arguments in abstruse opinions, or in the inferential reasonings of some orthodox commentator, the bond of christian union, divisions and all their concomitant evils will cease; but so long as christians demand unity of opinion, or a concurrence in the conclusions of some philosophical speculative mind, essential to christian faith and christian character, so long will discord and division abound."* This is a true state of the case, and would to God the time was come when men would be guided by what is written in the Bible, instead of adopting the above course. To believe what is recorded by the inspired teachers, and to obey what they have commanded in our personal and relative situations in life, comprehends the whole of true religion. The design of the gospel is to cast down vain imaginations, to demolish disputings, especially in the disciples one with another, and to put down every high thing which exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. In replying to the letter written by Mr. A. Booker, in reference to myself, and which was inserted in our last number, it will be impossible, and therefore we shall not attempt it, to say all that might be said respecting every item contained in the said document. The first charge of heresy brought against me is, "That I am an Arminian in the fullest sense," &c. What a full-grown Arminian is, would now be difficult to say, seeing the original, both in theory and practice, is lost in the endless divisions and subdivisions which are in existence among the pious unbelievers of this unbelieving age. That an Arminian in any sense, and a full-grown Calvinist, especially if a Scotch Baptist, can never agree, all history, from the close of the sixteenth century to the present time, abundantly testifies. We may here remark that some Arminians, and some Quakers too, contend that the Holy Spirit is given to every * Owen and Campbell's Debate, p. 284. |