Chapter 1
PENTECOST REJECTED, AND THE EFFECT ON THE CHURCHES
So long as the early
Christian Church frequented the Pentecostal chamber, her career was
one of unbroken triumphs. While her leaders were sanctified, and her
preachers spoke their gospel
messages with the power of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, the
march of her progress was
steady and irresistible; nothing could stay her triumphant course.
While the early Christians were
taught to look forward to a second sanctifying work of grace by the
baptism with the Holy Spirit as
the normal Christian experience, their zeal was unflagging; their life
was pure; their courage was
perfect. The cross and the sword could not make them halt, the dungeons
were bowers of bliss, and
the roar of the hungry lions in the amphitheater was like a bugle-call
to glory and honor and
immortality. The Church, while it repeated and renewed its Pentecosts,
was full of an irresistible
energy, and moved to conquest against the powers of darkness, "fair as
the moon, glorious as the
sun, and terrible as an army with banners."
It was not until the
Pentecostal chamber was forsaken, and its experiences discounted, and
the leaders of the Church began to trust to the natural rather than the
supernatural, and substituted
oratory, and scholarship, and genius, and Pagan pomp, and governmental
friendship for the baptism
with the Holy Spirit and the Enduement of Power, that the Church fell.
History repeats itself. As
Pentecost was rejected then, so it is being rejected today. Not
very long ago the denominations were so widely separated that one of
them might possess a great
truth, and the leaders and earnest workers of the other never hear of
it. It is not so much so today.
Great truths overleap denominational bounds, and spread everywhere.
Once the Methodists were
almost alone in their advocacy of the great truth of holiness or
sanctification as the privilege of all
believers, a second work of grace subsequent to regeneration, a
heart-cleansing wrought by the
baptism with the Holy Ghost. John Wesley declared that this was the
great truth which the
Methodist Church was chiefly raised up to propagate. But this truth has
crossed the bounds of that
denomination now, and finds its advocates in nearly every great Church
in the land. The list of the
writers and authors in the various Churches is really too long to give.
Hence it has come about that
very much light on the subject of holiness has shot through the
darkness everywhere, and the
leaders of the denominations, and the more intelligent and widely read,
know not a little about this
great truth of sanctification.
Moreover, holiness bands and
holiness campmeetings are becoming so numerous as to be
at everybody's door. A goodly number of well-edited holiness papers and
magazines also are now
being published and well circulated everywhere. Thus a very
considerable fraction of Christian
people, it they do not have clear and accurate views of the Pentecostal
blessing, at least do know
that holiness, sanctification, that something discussed so much in the
Bible, has also many
advocates, and teachers, and witnesses among living men. A subject
which God so strenuously
pushes to the front in His Revelation challenges attention. God has
honored the preaching of the
Pentecostal blessing, the gospel of full salvation, with such displays
of power, such
demonstrations of the Holy Spirit, that all thoughtful people have
rational grounds for believing
that there is something in this holiness movement besides gush,
hypocrisy, and fanaticism. The
doctrine of a possible deliverance from sin through the baptism with
the Spirit has earned
respectful attention rather than contemptuous rejection. Light has
come; and its reception in many
quarters and by many minds has been scarcely more hospitable than that
which was given to Him
who was the Light of the world. The Man of Calvary "came to His own,
and His own received
Him not:" likewise His representative, the Holy Spirit, has come to His
own, the Church of our
day, offering Pentecostal blessing and power; and He in turn is being
frequently and widely
rejected. Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do." But, in the case of
not a few today, they do know what they do. They are intelligently,
knowingly, coolly, consciously,
deliberately rejecting the Holy Spirit's Pentecost.
The mighty Finney once said
something like this: "There was a time when ministers were
not enlightened on some great evils of the day, and God used them,
notwithstanding their neglect of
some great moral reforms; but now light has come, and duty is plain,
and God will not greatly use
those who refuse to walk in the light and do their duty. Show me, if
you can, one minister who
neglects the temperance reform, and then is blessed with revivals!" I
believe, if Finney were with
us today, and were preaching with the old-time fidelity and power, he
would say in the same
spirit: There was a time when ministers did not know that it was their
privilege to receive the
baptism with the Spirit in sanctifying power; but now light has come,
and God will not greatly use
and bless with revivals those who refuse to investigate and walk in the
light and seek their
Pentecost. Show me a minister who has knowingly rejected this blessing
to whom God is giving
many souls!
The sad signs of the times
in the religious sky are unmistakable. Hon. H. K. Carroll, the
Government statistician, says: "It is evident from the statistics that
all the Churches are passing
through a period of unusual dullness. As a whole, they are making
progress but very slowly. In
finances they are thriving with the country; but the results of
religious work are discouraging."
Earnest Christians ought to
hide their faces in shame, when an able and friendly secular
magazine, "The World's Work," begins a grave article as follows in this
May, 1902: "We often
hear that the day of the Christian Church is fast waning, and that it
will cease to exist save as a
relic of the past; and during the past two or three years, in
representative gatherings of the leading
Christian denominations, the questions of waning interest and declining
strength have been
discussed in all seriousness and sadness over and over again. From all
parts of the country, and
from other countries, too, come reports of empty pews, a decrease of
Sunday School scholars,
depleted treasuries, and a waning of religious enthusiasm."
Another magazine headed an
article last year as follows: "The times spiritually are in a
twist, and knotted -- gotten so by the tremendous force of secularized
religion and false
philosophy. No wonder that the world for which Christ died is
perishing; no wonder that it is hard,
perhaps was never so hard before, for any one to 'stand fast in the
faith delivered once for all to
the saints.' Instead of bravely, but lovingly and with emphasis,
proclaiming those "life and death"
truths, "Sin and Salvation," which are, in the last analysis, the only
essential and fundamental
factors in preaching, the American pulpit, in many important centers of
population and influence, is
seemingly content to deal out to soul-hungry men and women, as sermons,
stale but adroit
decoctions of unfaith and misfaith in the integrity of the Old Book,
mixed with moral platitudes,
and glossed with conservatism, which is but another name for
compromising surrender of the
gospel verities, counterfeiting the truth for popularity and pay."
The bishops of the Methodist
Episcopal Church have a wide and comprehensive outlook,
and continually hold their fingers on the pulse of Church-life. They
say: "The gulf between capital
and labor threatens the Church on both sides, from that of the rich and
that of the poor. The
submerged tenth has been allowed to pass out to other agencies, the
Church seeming to have gotten
above its business. The Church has suffered on its borders from the
thin speculations and vagaries
of Christian Science. The powerful campmeetings of the olden time have
substantially passed
away, and the home has been demoralized by light literature and the
amusement craze. The
heart-searching that once prepared the way for the great work of
revival is often avoided as the
fanaticism of a past age, and revivals themselves often ridiculed as
the ephemeral phenomena of
shallow natures. In some sections criticism is extended to everything
sacred, until the children are
robbed of their respect for the Church, and the Church robbed of their
presence. Higher criticism
attacks the Bible itself, denying its supernatural character and Divine
authority. While this higher
criticism is limited to a few centers, yet its influence is filtered
down through much of our
literature, taking the authority out of the teaching and the power out
of the preaching. The Bible
loses its Divine authority; sin loses its fatal sting; the law loses
its sanction; and God's government
is reduced to a few rules concerning aesthetics. These are among the
principal symptoms
indicating the famine that enervates our Zion. We are retreating when
we should advance at
double-quick to keep abreast of the rushing events of our time.
"We have
one dire disease -- Spiritual famine -- lack of the witness of the
Spirit, lack of
personal experience, lack of spiritual power; and the symptoms are many
and various, but the
disease is one ... The moral and spiritual forces, necessary for the
building of great and Christlike
characters have been sidetracked by the dominant forces of worldliness
and selfishness." (The
Pentecost Century, September, 1901)
In my
reading I have come across the following statements, which, I presume,
are correct,
and which sadly corroborate the testimony of the bishops. In 1897, in
the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, there was only one convert to ninety-four members; in
the Methodist Episcopal
Church, North, but one to one hundred and thirty-one. In 1898, I have
read (I hope it is a mistake)
that the Methodist Episcopal Churches, North and South, with an
aggregate of four million
members, sustained an aggregate loss of eight thousand members; and
that, in 1899, the Methodist
Episcopal Church, North, lost twenty-one thousand, nine hundred and
four members. Another
authority says there was an actual loss of nearly four thousand. It
seems incredible, and does not
quite tally with other figures yet to be given. But all statements are
sad and alarming. For instance,
a paper of last week, (May 22, 1902,) informs us that the eleven
thousand preachers of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for the last four years have not
averaged annually one convert
apiece.
It almost
makes one's heart stop beating to think that ministers, who are the
spiritual
descendants of Wesley, Coke, Asbury, McKendree, and those fathers of
Methodism who swept
over the land like cyclones of Holy Spirit power, are now reduced to
such appalling barrenness.
But the
Methodists are by no means alone in this trouble. Dr. Burrows, of the
Regular
Baptist Church, South, says: "The year 1899 has not been noted for any
great increase in
membership of the Churches." Dr. Dunning, speaking for the
Congregational Church, says: "The
denomination is making little progress temporarily, and even in some
respects is retrograding."
"This denomination fell from a gain of nineteen thousand in 1895 to
less than two thousand in
1900. Never in its history has there been such a falling off as has
occurred since 1894." Dr. Beard,
in an address a year ago, said of the Congregational Year-Book for
1900: "There is not a cheerful
page in it. In it we learn that through the efforts of six hundred and
thirty thousand members, with a
cash outlay of $7,000,000 for home expenses, there was received during
the twelve months a net
addition of only 1,640. In Massachusetts, with a membership of one
hundred and thirteen thousand,
and a cash outlay for home expenses of $1,630,000, there was during
that year an actual loss of
five hundred and eighty-eight members. At the National Council lately
held in Portland, Me., there
was reported a net loss for the triennial period of thirty-two thousand
one hundred and three
members in the Christian Endeavor Societies."
Dr. Roberts says: The
progress of the Presbyterian Church is not so rapid as in former
years. The real reason appears to be the lack of spiritual vigor in all
the Christian denominations."
All denominations, both
those that are esteemed liberal and those also that are rigidly
orthodox, except those that are re-enforced by immigration, show a
steady and alarming decline in
the rate of increase, as the following table shows:
Think of those twenty-one
branches of the Christian Church, comprising the bulk and power
of the Protestantism of the United States, having their net gain
decrease from nine hundred and five
thousand in 1895 to two hundred and thirty-seven thousand in 1900! What
could be more
humiliating or more sad? It is enough to cause mourning in earth and
heaven, and to wake up a
jubilee in hell!
And the saddest of it all
is, that this is a needless barrenness! Human hearts are just what
they have always been, estranged from God and filled with carnality and
sin, no better and no
worse than the human hearts of other times. The Gospel of Christ is not
outlawed, or antiquated, or
obsolete. It is still the power of God, and sharper than any two-edged
sword, and can prick to
conviction the sinner's innermost soul. The blessed "Third Person of
the Trinity," the
ever-adorable Holy Spirit, is not dead. He can still cleanse the
believer's heart in the Pentecostal
Chamber, and endue with a supernatural power the ambassador of Christ,
and make his message
quick and powerful to break the flinty heart of the foe of God. The
resources of prayer are not
exhausted, and heaven is as accessible as even God still waits to hear
and answer the
supplications of His people. He still longs to listen to a ten days'
united supplication of His people
that He may open the windows of heaven and pour out another Pentecost.
No Church needs to hang
its harps upon the willows and mourn over the desolations of Zion; for
God can still cause His
Word to accomplish that which He pleases, and send the early and the
latter rain, and cause the
desert to blossom as a fertile field, and become the Garden of the
Lord. No minister needs to go
without sheaves in the Lord's great harvest-field; for the promise
still holds: "He that goeth forth
with weeping, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves
with him:" "Ye shall reap in due season if ye faint not."
People are pouring like a
Niagara-tide through the gates of sin and death into an awful hell.
God has set His heart upon turning that stream of life heavenward.
Any child of God who will
faithfully fall in with God's wishes and plans and conditions of
success will become a winner of souls. I solemnly declare again, to the
honor of the old Gospel
and the glory of the Holy Ghost, all this barrenness is utterly
needless.
The young men who study theology
under me are taught to win souls, and to measure their
success by their soul-winning. They are also taught to seek the
enduement of power as the most
essential condition of success in the ministry. They are trained in
sermon-making with that end in
view. They are taught to expect success; and they have it. Several
students that studied under me
one and two years ago have, during the last twelve months, led more
than a hundred souls each to
God. One of my last year's pupils has had a thousand saved or
sanctified since he left the school.
One of this year's pupils had to leave us two months ago on account of
straitness of funds, and he
has since seen one hundred and fifteen people come to the altar and bow
to God in his meetings.
None of these students of whom I have written had education enough to
enter our freshmen class in
college; yet they have a success in winning men that nine-tenths of the
nobly-educated Doctors of
Divinity might covet. One of our students has seen more people
converted during his three summer
vacations than many ministers have in a lifetime. While I am writing
these lines we are in the
closing week of the third year of our Texas Holiness University. Since
the commencement of our
last school year, September 24, 1901, two hundred and ninety-four
people have knelt at our altar
and prayed their way to God; and since the college opened its doors,
less than three years ago, four
hundred and sixty-five souls have thus found God in our college
services. In the face of such facts,
and multitudes of similar ones that I might give, is it too much to say
that barrenness on the part of
the ministry and the Churches is wholly unnecessary?
The truth is, the theological
professors and those who are responsible for the training of the
ministry, and the men high up in ecclesiastical power in our
denominations, are, almost without
exception, magnifying the natural and ignoring the supernatural. They
are making a great deal of
talent and education and oratory, and in equal measure they are
discounting the importance of the
baptism with the Holy Spirit.
I know I lay myself liable to
criticism by these remarks. A reviewer once reviewed my
book, "Holiness and Power," and said that, in the last chapter, I
raised an unfortunate conflict
between the filling of the Spirit and education, and created a
prejudice against the latter. It was an
uncalled-for and wholly unfair criticism. My whole life brands it as
unjust. I am in the business of
giving to young people all the education I can induce them to acquire.
I urge a classical education
on the young men fitting for the ministry. I spent seven years behind
college and university walls
myself, and I am a true friend and a hearty advocate of higher
education. I will not be
misunderstood on this point. But, after thirty years of experience and
observation, I declare
frankly, if I had to choose between all that the best university can
give without the baptism with the
Spirit, and an education through the freshman year of an ordinary
college with the baptism with the
Spirit, I should unhesitatingly choose the latter. The Spirit-filling
and the enduement of power from
on high will be worth infinitely more for ministerial success than the
final six years of college
training. If our theological professors and the men at the head of our
denominational enterprises
would all learn this, and exemplify it, the Churches would be saved
from the disgrace of perennial
barrenness.
Well does Joseph Parker, the great
preacher of London, say: "Culture can not take the place
of spirituality. I would make the Lord's house glad with every
expression of love; but this done, I
would write on the doorposts, on the roof, and on every panel the words
of Jesus, 'In this place is
One greater than the temple.' I prefer knowledge to ignorance, but I
PREFER HOLINESS TO
EITHER. Culture, when not a chattering and fussy prig, may be right
noble and even majestic; but
nothing is so cold as culture, and nothing so mean, when not inflamed
and impassioned by the
Spirit of Christ. Today the pulpit is in danger of being killed by
miscalled culture. Men think that,
because they have been to college five years, they ought to be
preachers, which is as logical as to
say that a man who has driven an omnibus five years ought to be able to
take a ship across the
Atlantic. The Lord continually dashes these culture-pots to pieces like
a potter's vessel, by making
preachers of His own, but clothing them with mysterious but most
beneficent power."
The greatest soul-winning
preachers of the century just closed were not college-bred; yet in
the face of this fact, so astonishing and so striking, our theological
schools go on turning out dainty,
self-sufficient "CULTURE-POTS," and calling them preachers! If this
ghastly farce goes on much
longer, conversions will almost wholly cease, and the honor of the
Church -- the Bride of Christ --
will go down in the dust of humiliating defeat before her enemies.
It is a good thing that it
is so -- a positive blessing. The Holy Spirit resents being traded off
for culture; and He withdraws Himself, saying by that act: "You seem to
think that natural means
and agencies are sufficient -- culture and oratory and ecclesiastical
machinery. I will leave you to
yourselves until you learn your insufficiency and remember again your
forgotten God."
I rejoice at the concern of
the denominational leaders. It is truly a healthy sign that they are
concerned about the desolations of Zion. But they will look everywhere
else for an explanation of
their leanness first; then, it is to be devoutly hoped, they will think
of Pentecost rejected,
sanctification despised, and a grieved Holy Spirit!
Just now it is enough to
make the devil laugh, and saints and angels listen and look with
wondering amazement, while these disappointed Church leaders turn to
the Sunday Schools and the
Y. M. C. A.'s, and the Y. W. C. A.'s, and Y. P. S. C. E.'s, and B. Y.
P. U.'s, and the Epworth
Leagues, and W. C. T. U.'s, and Institutional Churches, and Young Men's
Clubs, and Women's
Auxiliary Societies, and Ladies' Aid Societies, and Boys' Brigades, and
fine Churches, and fine
choirs, and brilliant preachers, to help them out of their troubles and
cure their barrenness.
Machinery, machinery! "A multiplication of man's machinery; a
diminution of God's power!" And
God will drive us by a spiritual famine to honor the Holy Spirit. Amen!
let the needed famine
come, until men will honor God. Then the windows of heaven will open,
Pentecosts will be
multiplied, and God will pour out a blessing till there shall not be
room enough to receive it.
I am not alone in placing a
large estimate on Pentecostal baptism as the most important
preparation for the ministry. President Finney was probably the
greatest soul-winner of the
Christian centuries. But he was humble and honest enough to write:
"Unless the Spirit sets home
and makes the truth of God effectual, all human eloquence will be in
vain; and it is a fact worthy of
all attention and consideration that, with very little human culture,
this enduement of power will
make a Christian wise and efficient in bringing souls to Christ." I
will not quote more from Finney.
In my book, "Life of Charles G. Finney," I give one entire chapter to
his wise counsel to the
ministry. It is the soundest homiletical instruction I have ever found.
He held that the baptism with
the Holy Spirit was "EVERYTHING in the sense of being wholly
indispensable to success."
In a similar vein Rev. F. B.
Meyer, of London, writes as follows on "The Relation of the
Baptism with the Holy Ghost to Preachers and Preaching:" "How absurd it
is for us to send young
men to college to equip them with an intellectual store of classic and
philosophic learning, and to
send them out to teach, without insisting upon it that if Christ waited
to be anointed before he went
to preach, no young man ought to preach until he, too, has been
anointed with the Holy Ghost!
Never forget that our Lord's ministry was not in the power of the
Second Person of the Holy
Trinity, but in the power of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. As
St. Peter said: 'God anointed
Him with the Holy Ghost, and He went about doing good.' The Church was
conceived by the Holy
Ghost; but the Church, before attempting her ministry, must also be
anointed by the Holy Ghost.
"Pentecost differs from
regeneration. In regeneration the Holy Spirit is described as being
WITHIN, but in Pentecost and ever after the Holy Ghost is described as
being UPON (and as
filling them and sanctifying them). He anoints, He falls upon, He
equips, and I ask that, before this
reading shall close, every one in reading this who has been regenerated
by the Holy Ghost, shall
become anointed, filled, empowered with the Holy Ghost. It would make
the GREATEST
DIFFERENCE POSSIBLE IN YOUR LIFE. There is where you have failed, my
brother. You have
been preaching the CROSS; but you have not been preaching the CROSS in
the demonstration and
power of the blessed Spirit. (I Pet. 1:12)
"Would God that you, my brother
ministers, who have been working with the power of
intellect, of energy, of enthusiastic zeal, with but poor effect, may
become linked to the power of
God, the Holy Ghost stored in Christ; for as soon as you are linked to
it, not you, but the power of
God through you, will repeat the marvels of Pentecost ... You say to
me: 'Sir, tell me how I may get
this power myself.' As far as I know there are five conditions.
"FIRST. YOU CAN NOT HAVE THE POWER
OF THE HOLY GHOST WITHOUT
HAVING THE HOLY GHOST HIMSELF. That is, the Holy Ghost must come to you
as a Person
before you can enjoy His attributes. In other words, YOU MUST BE A HOLY
MAN before you
can wield the power of the Holy Ghost. There are plenty of men who
think that if they could only
get the power of the Holy Ghost they would be able to fill their
Churches and sell their books, and
get themselves name and fame. They want it (power), but they do not
want Him (and His
Holiness). You can not have it without having Him. [And you can not
have Him, without having the
sanctification he brings with Him.] If you want the power of the Holy
Ghost, open your heart today
and be filled with the Holy Ghost, and then you will have His power.
"SECOND. YOU MUST BE CLEANSED. 0,
I do want to speak wisely! I do not want
needlessly to offend you or denounce you. But I do feel in my heart
that if the Holy Spirit is going
to work through anybody, HE MUST HAVE A CLEANSED VESSEL.
"THIRD. You must live for the
glory of Christ as your supreme end. Jesus Christ came into
the world to glorify the Father, and the Holy Spirit came into the
world to glorify the Son. If,
therefore, you want the Holy Ghost to work with you, you must agree
with the Holy Ghost to
glorify Jesus.
"FOURTH. Your preaching and
teaching must be in harmony with the Word of God.
Remember that the Holy Spirit is like a locomotive; the Word of God
like the steel rails; and you
must have the steel rails of the Bible as well as the steam power of
the Holy Ghost. Let the Holy
Ghost fill you, but He will work along the lines of that book.
"FIFTH. The Holy Spirit must
be received by faith. Gal. 3:14, is the battle-ax. I would not
be without that text for anything: 'That we might receive the promise
of the Spirit through faith.' By
faith you are regenerated; by faith you are justified; BY FAITH YOU ARE
SANCTIFIED; BY
FAITH YOU RECEIVE THE HOLY GHOST; by faith you receive Christ as the
power of God in
your life."
We gladly make this lengthy
quotation from this beloved brother. Though we disagree with
him in one particular, as the reader will observe later, yet his
teaching is blessedly true that the
baptism with the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential to true
ministerial success; and he admits that
this baptism can not be received unless one is "cleansed,"
"sanctified," made "a holy man." This is
the very Pentecostal blessing we are writing about. The Holy Spirit
would not dare to fill and
empower an unclean, unholy, carnal man; he would be sure to abuse the
power by using it in a
carnal, selfish, wicked way. He would certainly use it to advance his
own fame and glory instead
of the glory of Christ. This is doubtless the reason why hundreds of
ministers pray for the baptism
of the Holy Spirit for power, for every one who receives it. They
reject sanctification; they will
not have holiness, and God can not lend His Holy-Spirit power to a
carnal, unholy man. This is the
explanation of the fact that college-trained preachers who sincerely
long for enlarged usefulness,
and carry a heavy heart over their lack of success, preach months, and
often years, without a
convert, or perhaps have but four or five. The Holy Spirit is not with
them in Pentecostal power,
driving the message home upon the hearts of the people till it pierces
like a barbed arrow and
accomplishes its work. That preacher is made as a soul-winner who gets
and retains this
Pentecostal experience; this heavenly illumination; this Divine
anointing; this cleansing and
empowering of the Holy Ghost.
It matters not where a
church is located, among what people, educated or ignorant, high or
low, rich or poor, native or foreign, -- if the preacher and the lay
members are Spirit-filled and
anointed, their enterprise is joined to the dynamo of the skies; their
power is adequate to every
need and emergency. The Almighty God, with all the resources of heaven,
is behind their efforts,
AND THEY WILL SUCCEED. They have but to touch the button with the
finger of faith, and
something will happen that will astonish three worlds.
How ought the Pentecostal
chamber to be prized and the Pentecostal blessing to be prayed
for and coveted Its transcendent importance can not be overestimated.
The coming of the Spirit in
power upon our preachers and our Churches is the need of the hour. It
would be like a spice-laden
breeze visiting the lattice of the sick, or like a strong wind to
hopelessly-becalmed mariners,
filling their idle sails and speeding them on to their desired havens.
It would create again the
long-lost spirit of Pentecostal benevolence to fill the coffers of our
impoverished Missionary
Boards, and it would send out a multitude of missionaries to sow beside
all waters. It would bring
a blessed stir of Divine life to the stagnant pools of our
highly-endowed theological seminaries.
The Spirit-filled professors would tell the theological students less
about evolution and their
monkey ancestors, and show them more how to make a moral revolution in
the communities where
they go, and how to induce lost sinners to become the sons and
daughters of God. They would
teach the young preachers less about German rationalism, and more about
the baptism with the
Holy Ghost. They would show them how to criticize the Bible less, and
how more to read it with
anointed vision, and see in it the deep things of God.
The race of
sickly, sentimental, sycophantic, truth-trimming, gospel-diluting,
parlor-ornamenting, dudish, women-worshiped preachers would become
extinct. The gushing,
perfumed essays, full of the roses and poses of rhetoric, would no
longer find their way into our
pulpits. We should hear no more of sermonettes and Christianettes on
the road to a heavenette.
Stalwarts, sons of the old, heroic prophets, would fill the pulpits;
mature men and women, rather
than carnal babes, would fill the now empty pews. Their
sanctuary-revering, religion-respecting
children would be with them. The old-time Pauline gospel of
righteousness and full-salvation
would be preached in its glorious completeness, and be like fire and
hammer to break the flinty
heart in pieces. It would command the respect of thoughtful men. The
Church, the white-robed
Bride of Christ, would "arise and shine, her light having come, and the
glory of God having risen
upon her." Her onward step would be the tread of victory: she would be
as terrible to the hosts of
hell "as an army with banners."
Who that loves
the Lord does not long to see Zion thus clothed with power and glory?
What
a refreshing chapter of history she would make after the late annals of
humiliating defeat! Let us all
turn away with one accord from reliance on Church fairs, and festivals,
and theatricals, and human
learning, and oratory, and fine Churches, and costly choirs, and
organizations and machinery, and
carnal means and methods, and seek the baptism with the Holy Ghost and
His continual indwelling
with all our hearts. Pentecost universally welcomed would mean the
Church saved and the world
evangelized.