The Excellency and Advantage of Religion

And now, my dear friend, having discovered the nature of true religion, before I proceed any further I will not, perhaps, be unfit to fix our meditations a little on the excellency and advantages of it, so that we may be excited to a more vigorous and diligent prosecution of those methods whereby we may attain so great a felicity. But, alas! What words shall we find to express that inward satisfaction, those hidden pleasures which can never be rightly understood except by those holy souls who feel them? "A stranger intemeddleth not with their joy" (Proverbs 14:10). Holiness is the right temper, the vigorous and healthful constitution of the soul. Its faculties had formerly been enfeebled and disordered so that they could not exercise their natural functions; it had wearied itself with endless tossings and rollings, and was never able to find any rest. Now, that distemper being removed, it feels itself well; there is a due harmony in its faculties, and a sprightly vigor possesses every part. The understanding can discern what is good, and the will can cleave unto it; the affections are not tied to the motions of sense and the influence of external objects, but they are stirred by more divine impressions and touched by a sense of visible things.

In other words, Scougal considers that true religion, alleviating the regenerate soul of the limitations of the natural man, affords distinct advantages that enhance the use and function of human qualities. This is an interesting idea; I wonder if anyone else has found this to be true?

A Prayer for New Eyes

Infinite and eternal Majesty, Author and Fountain of being and blessedness, how little do we poor, sinful creatures know of Thee, or the way to serve and please Thee! We talk of religion, and pretend unto it, but, alas, how few there are who know and consider what it means! How easily we mistake the affections of our nature, and the issues of self-love, for those divine graces which alone can render us acceptable in Thy sight!

"...As we look not to the things that are seen but the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Jesus' Humility

Scougal consciously avoids (although he does mention it) discussion of the well-known "kenotic" passage in Philippians 2. Instead, he focuses on how unassuming Jesus was in his earthly life. In so far as his words and actions tell us, he did not give a second thought to claiming any perogatives appertaining to his divine nature. Knowing that the lawyer thought of him as only a man but called him "good teacher," he pointedly corrected the man as to the reality of goodness. How readily he laid aside his rightful claims to dignity and honor. He submitted, not just to parents but to abuse, revilements, indignities, and injustices. And he never used his powers for self-aggrandizement. He came to serve, not to be served.

Jesus' Holiness

"Which of you accuses me of sin?" Only one man in all human history could ask that question and expect none to reply in the affirmative. His conduct was perfect, not just from the perspective of other men but from the Father himself, he who declared that he was "well pleased" with his Son. He really was the spotless, blemish-less Lamb of God. Scougal praises him for his abstinence--the many ways in which he denied himself earthly pleasures that he allowed others and certainly had the power to produce for himself, yet he was content with very little. In his earthly life he was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief; when he returns, however, I expect there will be great gladness and much joy and laughter at the wedding feast of the Lamb.

Jesus' Love for His Neighbor

Never did any man treat his fellow human beings with such perfect love. At all times he spoke and behaved in a manner intended to do them the greatest good. And of course, this was not just the way he dealt with his friends; his enemies received kindness upon kindness, and even in harsh rebuke he had only their ultimate good, desiring to turn them back from their sins. "Greater love has no man than that he lay down his life for his friends." And so he did.

Jesus' Prayer Life

Another instance of his love to God was his delight in conversing with him by prayer, which made him frequently retire from the world, and, with the greatest devotion and pleasure, spend whole nights in that heavenly exercise, though he had no sins to confess, and but few secular interests to pray for. Alas, these are almost the only things that are likely to drive us to our devotions! Nay, we may say that his whole life was a kind of prayer, a constant course of communion with God. If the sacrifice was not always an offering, yet the fire was still kept alive. Nor was the blessed Jesus ever surprised with that dullness or tepidity of spirit which we must, many times wrestle with before we can be fit for the exercise of devotion.

Things one rarely thinks about--it is obvious from the gospel accounts that our Lord spent a lot of time in prayer, yet it never occurred to me to think how different his prayers would have been from my own, not just in quantity but in quality. As Scougal points out very effectively, he had no sins to confess. There was never any reconciliation to accomplish. His physical needs were few; he was evidently very content in the circumstances in which he passed his life. What rapt communion, then, he must have enjoyed. Hours in prayer, and all in intimate fellowship with the Father. It is a small glimpse into that world we will someday realize.

The Son as the Exemplar of Divine Life

No man lived his life in more accord with the Father than did Jesus, whose very meat and drink was to do his Father's will. Every conscious moment was centered on that relationship. This was a man who literally could give up eating and drinking for incredible amounts of time because he fed on God. Even his darkest days showed his firm commitment to obeying the Father's will. He was not just content to do that will but desirous of doing that will.

Over the next several days we will look at various aspects of the divine life in Jesus.

Faith Shown by Deeds

Mere words are insufficient to express the divine life within the Christian. That life has its best expression in one's way of life, especially in private. Our best example in this is the Lord himself. He always demonstrated in his life the truth of his words.

"The Very Foundation of Heaven Laid in the Soul"

We have discussed Scougal's four branches of the divine life: Love to God, charity to men, purity (holiness), and humility. The man who realizes all of these may rest content in God's promises and the assurance of God's work within him. Scougal quotes another as saying, "I would rather see the real impressions of a God-like nature upon my own soul than have a vision from heaven, or an angel sent to tell me that my name was enrolled in the book of life."

The Fourth Branch: Humility

A proper (and accurate) estimation of one's place in the Grand Scheme--neither too low or too high, as the apostle admonished--befits a Christian. We accept responsibility for all the many ways in which we fall short of the mark and we gratefully acknowledge God as the source of all good things, even the very sustainment of our lives from breath to breath. Humility puts God in his proper place (the sovereign Lord of all) and us in ours. Similarly, we learn to hold lightly the esteem of the world.

The Third Branch: Purity

By "purity," I understand a due abstractedness from the body, and mastery over the inferior appetites, or such a temper and disposition of mind as makes a man despise and abstain from all pleasures and delights of sense or fancy which are sinful in themselves, or tend to extinguish or lessen our relish of more divine and intellectual pleasures. This also infers a resolution to undergo all those hardships he may meet with in the performance of his duty. So that not only chastity and temperance, but also Christian courage and magnanimity may come under this heading.

Well, yes, to a certain degree. But Scougal here adopts what sounds to me to be almost a gnostic division of the physical and spiritual. Humans are certainly prone to pursuit of sinful satisfaction of physical appetites, yet there is an appropriate way to appease those appetites, which were after all created by God. And there are sinful ways to relish intellectual pleasures, too. So rather than striving in an ascetic sense to discipline the body, we should look to discipline our whole selves toward holiness, while acknowledging the due and proper enjoyment of the gifts God has given.

The Second Branch: Charity to Man

A soul thus possessed with divine love must be enlarged towards all mankind in a sincere and unbounded affection because of the relation they have to God, being His creatures, and having something of His image stamped upon them. And this is that "charity" I named as the second branch of religion, and under which all the parts of justice, all the duties we owe to our neighbor, are eminently comprehended; for he who truly loves all the world will be so far from wronging or injuring any person that he will resent any evil that befalls others as if it happened to himself.

Love for neighbor flows out of love for God. As we learn to recognize each other as bearers of God's image, we love that which inheres in each other. Here loving the world is not meant in the same capacity as found in John's epistles--there the apostle commands us not to love the world, but he means the world system and its values that are opposed to God--but loving all the people who make up the nations, tongues, and tribes. And if we truly love our neighbor as ourselves we will even come to see such an identification that we share in their sufferings.

The First Branch: Love of God

"The love of God" is a delightful and affectionate sense of the divine perfections, which makes the soul resign and sacrifice itself wholly unto Him, desiring above all things to please Him, and delighting in nothing so much as in fellowship and communion with Him, being ready to do or suffer anything for His sake or at His pleasure. Though this affection may have its first rise from the favors and mercies of God towards ourselves, yet in its growth and progress it transcends such particular considerations and grounds itself on His infinite goodness manifested in all the works of creation and providence.

"We love because he first loved us" is Scripture's explanation for how incorrigibly rebellious creatures should discover a love for their Lord and master. It does not arise from within us unaided, but once God has remade us our new appreciation for his beauty and goodness and loveliness fuels its growth. The goal of Christian affection toward God is to make him the center and end of all our wants. If this sounds like falling in love, perhaps on one level it is. But only in this case is the object of our love as truly perfect and delightful and worthy as we otherwise pretend the human objects of our love are. The Bride is made for the Bridegroom.

Explaining the Divine Life

This next section is long and weighty, deserving of more careful consideration than can be given in just one day's post. I will therefore introduce Scougal's general theme and then look at what he has to say in greater detail over the next several posts.

Just as the natural or "animal" life consists chiefly in the outworking of self-love, the divine life is "a universal and unbounded affection," i.e., not centered on the self but other-directed, and most importantly directed toward God. Scougal likens it to a tree: The root is faith and the branches are "love to God, charity to man, purity, and humility." Here he does not have in mind a generic faith, but a specific faith in Jesus Christ. We'll spend the next few days examining the branches more closely.

This concept of faith as other-directed love seems to me to be entirely biblical, for our Lord taught that the two great commandments entail love of God and love of neighbor. On the other hand, it may run afoul of Paul's famous summary at the end of 1 Corinthians 13 where he appears to exalt love over faith. Perhaps we shall see that "faith, hope, and charity" are not to be thought of as separate things but as discernable facets of the life of Christ in the heart of man.

Outworkings of the Natural Life

Men who are ruled solely by the natural life exhibit a range of personalities and behaviors. Scougal looks to providence to explain this, observing that it is felicitous that natural men are so very different or else self-love might prove ruinous to society. Indeed, in some such persons self-love expresses itself as great interest in matters of religion--"The glorious things that are spoken of heaven may make even a carnal heart be in love with it," although such love is restricted to the trappings of glory and not to the spiritual realities at the center. In this way, Scougal tries to account for the "splendid sins" of mankind.

I am not convinced. I think Scougal bends over backwards to credit relative good found within natural men. From a strictly human perspective this might be desirable--even the most depraved sinner contains the image of God within him; that "divine spark" sometimes works itself out in surprising ways. But it is this marred yet resident image of God that should get the credit for the relative good that the natural man does, not the natural man himself.

On the Natural Life

Prior to embarking upon more exploration of the divine life, Scougal considers what he calls not so much a contrast as perhaps a subtext: the natural life, "our inclination and propensity toward those things which are pleasing and acceptable to nature, or self love issuing forth." He does oppose this natural life to faith and bases it in physicality. Interestingly, he does not equate this natural life with sin or "the natural man" of which Paul speaks in his epistles; instead, he claims it is the guiding principle of animals, which, when it is in control of a man, makes the man without faith wicked. When faith reigns over this natural life, the man is righteous.

I must confess that Scougal makes me nervous here. I fear he may be mistaken to draw a likeness between the life of animals and the life of the man without Christ. But I'll let him defend his position going forward.

A Resemblance of the Divine Perfections

As promised, Scougal proposes to enlarge on his definition of religion as divine life. He believes he can call it this not just because God is its source and author, or because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each believer--accurate though these are. Even more, religion is "a real participation in His nature...a beam of the eternal light, a drop of that infinite goodness." As we proceed, he will expand on these statements. Some of the language employed here reminds me of gnostic statements (emenations, drops of divinity), but I have confidence that Scougal will acquit himself of any heretical tendencies if we hear him out.

The Christian's Meat and Drink

Scougal then reflects on the inner motivations of this divine life. Why does the true Christian bear love for God? Some who criticize Christians think that they are motivated by fear of judgment, constantly looking over their shoulders for the advance of a vengeful God who seeks to catch them putting a foot out of place. But Scougal observes this is precisely what characterizes "forced and artificial religion," a heavy and lethargic thing that barely shifts itself to do what it thinks it must, rather than true religion that derives its motivations from love of and gratitude toward God. "He who has given himself entirely unto God will never think he does too much for Him."

How Religion Is Like Life

Scougal likens religion to life by observing that the true version of the former has "permanence and stability." He intends to contrast those whose profession of religion is characterized by explosive fits rather than a calm steadiness and draws a colorful comparison to the jerky movements of recently decapitated bodies!

He observes, "this divine life does not always continue in the same strength and vigor, but many times suffers sad decays; and holy men find greater difficulty in resisting temptations, and less alacrity in the performance of their duties. Yet it is not quite extinguished, nor are they abandoned to the power of those corrupt affections which sway and overrule the rest of the world." This puts me in mind of the Confession's teaching on perseverance. Having real saving faith does not exempt the Christian from times of spiritual reversal; there are often valleys in between the peaks. But we retain confidence that He who began a good work in us will finish it in the day of Christ Jesus.

Defining Religion

[And before we get much further, I should point out that for Scougal "religion" means Christianity.]

"...[T]rue religion is a union of the soul with God, a real participation in the divine nature, the very image of God drawn upon the soul. In the apostle's words, it is 'Christ formed in you.'" Scougal terms religion "a divine life" and will spend much of the letter fleshing out that phrase.

The crux of Christian faith is the Christian's union with Christ. Our identification with him in his death and resurrection is what grants us every spiritual benefit; the indwelling of Christ's Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, the seal of our salvation and the promise of our glorification.

I will be interested to see if Scougal elaborates on his idea that true religion is "a real participation in the divine nature." Undoubtedly he draws upon Peter's words in his first epistle but somehow I doubt he will come to the same conclusion as the Orthodox have concerning the divinization of the believer. We shall see.

Misunderstanding Religion

Prior to discussing the nature of true religion, Scougal comments on some common erroneous takes on religion.

True, authentic religion is not:

1. Bare intellectual assent to a creed.

2. Keeping a set of behavioral rules.

3. Emotionalism.

Scougal states that many mistake a part or aspect of religion, especially in an exaggerated form, for the whole. That religion does involve right belief (orthodoxy), right practice (orthopraxy), and emotional investment cannot be denied. But we rightly hold these things together, in balance. He also warns against our tendency to "baptize" our sins by attempting to create Christian justifications for them.

Scougal's Occasion for Writing

Scougal tells his friend (remember, this was written as a letter) that his purpose in writing is to advance "virtue and holiness." A life of Christian sanctity was the goal of every Puritan; their sermons and books are full of exhortations, encouragements, and advice regarding personal holiness. They took to heart Peter's admonition to holiness based on the holiness of God--as he is holy, so Christians are called to holiness. R. C. Sproul has recognized that a problem afflicting the contemporary church in the West is the lackadaisical attitude many professing Christians have toward sin. They simply don't dwell on the holiness of God and God's command to be like him, or upon the repeated exhortation in the Scriptures to imitate Christ. If Scougal can help us in this regard, he will have done us a great service.