This year we’re reading selections from the discussions and the spiritual insights of the evangelical ministers who regularly met in London as “The Eclectic Society.” I hope you will find the time to read further around the section, so I have found the original volume for you in Google Books/Google Play. You can find the text by clicking this link.
When the ministers gathered on May 7, 1804, the topic for discussion proposed by Anglican the Rev. Henry Foster was the nature of the believer's struggle with the flesh as contrasted with the same battle in the unregenerate. Like Charles Simeon in Cambridge, Foster’s reception in his parish of St. James, Clerkenwell was very controversial, being rejected in favor of another in 1790. Foster had vowed never to seek an elected ministry ever again but the persuasion of friends led to his putting his name forward on the death of his predecessor in 1804.
In the meantime, he continued laboring as a part-time chaplain and as a lecturer for four other parishes another 14 years before he was elected to the incumbency of St. James at 58 years old. He then had to wait a further three years (!) before he was licensed as those who opposed his election sought legal redress to block his induction. He was known to be an effective preacher of the gospel with a dedication to evangelism and Christian education. He organized and headed the first Sunday-school for what was then a suburban region outside London. It is suggested that it was the fruit of his many years of pastoral work across the city, the controversies of his ministry, and the upcoming election on July 30, 1804, that led him to propose the topic. He thought that the different struggle would shed some light as to what is going on in the life of the believer.
Foster said that the believer's struggle was unique, but intermixed with the same efforts of the unconverted. The difference is in the matter of God’s election. The workings of the conscience among the unconverted may be the work of the Spirit. God often uses this kind of anxiousness to lead to conversion. Once converted, the believer’s warfare with the flesh is a permanent factor for the remainder of his or her life here on earth, whereas the conflicts of conscience of the unconverted come and go with outward circumstances.
The second difference between them is its source in the conscience. Fear drives the unconverted, the converted by love. As the unconverted person struggles, they are more concerned with their self-preservation. When the believer struggles with the pain his sin may cause as his love for his heavenly Father exposes the continued presence of sin and his greater need of Christ. Therefore, the unconverted will focus on the outward relief of their predicament and when the struggle eases, become quite satisfied with themselves in pride. The believer begins and ends with the interior workings of sin so that his or her motives are exposed. The unconverted will see sinful struggles as isolated cases in an otherwise "good" life, but the spiritual man, the more progress they make, the more they cry out for God's grace.
The Rev. Charles Simeon vicar of Holy Trinity, Cambridge, was in town, being a visitor to the Eclectic meetings. He confirmed what Foster has proposed, adding his take in three hallmarks of difference between the struggles of the believer and unbeliever:
1. The occasion itself – the unregenerate person works in fear of the world and the loss of reputation. The regenerate person is engaged in an all-out war against all sin where no quarter is given.
2. The means employed – the unregenerate person acts through personal resolution and self-righteous effort. The former begins in fear and the latter in pride. The regenerate has learned from Scripture to seek God's help alone. It is a dependent waiting, a looking to Christ so that the expulsive power of the new affection by the Holy Spirit may work (interesting to note how the idea of the expulsive power usually credited to the Scots polymath & minister Thomas Chalmers, was already known years earlier among the Anglican evangelical ministers of the Eclectic Society).
3. The goal – the unregenerate seeks to conquer to protect his or her approbation from others. The believer seeks the testimony of a good conscience so that God may gain all the glory. He hates the smallest sinful attitude and action that may come between him and his heavenly Father, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30.5).
