Walter Marshall - The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification

Brief Biography: Walter Marshall was an English puritan, who like many other faithful pastors of his day, was ejected from his parish under the 1662 Act of Conformity. He eventually became the Pastor of an independent congregation in Gosport, Hampshire where he served for the remaining eighteen years of his life. It was in Gosport, while enduring great bouts of spiritual depression, and gaining direction and wisdom from both Richard Baxter and Thomas Goodwin, that he wrote The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification.

First Instruction: The book is divided into fourteen directions that are designed to instruct the reader on their journey of sanctification. Each direction begins with a short paragraph concisely summarizing the contents within, and is then followed by a lengthier explication working through the various nuances and potential applications of the doctrine. By way of introduction, the first direction serves as an entryway to the all the others. It reads,

“That we may acceptably perform the duties of Holiness, and Righteousness required in the law, our first work is, to learn the powerful and effectual means whereby we may attain to so great an end (Marshall, 14).”

This first point is broken out into many nuances but the idea here is that we must utilize God’s means of growth, provided in the Scriptures, and not our own, in order to accomplish such an excellent end.

Second Direction: In the second direction, Marshall highlights four endowments and qualifications that are necessary for this journey. He aims to ensure that nobody begins down the track without being supplied with the necessary tools.

1. The first necessary endowment, and chief among the four, is that we must have an

“inclination and propensity of heart, to the duties of the law (Marshall, 21)…”

Notice, how we cannot escape the duties every Christian has to follow the law. This is a core drumbeat for Marshall that he returns to again and again. To grow in holiness is to grow in one’s joyful, humble, law abiding. This inclination cannot be attained by the natural unregenerate man due to the corruption of the heart as a result of sin.

2. Second, we must be persuaded deeply of our reconciliation to God.

“our spirits are not in a fit frame for the doing of them, while we apprehend ourselves under the curse and wrath of God, or while we are under prevailing suspicions that God will prove an enemy to us at last. Slavish fear may extort some slavish hypocritical performances from us, such as that of Pharaoh in letting the Israelites go, sore against his will. But the duty of love cannot be extorted and forced by fear, but it must be won, and sweetly allured by an apprehension of God’s love and goodness towards us, as that eminent, loving and beloved disciple testifies.

3. Third, we must be persuaded of our future glorious inheritance in heaven.

“As worldly hope keeps the world at work in their various employments, so God gives His people the hope of His glory to keep them close to His service.”

4. Fourth, we must be persuaded that God will provide the necessary strength both to desire and to perform the duties prescribed to us in the law.

Subsequent Directions: A number of the subsequent directions take a deep nuanced dive into arguing against any kind of Preparationism. We must truly be born again, experience regeneration, experience a union with Christ, before any effort of sanctification can be attempted.

“It is a common error of those that are in a corrupt natural state, that they seek to reform their lives according to law, without any thoughts that their state must be changed, before their lives can be changed from sin to righteousness (Marshall, 47).”

Direction 9: Great Comfort: Adding to the list of what we must experience in Christ before our efforts of sanctification, is comfort. I particularly appreciate this chapter. I found this chapter quite pastoral. He writes,

“Now, let right reason judge: can we be persuaded of the love of God, of our everlasting happiness and our strength to serve God, and yet be without any comforts? Can the glad tidings of the gospel of peace be believed, and Christ and His Spirit actually received into the heart, without any relief to the soul from oppressing fear, grief, despair?”

Direction 12: Direction twelve is particularly useful, and a number of other theologians over the years have particularly this direction of vital importance. In it, Marshall instructs the reader to walk no longer according to the natural state of the flesh, but only according to the new regenerate state. He labors to show from the Scriptures that though a believer is truly born again, the flesh remains and wages war against our souls.

“We are said to walk, after either of these natures, when we make the properties or qualifications of either of them to be the principles of our practice (Marshall, 119).”

In a sense, this chapter brilliantly describes the internal battle of the everyday Christian seeking to overcome the temptations of the flesh. He labors to He writes,

“Our way to mortify sinful affections and lusts, must be, not by purging them out of the flesh, but by putting off the flesh itself, and getting above into Christ by faith, and walking in that new nature that is by him (Marshall, 132).”

The power of this chapter was in it’s experiential tenderheartedness towards those who experience the very real battle of being tempted by their fleshly nature.

Our willing, resolving and endeavoring must be to do the best, not that lies in ourselves, or in our own power, but that Christ and the power of His Spirit shall be pleased to work in us; for in us (that is, in our flesh) there dwells no good thing (Rom. 7:18). We have great ground to trust in God and Christ for help in such resolutions and endeavors after holiness… But we must trust on Christ to enable us above the strength of our own natural power, by virtue of the new nature which we have in Christ and by His Spirit dwelling and working in us; or else our best endeavors will be altogether sinful, and mere hypocrisy, notwithstanding all the help for which we trust upon Him

He is firm, in calling us to victory over that battle, but he is also a tender shepherd guiding us. He writes,

“Christ dealt with his people as a good careful shepherd, that will not over-drive his sheep” (Marshall, 1332).

Getting Practical: After all of this he ends the final two chapters with what I thought was just a brilliant practical bit of advice. He essentially says, “Once you’ve got all that in place, just do all the simple things that Jesus told you to do.” I chuckled when I read the start of this chapter, but it was so sincer. He lays out ten practices: know the word, pray, fellowship, go to church, take Lord’s Supper. With each one, he aims right at the heart, and attempts to stir their affections.

Reflection: Upon reflection, this book has grown on me over the few weeks I spent working through it. At times I found myself eager to skip forward to the more practical final two directions. However, Marshall’s lengthy treatment on the prerequisites and proper ordering of sanctification, is what makes this work so effective. He removes the shortcuts many seek to take, and forces the reader to recognize the inability of the unregenerate man to perform the duties of holiness written in the law. I am particularly grateful for direction twelve which discussed the war of two natures within the Christian between the old natural flesh and the new man. Marshall’s advice is beautifully experiential as he exhorts the reader to make haste in every opportunity to overcome the deceits of the flesh with the truth of our new birth. In short, he sets our gaze firmly on our need of salvation by grace through faith in Christ as both the starting point, and the enduring source of power, for our sanctification.