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| The Four Stages of the Christian’s Life, and the Four Corresponding Stages of the Church’s History.
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Chapter 118.—The Four Stages of the Christian’s
Life, and the Four Corresponding Stages of the Church’s
History.
When, sunk in the darkest depths of
ignorance, man lives according to the flesh undisturbed by any
struggle of reason or conscience, this is his first state.
Afterwards, when through the law has come the knowledge of sin, and
the Spirit of God has not yet interposed His aid, man, striving to
live according to the law, is thwarted in his efforts and falls
into conscious sin, and so, being overcome of sin, becomes its
slave (“for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought
in bondage”1319
); and thus
the effect produced by the knowledge of the commandment is this,
that sin worketh in man all manner of concupiscence, and he is
involved in the additional guilt of willful transgression, and that
is fulfilled which is written: “The, law entered that the offense
might abound.”1320
This is man’s second state. But
if God has regard to him, and inspires him with faith in God’s
help, and the Spirit of God begins to work in him, then the
mightier power of love strives against the power of the flesh; and
although there is still in the man’s own nature a power that
fights against him (for his disease is not completely cured), yet
he lives the life of the just by faith, and lives in righteousness
so far as he does not yield to evil lust, but conquers it by the
love of holiness. This is the third state of a man of good hope;
and he who by steadfast piety advances in this course, shall attain
at last to peace, that peace which, after this life is over, shall
be perfected in the repose of the spirit, and finally in the
resurrection of the body. Of these four different stages the first
is before the law, the second is under the law, the third is under
grace, and the fourth is in full and perfect peace. Thus, too, has
the history of God’s people been ordered according to His
pleasure who disposeth all things in number, and measure, and
weight.1321
| 1321 Comp.
Wisdom 11.20" id="iv.ii.cxx-p5.1" parsed="|Wis|11|20|0|0" osisRef="Bible:Wis.11.20">Wisd. xi. 20 | For the
church existed at first before the law; then under the law, which
was given by Moses; then under grace, which was first made manifest
in the coming of the Mediator. Not, indeed, that this grace was
absent previously, but, in harmony with the arrangements of the
time, it was veiled and hidden. For none, even of the just men of
old, could find salvation apart from the faith of Christ; nor
unless He had been known to them could their ministry have been
used to convey prophecies concerning Him to us, some more plain,
and some more obscure.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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