SEPARATION OF THE WHEAT AND CHAFF
The great war for the extermination of sin out of the heart, or sinners out of the church is destined to sweep over all the nations of the earth. "The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came" (Isa. 41:5).
Thus saith the Lord: "Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel" (Isa. 41:14). When sin and self are all destroyed there is barely enough left of Jacob to constitute a small worm. But by thus reducing her to "naught," God has prepared the church to exhibit his power in shaking the heavens and the earth and bringing "to naught the things that are"—the great things of the world.
"Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing-instrument having teeth: thou shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shall make the hills as chaff. Thou shall fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel" (Isa. 41:15,16). The characteristic of God's church here portrayed is nearly lost sight of at present. People think it is the business of the church to stand like a beggar at the door of the devil's kingdom and politely coax his subjects over; saying much about the duty and advantage of belonging to church and little about their sin and the duty of repentance, as though God were dependent, and the devil proprietor of the universe. Satan, having thus stolen the spikes out of the church—her power of execution—has distinguished himself in helping to run the empty machinery. But he that sitteth in the heavens will arise and bring to naught Satan's devices.
"The time is soon coming, by the prophets foretold,
When Zion in purity the world shall behold;
When Jesus' pure testimony will gain the day—
Denomination selfishness vanish away."
Already the Lord has begun to make Jacob new again; a sharp instrument, reset with the spikes of its primitive power, the "weapons of his indignation."
A church or ministry that is destitute of these teeth will hurt no flesh, awake no persecution, thresh out no wheat, please the devil, and give no glory to God. But spikes are not the only essential to a first-class thresher. Anciently grain was threshed with flails or trodden out by cattle and horses. Then a great improvement was secured by the invention of what is called the "old open machine." But, oh, the heaps of chaff that piled up, and filled the entire floor! Then came the dreadful task of cleaning up—of separating and removing the worthless heap.
Such have been the crafty open machines that have for years imposed heaps of trash upon the Lord's threshing-floor. They have not taken "forth the precious from the vile" (Jer 15:19). "Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean" (Ezek. 22:26). "Ye have wearied the Lord with your words ... when ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them" (Mal. 2:17).
Is not this perfectly fulfilled at present by preachers who invite sinners into their folds without requiring a particle of saving grace, and who even flatter them that they are already pretty good, and need but to come and join the church? And how many of their poor, deluded victims remain in the church for years and never hear the gospel preached straight enough to convict them of their unregenerated hearts! The policy of these teachers has been to "gather of all kinds," but the next thing in order—to separate and "cast the bad away"—has been wholly omitted. But as the Lord liveth, he is going to clear away this ecclesiastical rubbish.
"Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Matt. 3:12). Who would accept as a gift a few bushels of wheat scattered through a great heap of chaff and dirt? And think you that God will accept the church in her present condition? No, indeed; the gold must first be separated from the dross. The bride must dissolve her unholy friendship with the world, in which she is guilty of spiritual adultery in the sight of God (Jas. 4:4). She must put away all her rival gods, and adorn herself in robes of spotless white, before prepared as a bride for her husband. The Bible most assuredly teaches that God will separate the chaff from the wheat before he comes to garner home his church. To accomplish this he is converting Jacob from an open machine to a separator....
When the "rushing mighty wind" from heaven strikes the gathered heaps of stubble and chaff and begins to "scatter them," people think the church is being ruined; but this fan is in the hand of the Lord Jesus, and it will not carry a grain of wheat off his floor, and why fret about that which is not meet for the Master's use? "What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord." Let the wind from heaven drive it, and the fire consume it, "and thou [even in this scatterment] shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel."
In the prophet Micah, chapter 4, and verses 1, 2, we have the mountain of the house of the Lord (the church) established, and the law going "forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." In the 10th verse we have recorded the captivity, or "falling away" of the church—"Thou shalt go even to Babylon." And, in order to restore her purity, the Lord commands the following severe measures in verse thirteen: "Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth."
Threshing and separating, purging and consuming is the order of God, in the day of the Refiner. Many think we must so temper the gospel as to preserve peace in the church, notwithstanding her sin and idols. But, "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth [peace with sin]? I tell you, Nay; but rather division." So answers the Lord. His "fan is in his hand," and he would rather blow the church to atoms and secure a little clean wheat by itself than see it prosper in peace and multitudes and under mortgage to Satan, and bearing his brand mark, i. e., spots of sin. For this purpose, says Jesus, "I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straightened till it be accomplished!" (Luke 12:49,50). Jesus intimates that the work of refining the church with the Holy Ghost fire could not begin until he himself had passed through the ordeal of suffering and death.
"For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many" (Isa. 66:15,16). Here is the fire, sword, and division that Christ came to send on earth. Its shaking and purifying power was first manifest on the day of Pentecost. This light makes Israel see her condition and cry out, "My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me!" "Wherefore glorify ye the Lord in the fires, even the name of the Lord God of Israel in the isles of the sea." "When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as a shaking of an olive-tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done" (Isa. 24:15,13). "And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit" (v. 18). There is no escape from the sweeping fire of holiness but into the pit of sin; and all that can not "abide his coming" are "like chaff, which the wind driveth away."
But nowhere in the Bible is the line more clearly drawn between the wheat and the chaff, the gold and the dross, than in our key-note text to this entire subject. What shall remain after the "once more" shaking? Nothing but the divine elements of the "kingdom, which can not be moved," and which Paul represents as "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 14:17). These only remain in the heart that has passed through the crisis. Halleluiah! But what is thereby removed? Answer: All "things that are shaken" and that "are made." By the first class we understand everything that flinches and shakes before the searching light and sin-exterminating gospel of Christ; every vein of our nature, every motion "flesh and spirit," every temper of the mind and habit in life that does not perfectly harmonize with the "righteousness of God revealed" in the Bible, will naturally shake beneath the voice of the Holy One, and must, therefore, be removed. The second class—all "things that are made"—denotes every thing that is not original: every phase of our moral being that is not implanted by the hand of God. Or, in other words, everything adhering to us that was produced by Satan, sin, or the perversion of our moral being. As the Lord says, "Every plant that my Father has not planted, shall be rooted up." This includes inbred sin. We have all along assumed the existence of this besetting foe. Yet we are aware that a very few deny the fact. But we think David settles this matter in the 51st Psalm, where he declares that, as fallen creatures, our very being is "conceived" and "shapen" in the mold of sin and iniquity. Paul also avers that we are "by nature the children of wrath" (Eph. 2:3); and that we are "cut out of the olive-tree [Adamic root] which is wild by nature" (Rom. 11:24).
But why multiply texts? Observation must necessarily teach everybody that children are possessed with a perverse nature long before the knowledge of right and wrong is developed. Justified Christians almost uniformly confess this same inward trouble. The remaining question is, Can we get rid of it in this life? To decide this, we have but to ascertain whether it is original, or the result of the fall. That it formed no part of the likeness of God in the soul, is very certain. It is therefore the "works of the devil," and just what Christ "came to destroy." It shakes, flashes out and roils up when pierced by the sword of the Lord, and must, therefore, be removed from the soul.
But the words of Paul apply to the church, as well as to the individual. It is designed to assay and remove the dross of the whole body of Christ. Before the great holiness reform had shed its benign influence upon the Christian world, and to some extent raised the church out of the narrow rut of churchism into a deeper and broader loyalty to God and unselfish love for humanity, the idea of getting saved from "your church" would have been regarded as blasphemy. But, thanks to the Lord! a purer light and higher standard of truth now compel the trumpeters of God all along the line of holiness to insist on salvation from all "our churches." But it may be asked, What is it that we must be saved from in "our churches"? Surely there must be some way to discriminate between that which is pernicious and that which is of God. Now, I know of no corner from which to run off this line but the one that Paul points out: "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid," and, "This word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made." God has founded one body—one church, fold, or kingdom. In it he has placed every element that is essential to its work, its prosperity, and its perpetuity. His wisdom has adapted it to all ages of time and conditions of men. Its faith was delivered to the saints once for all. Its principles and precepts are the last testament, the final and immutable will of the eternal God. This divine organization is invested with such absolute symmetry and perfection that to attempt the slightest modification of its divine unity or polity is wicked presumption in the sight of its divine Founder, and incurs the curses and forfeits all the blessings of God's Holy Book. Now, since the work of entire sanctification is designed to elevate the church to her normal and perfect condition in the sight of God, it must shake out and purge away every existing element that was not originally implanted by the hand of the Lord. This test, I think, is one in which all true Christians agree. Indeed, if we were to untie from this moorage we should soon be driven to sea without compass or chart; we should virtually open the door for every tradition of Rome and invention of error.
Starting, then, from this corner-stone of divine truth, established at Jerusalem nearly nineteen hundred years ago, and with the Bible as our compass and field notes, let us run off a line.
1. Between the true and false spirits in the church—let us "try the spirits whether they are of God." "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." But the party spirit, so prevalent in the churches, is not of Christ, hence must be removed, purged out of the heart. A zeal that springs from anything but pure, unmixed love for God and humanity, a spirit that would even promote holiness, or the conversion of sinners, partly to build up "our church," is badly mixed, is soon shaken and can not survive the Refiner's fire. It is only when the "eye is single" that the "whole body is full of light"—wholly sanctified.
A spirit which, out of deference to its own creed, wilfully disobeys the divine word, is not of God, and can not coexist with a pure heart. All these secondary motives, these mixed and unclean spirits, "shake" at the voice of the "mighty God," and are "removed" in the thorough work of entire sanctification.
2. The next thing I am compelled in the fear of God to speak of, as included in the catalog of the devil's shaky works, the foul smut and chaff of error, is the evil of sectarianism. This is the most destructive bane that God has ever suffered the devil to sow in his kingdom. It is the very mildew of hell, that spreads its blasting curse over nearly all the precious fruit of the Lord's vineyard. Here the words of Paul are an all-sweeping besom.
Oft the enlightened Christian's conscience inquires whether it is right for the church to be divided thus into a plurality of sects or denominations, with their respective human creeds and party names. In the light of truth we are compelled to answer, No. And for the simple reason that these parties are not of divine origin. Christ is the source of all true union among his disciples, and all divisions between them and the world; while the devil is the instigation of divisions in the church, and of all union between it and the world.
I quote the following from an editorial in the Christian Harvester.
"1. God has a church on earth. It is one and indivisible. It is made up of all and singular who are born of the Spirit.
"2. Individual (local) churches, or congregations, are as Scriptural as they are necessary.
"3. There is not one word in the Bible favorable to denominations or sects. The only sect among Christians that is spoken of in terms—the Nicolaitan—is severely condemned. There are indications of sectish belief, against which John is supposed to labor in the first chapter of his Gospel, and Paul withstood in the Judaizing tendencies, even in a brother apostle. Denominations are directly or indirectly the result of sin remaining in the great body of professors. Thorough and wide-spread holiness would soon destroy denominations.
"4. But the evangelical denominations of today contain the mass of true Christians, with a multitude of mere professors. Because of differences sects can not yet be abolished; and an effort at abolition would result in a new one. Therefore sects are a present necessity, until holiness more generally prevails.
"5. The possessor of perfect love of necessity overleaps denominations in spirit, and so regards all the sanctified as perfectly his brethren."
We are personally acquainted with the editor of the Harvester, and believe him a holy man of God. We admire the frankness with which he acknowledges that "there is not one word in the Bible favorable to denominations or sects," and that "denominations are directly or indirectly the result of sin remaining in the great body of professors."
Such must be the honest verdict of every intelligent, God-fearing man. It is no pleasant thing, we know, to look upon and admit this monster evil, this fell destroyer of the purity, love, and power of the Lord's Zion. Says Wm. Starr, "My heart has groaned as, pen in hand, I have looked at this subject, arranged my thoughts to present them to you." But for the love of truth I am constrained to differ with the position that sects are a present necessity. They originated from sin in the church; and shall we admit that the fruit of sin is a necessity under any circumstances? "Shall we do evil that good may come? God forbid." Where the cause—sin in the church—is removed by full salvation, should not its effects also disappear? But it is thought that "because of differences sects can not yet be abolished." We might say, with equal propriety, because of sects differences can not be removed. They coexist and mutually support each other. These divergent views, and party shibboleths, may have had their root in carnality, but they are stereotyped and perpetuated by sectarian parties and their man-made creeds. Therefore we have no more right to palliate the sin of sects because of differences, than to excuse the latter because of the former. One of the great evils of sectarian divisions is, they prevent the return of the church to the "faith once delivered to the saints"; and shall we let the baneful tree stand until it ceases to bear its legitimate fruit?
Again, it is thought that "sects are a necessity until holiness more generally prevails." "Thorough and wide-spread holiness would soon destroy denominations." Sects and holiness are antagonistic to each other. This truth is clearly implied in the above remarks. The fire of true holiness burns up all the fences that Satan has placed between the saints. And shall we defeat this its real mission, by not lifting up the sword of the Lord against sects, and attempt to abolish the evil, until holiness prevails more extensively? That is the same as saying that we should make no attack on unholiness until holiness gains a certain degree of ascendancy. Yea, it provides that we should give place to the devil in the church to destroy holiness, until the church becomes more holy. These are no trifling words. It is a solemn fact that adherence in different denominations is the devil's wedge, whereby the unity of the Spirit, so perfectly procured in the grace of prefect love, is again destroyed. Party names, party creeds, and party spirits almost of necessity go together; and the natural return of this spirit, because of membership in a fragmentary church, takes more souls off of God's altar than do everything else together.
Let sects alone until holiness prevails! What a device of the enemy! How can we expect to bring forth permanent fruits into holiness, if we allow the plowshare of God's truth to slip over this fallow ground of sin? Sects are the devil's "high places" in the land, the groves of his own planting, and gods that he has set up to corrupt Israel, and "provoke God." How many of the kings Jehovah complains of because they did not, like Josiah, "purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places and the groves" (2 Chron. 34:3)! Beware that we partake not of their sins. Of Azariah it is said that "he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord ... save that the high places were not removed.... And the Lord smote the king [Azariah] so that he was a leper unto the day of his death" (2 Kings 15:3-5).
Says W. H. Starr (a conscientious Presbyterian minister) after quoting 1 Cor. 1:10-13 in his Discourses on Sectarianism: "It would seem as if no man could read these words of the great apostle without vividly seeing that party divisions among the people of Christ were, in his view, a most astounding evil. 'Is Christ divided,' he says, that ye who are all his, and who have been 'baptized by one Spirit' should be sundered one from the other by party names?
"And he adjures them in the most solemn manner, he beseeches them by an appeal the most sacred that words could utter, even by the name of Christ, as it were for his sake, and for his bleeding cause, to forsake these pernicious ways, and to be perfectly joined together in the same mind."
Hear what this author thinks of promoting holiness over these "high places," or sect walls.
"The divisions of the Christian church, as they now exist, are a prominent cause of the low state of piety among believers; the greatest single obstacle which now exists to the spread and triumph of our religion in the world." "The moment you separate the church of Christ into distinct divisions, you set up the idol of party. Success or adversity will no longer affect the mind simply as they touch the cause of Christ, but they will be felt, also, as affecting 'our side' or 'our church.' It is not Christ and his cause to which their whole thoughts and desires are now turned; the idol of party has now been set up, and it claims, and receives, part of their regard. The man, I think, is almost more than human that can wholly avoid this influence, at least after he has been long identified with any branch of the church. It is an influence which is all the time at work. The idol has been set up to divide the heart from the blessed Savior and his holy service; and its influence is as ceaseless as the existence of the cause. And this party feeling is, as we have seen, the essence of all sin, so that sinful desire is blended continually in the heart with its love to Christ, and pollutes the worship which it offers him."
This is an honest and faithful description of this monster evil. The party feeling is very sin. Yea, says this God-fearing man, "It casts a millstone round the neck of those who are struggling upwards to the image of their Redeemer. It mingles poison with the streams of salvation that flow to the soul through the church, and casts a blight upon its budding fruit."
Again, "Sectarianism is the greatest foe to the exhibition of love which God has ever suffered Satan to beget. It hinders brotherly love among Christians, and regard for the souls of men. It is vain for brethren in Christ to talk about the duty of loving one another, and to try to feel love for one another, while they refuse to act as love dictates [by separating into parties]. Their actions will control their hearts, as men's acts always do in the end. The fences which they set up between them in fact will become fences in feeling. And that is now even so, every Christian knows.... The divisions of Christ's people beget and stimulate continually that opposite spirit of rivalry and contention, which is the spirit of the world.... Yes, I charge all this mischief, the existence of which you all know, upon the sectarian divisions of the people of Christ; and let him deny it who can. It is in fact their legitimate fruit."
The division of the church into parties not only destroys the power and holiness thereof, but is the greatest impediment to the conversion of the world to God. Again we will hear Brother Starr, and the blessed Redeemer himself. "Would that the church of Christ might pause long enough from its sectarian strife to hear the voice of its Redeemer and Lord pleading with God in prayer on that sorrowful night ere the traitor came—'Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.... Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.' The prayers of Christ were not offered for a light matter, least of all that memorable petition which the pen of inspiration has recorded for the church in all ages to wonder and weep over, the prayer of its dying Lord. The desirableness of that visible union of his people for which Christ prayed as the means of impressing his truth on the world, and the evils of those divisions against which the apostle so earnestly exhorts, need to be better understood by the church.... May God grant you a disposition to look the evil fairly in the face."
Oh, the thousands of souls that are being lost to all eternity through the selfish, wicked, and carnal spirit of our churchism! God is dishonored, yea, robbed of the purchase of his Son's death, and infidelity stalks abroad; the result of a divided house.
It is said that "the possessor of perfect love of necessity overleaps denominations in spirit." Does not this love prove that they are in the way of the Spirit of Christ? And shall we compel the Lord to drag his children together over these cursed walls, only to have walls rise up again, and grieve away the Holy Spirit?
If it be true that "thorough holiness destroys denominations," then it follows that where they yet exist this genuine degree of holiness has not been attained by the people. But I have not quoted correctly: it is "thorough and wide-spread holiness." Ah! here is the sticking-point—a condition put in by the enemy of souls. It implies the following: "Though entire sanctification removes all sectarianism out of my heart, I will still adhere to my sect until people generally abandon their schismatic parties and creeds." The devil is perfectly easy over these principles. Now, if this evil is to be done away by popular sentiment, then it is not through holiness; but if by the latter it does not depend upon any foreign influence. The condition of the church in one State does not rob the Word and Spirit of God of their virtue in another. The power of holiness to destroy denominations in one community does not depend in the least upon another. Judah can burn down his groves and destroy his idols, whether Samaria and Ephraim do it or not. Therefore, we repeat, where the professed followers of Christ are divided into a plurality of sects, they have not yet become thoroughly sanctified to God.
Can it be said of professors of holiness that they have "one heart" and "one mind," while some have a mind to be Presbyterian, others Baptists, others United Brethren, and others have a mind to adhere to the several different sects of Methodism? Have they "one heart and one way" when they rise from the solemn altar in the holiness meeting and go, each one in his own way, to the synagog of his own sect?
Now, I must confess that I can not see the necessity of this, unless it be to please the devil, break the unity of the Spirit and grieve away the heavenly Dove, bring to naught the divided house of the Lord, and destroy the work of holiness as fast as it can be built up; to this end alone it is necessary.
But let us come still closer home. I would lay the responsibility of this enormous evil just where God places it and all other sin. We shall not be judged by sects, States, nor even by neighborhoods and towns, but "every one of us shall give account of himself to God."
A revival of holiness in a community is the result of personal consecration and faith; and its relapse will be in proportion to the number of individuals that remove the sacrifice from the sanctifying altar. There is no such thing as thorough holiness, except as wrought by the Sanctifier in individual hearts; and if, as has been said, and as I verily believe, thorough and widespread holiness destroys denominations—burns up sectarian distinctions—it must do it in your heart as an individual. And if this work is done, the fruits must exhibit the fact; you will be 'saved by the precious blood of Christ from all vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers'; such as "Your church," "Our church," "Our preacher opened the doors of the church," "What branch of the church do you belong to?" "You ought to join some branch," "and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine"—that grew out of a "perversion of the right ways of the Lord" and the gospel of Christ (Acts 13:10; Gal. 1:7). If the bitter root of sectism is entirely destroyed out of your heart, you will ignore all sectional lines and party fences, the dreadful curse of which Brother Starr has so honestly pointed out. If you are a true, intelligent Bible Christian, a holy, God-fearing man, you must cast off every human yoke, withdraw fellowship from and renounce every schismatic and humanly constituted party in the professed body of Christ. Instead of belonging to some branch you will simply belong to Christ and be a branch yourself in him, the true vine. Instead of remaining identified with any sect, i. e., cut-off party, "directly or indirectly the result of sin," you will claim membership in and fellowship with the "one and indivisible church that God has on earth, and that is made up of all and singular who are born of the Spirit." On this broad and divinely-established platform, and here only, can you stand clear of the sin of sectarianism and the blood of immortal souls that perish through its pernicious influence. Are you strictly loyal to God while you persist in adhering to a sect, notwithstanding he says "there should be no schism [sects] in the body" (1 Cor. 12:25)?
I am not advocating the no-church theory that we hear of in the West, but the one, holy church of the Bible, not bound together by rigid articles of faith, but perfectly united in love under the primitive glory of the Sanctifier, "continuing stedfastly in the apostle's doctrine and fellowship," and taking captive the world for Jesus.
But it is thought that we should not fight against sects nor attempt to abolish the evil at present, lest we thereby form another sect. This is virtually saying we should go on sinning, "lest a worse thing come upon us!"
An attempt to rally Israel under any of the many party names and creeds might indeed result in a new sect. But this is not what we contend for. Nay, but let us rather burn to ashes these high places of Israel's corruption, and, returning to Jerusalem, let us build "upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." Let us abandon the nonsense of ecclesiastical succession; cease to inflate our pride and vanity by parading the good and long-since departed, who innocently wore our party badges—the piety of our fathers will not atone for the worldliness of the church at present. Let us also quit flourishing our church creeds as though their excellency were an essential supplement to the wisdom of inspiration. Let us, we pray you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the sake of our holy and divine religion and a world that is lost in sin—oh, let us put away these childish things, and return to Jerusalem, not to form a new sect, but as the 'servants of the God of heaven and earth let us build the house that was builded these many years ago, which a great King of Israel [Jesus Christ] builded and set up' (see Ezra 5:11).
Many say we need more union of hearts, but think a visible organic union unnecessary; but remember that it was a visible union that Jesus prayed for, such as the world could see and be thereby convinced and saved. We quote once more from W. H. Starr.
"They will say to me: Can not we have union of feeling without external union [that is, with external disunion]? I answer No, you can not, except in rare instances, and in an imperfect degree. It is vain to be beating off the leaves of the tree while you continually nourish its roots. And sectarianism is the "root of bitterness," whose acrid and legitimate fruit of divided hearts, and jealousy, and strife, doth continually grieve away the Spirit of our God and Savior, and leave our churches in a comparative poverty of grace and growth that methinks must make the very heavens groan with sorrow as they look down upon our dying world. Up, up! my brother, my sister in Christ, inquire of the Lord concerning this thing! Why slumber ye here while Satan has entered the fold of Christ, a wolf in sheep's clothing, and is rending the flock? Oh, cry to God that he will direct you and all the children of his grace, till the church of his holy Son shall be purified and saved. Alas! it is now 'a house divided against itself.' Oh, pray that the Lord would unite and build it up in the truth; and that he would show you your duty in the matter. The wants of the world require a holy and united Church."
From what has been said, and the uniform teaching of the Bible, the following facts are very evident:
1. The division of the church into sects is one of Satan's most effectual, if not the very greatest, means of destroying human souls.
2. Its enormous sin must be answered for by individual adherents to, and supporters of, sects.
3. The only remedy for this dreadful plague is thorough sanctification, and this is wrought only by a personal, individual contact with the blood of Christ through faith.
4. The union required by the Word of God is both a spiritual and visible union.
5. The divisions of the church are caused by elements that are foreign to it as a divinely constituted body, by deposits of the enemy, which exist in the hearts and practises of individual members, involving their responsibility and requiring their personal purgation.
These facts make your duty plain. What you and I want, dear reader, is "thorough and wide-spread holiness" in our individual souls to destroy denominationalism there. Holiness, ever so thorough and wide-spread around you, will not cleanse your heart; neither can the sin of division in the hearts and lives of others attach to you, unless you drink in their spirit and also become a partisan. You need not waste time in planning general union movements, or praying the Lord to restore the unity of his church, until you go down under the blood and have every bone of contention and cause of division purged out of your own heart; then you may do something to influence others to do the same.
You are praying and longing for the happy time when God's children shall all be one, but are you willing that the "once more" shaking shall have its designed effect in your own case? Do you, indeed, suffer the Holy Ghost fire to consume out of your own life, heart, religion, and conversation, all the shaky chaff and stubble the devil has made to divide the children of God? Do you, indeed, withdraw from and ignore all churches, so called, but the one Christ purchased "with his own blood" and founded nearly nineteen hundred years ago, and to which the "Lord added" you by regeneration (Acts 2:47)? Do you discard every church title but that "which the mouth of the Lord hath named" (Isa. 62:2), even the name of the Father, in which Christ and the apostles kept the church (John 17:6,11,12; Acts. 20:28; 1 Cor. 1:2; 1 Tim. 3:15)? Do you honor the divine head of the church by rejecting every creed but the one that "is given by inspiration of God;" every door that is opened and shut by men; and every spirit but the Sanctifier; and every motive but the love of God and humanity? If you, by the grace of God, die to all these prime causes of sectism and their concomitant sins, then, and not until then, will the Lord have "thoroughly purged" so much of "his threshing floor" as you will have to answer for in the day of judgment. Where this is not accomplished, the grace of God is frustrated; holiness is not permitted to reach the Bible standard of thoroughness, nor spread its healing virtue to every part of the soul.
It may look foolish to many thus to blow the trumpet of the Lord around the high and massy walls of sectarian glory and selfishness, but the power of God with the faith and shouts of the "holy people" will surely bring them down. Though the heaps of sectarian chaff have reached the magnitude of mountains, God has some wheat scattered through them, and he will have it separated for his garner. Therefore he says to Jacob, "Fear not ... thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and thou shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them."
The pure elements of God's church possess a wonderful inherent attraction and cohesion; but the devil neutralizes the divine cement by mixing in his chaffy and sloughy trash, thereby effecting divisions; therefore, the Lord restores union by the "removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made" by the enemy, thus removing discord and schism. Glory to God! Little Jacob has barely commenced threshing and separating. Soon we shall see clouds of chaff driven by the "mighty rushing wind from heaven."
Says Bro. I. Reed, in his paper, The Highway: "The great holiness movement is shaking harder than ever. It is to be a real moral earthquake yet. We have nothing to fear in that direction. We have allied ourselves to the Power that does the shaking, and feel a kind of holy joy at the falling walls, reeling Babels and ecclesiastical fortifications that can not stand the grand holiness shock. In anticipation we enjoy the grand smash-up of things semi-religious—this half and half, linsey-woolsey type of 'Good God, Dear Mammon,' kind of fashionable moral froth, too often called 'religion'—that is coming some of these days. It is coming. We hear the tread of the mighty army."
Amen. Let the conflict come. God will have a pure church. He will shake the chaffy works of the devil out of his kingdom, though all hell be moved in rage; though Gog and Magog surround the camp of the saints on the breadth of the whole earth.
Dear reader, I am aware that I have here written things that will be unwelcome to many, truths that will assail and stir up many prejudices; but in doing so I have determined to cast from me the fear of man, and clear my conscience in the sight of God.
It is, indeed, my honest conviction that the great holiness reform can not go forward with the sweeping power and permanent triumph that God designs it should until the gospel be so preached and consecration become so thorough that the blood of Christ may reach and wash away every vestige of denominational distinction, and "perfect into one"—yea, one indeed and in truth—all the sanctified.
I am aware that this will elicit storms of persecution, but in the name of the Lord it must come. God will be glorified in the escape of his holy children from all human enclosures into the "one" and identical "fold of Jesus Christ." Oh! let us be honest before God in this matter.
Prophetic Truth.
D. S. Warner. (Ezek. 34:12-14; Isa. 51:11.) B. F. Bear.
1. 'Twas sung by the po-ets, fore-seen in the Spir-it, A time of re-
2. We stand in the glo-ry that Je-sus has giv-en, The moon, as the
3. Now filled with the Spir-it and clad in the ar-mor Of light, and om-
4. The proph-et's keen vi-sion, trans-pierc-ing the a-ges, Be-held us to
5. The fig-tree is bud-ding, the "eve-ning" is shin-ing, We wel-come the
fresh-ing is near; When creeds and di-vi-sions would fall to de-mer-it,
day-spring doth shine; The light of the sun is now e-qual to sev-en,
nip-o-tent truth; We'll tes-ti-fy ev-er, and Je-sus we'll hon-or,
Zi-on re-turn; We'll sing of our free-dom, tho' Ba-by-lon ra-ges,
won-der-ful light! We look for the Sav-ior, for time is de-clin-ing,
And saints in sweet un-ion ap-pear.
So bright is the glo-ry di-vine.
And stand from sin Ba-bel a-loof.
We'll shout as her cit-y doth burn.
E-ter-ni-ty's loom-ing in sight!
Chorus.
Oh, glo-ry to Je-sus! we
hail the bright day, And high on our ban-ner sal-va-tion dis-play,
The mists of con-fu-sion are pass-ing a-way.
[Listen (midi)] [Listen (mscz)]
[XIII]
A PROPHETIC TIME
That many events of the world are foreshadowed in the prophecies of the Bible is something which perhaps the average reader does not pause much to reflect upon. He rather inclines to regard the prophecies as a difficult portion of the Sacred Writings, and in consequence of their being passed by, ignorance generally prevails concerning them. There is nothing inconsistent in the idea that events in the world occur in accordance with prophetic utterance. It does not necessarily give credence to the doctrine of fatalism—that everything which happens must happen. The affairs in man's life are largely subject to his control. He has a scope of freedom all his own. He can make his own choices and govern his own career. He may do an act or he may not do it. An accident occurs which may have been avoided had more care been exercised. Nevertheless, from this free volitionary scope which belongs to man we may not exclude God's design; for he does exercise a controlling hand in the affairs of man.
It may be said, however, of the greater things that occur in the world, the trend of public thought, the drift of conditions, the great political upheavals, things which are rather beyond man's individual control, and which involve mankind as a body and their destiny as a race—these more particularly belong to God and are made the subject of prophetic forecast. God did not create the world and then abandon its processes. He created all things according to design, and we may be assured that he has design in the progress of things as well as in their first creation. Nor will the grand play of the world's events reach its conclusion without the decree of him whose prerogative it is to say, "It is enough; time shall no longer be."
Christ's coming into the world was freely prophesied hundreds of years in advance of that event. This is so plain that no student of the Bible, unless he means purposely to be infidelic, will dispute the fact. Likewise, the fulfilment of prophecies that went before concerning the Jews and their city Jerusalem is much in evidence.
The events of the world naturally group themselves into periods, or epochs. They are like panoramic scenes that unfold in the theater of the universe. Thus we have the two dispensations separated by the incarnation of Christ, the grandest event in all history. And thus we have, as divisions of the latter dispensation, the event of paganism giving place to the papacy and ushering in a dark day of apostasy, known in history as the Dark Ages; and the Renaissance and the Reformation of the sixteenth century, ushering in a period of Protestantism, which is also an age of letters and invention.
In the interests of his church and the progress of his truth God has shown in advance in prophetic vision the periods and epochal events covering not only the Christian dispensation, but also a considerable time previous to it. These are for the Bible-student, the minister of God, and for all Christians, to know and understand.
There is a prophecy in the 7th chapter of Daniel fore-shadowing the four successive world empires—the Babylonian, Medo Persian, Grecian, and Roman—and the papal power, that grew out of the Roman. The book of Revelation is but a series of panoramic displays of the events of the entire Christian dispensation and the end of the world.
And so we may expect that, inasmuch as the prophecies served primarily the interests of the church, or the New Testament kingdom, any marked advance for the church, such as the deliverance of the saints from spiritual Babylon, should have its foregleam in the utterance of the seer. In our preceding chapter, Brother Warner has already given quotations from the prophets relating to bringing out a pure church through the preaching of holiness. We wish to show by several other lines of prophecy that this state of the church, as being free from the bondage of human ecclesiasticism and enjoying her primitive glory, marks a distinct prophetic time or period in this evening of the dispensation.
Referring again to the 7th chapter of Daniel, where four successive world kingdoms are represented by the four beasts, we note that special attention is given to the description of the fourth beast, which is the Roman power in its pagan phase. It was a beast "dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things" (vs. 7, 8).
Daniel wished to know the truth respecting the little horn that had eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things. He beheld that the "same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom" (vs. 21, 22). Now this horn that came up from among the other ten horns was nothing other than the elements of Roman Catholicism, developing into popery. It was the "man of sin," the product of the substitution of man rule for the Holy Spirit rule, the date for which change historians have fixed at about the year 270 A. D. This horn was to "speak great words against the Most High," and to "wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him" (vs. 25-27).
The "time and times and the dividing of time," marking the period during which the elements of the papacy should have full sway and should wear out the saints of the Most High, etc., are interpreted as three and one half years; a time in prophetic reckoning being one year, times two years, and the dividing of time one half year. Three and one half years would be forty-two months, or, if reduced to days according to the Jewish reckoning of thirty days to the month, twelve hundred and sixty days. Taking each day for a year, which is proper prophetic counting, we have twelve hundred and sixty years, and this added to the year 270 brings us to the year 1530, the date of the beginning of organized Protestantism, and the end of the universal sway of the papacy. Following this, "the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end" (v. 26). Since her universal spiritual supremacy ended, the judgment against Roman Catholicism has gradually proceeded and her political power has waned. "And the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom" (v. 22). The saints' possessing the kingdom is the culminating point in this line of prophecy, and means nothing other than the victory over human ecclesiasticism which the saints now possess.
In the 11th chapter of Revelation we have the wearing out of the saints expressed as treading under foot the holy city, and the time-period of "a time and times and the dividing of time" expressed as forty-two months (v. 2). In v. 3 the same time-period is expressed as twelve hundred and sixty days. During this time the two witnesses—the Word and the Spirit—prophesy in sackcloth, which represents the low estate to which they were relegated during the dark age of popery. It will be remembered that the twelve hundred and sixty days (years) end with the year 1530. Following this comes three days and a half (three centuries and a half) of Protestantism during which the two witnesses (Word and Spirit) are, in the governmental sense, operatively dead, the organized systems of man rule having usurped the place of divine government and authority which these witnesses originally held. At the end of the three days and a half, three hundred and fifty years (which, added to 1530, brings us to the year 1880) "the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet" (v. 11). They ascended to their place in the ecclesiastical heaven, to the true church, and were thus victorious. This brings us to the present reformation. This is soon followed by the sounding of the seventh angel, which represents the end of time when the 'kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever' (v. 15). The curtain drops.
Another scene is presented in the 13th chapter, where the rise of the papacy, or Roman Catholic power, is represented by a leopard beast having the same "mouth speaking great things" that appeared in the "little horn" of Daniel seven. "And power was given unto him to continue forty and two months" (v. 5), which is the same time-period, again, of twelve hundred and sixty years. Following this the period of Protestantism is represented by a beast "coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon" (v. 11). The length of the time-period of this second beast is here omitted, but the sphere of its activity is succeeded (in chap. 14) by a victorious church, the fall of Babylon, and the present reformation work in which the everlasting gospel, the gospel that really saves, is once more preached "unto them that dwell on the earth." In connection with this also is the judgment which Daniel says is "given to the saints of the Most High;" that is, the judgment against the false religions of spiritual Babylon.
In the 18th chapter, in connection with Babylon's fall, we have God's people called out of her. "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double" (vs. 4-6). Thus the time is come that 'judgment is given to the saints' and the 'saints possess the kingdom.'
Spiritual Babylon represents Rome first, and Protestantism second. In the Critical Commentary by Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, in the comments on Rev. 18:4, we have the following quoted from Hahn in Auberlen: "The harlot is not Rome alone (though she is preeminently so), but every Church that has not Christ's mind and spirit. False Christendom, divided into very many sects, is truly Babylon, i. e., confusion." The literal Babylon was an ancient city situated on the Euphrates River. In it God's people Israel were held captive for seventy years, or until liberated by the Persian king Cyrus. This is used as a figure of the captivity of God's spiritual Israel in spiritual Babylon. The word Babylon means confusion, and it is fittingly applied to the confused religion as represented by the whole picture of Roman Catholicism and the Protestant sects.
In the 34th chapter of Ezekiel the gathering of God's people and their deliverance from false relations is represented by a shepherd seeking out his flock and delivering them. "As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel" (vs. 12-14).
The cloudy and dark day of Protestantism, when the light of truth shines, not in its entire brightness, nor yet as entirely obscured, is also referred to in the 14th chapter of Zechariah. "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light" (vs. 6, 7). Thank God, the day of mingled light is past, and we are in the full light of the evening, when the whole truth is once more preached in its fullness, without hypocrisy and without reserve.
Thus we see that the present movement among God's people toward holiness and unity, out of denominationalism, is prophetically represented as a new epoch for the church.
Louder, Louder.
D. S. Warner. Allie R. Fisher.
1. On-ward moves the great E-ter-nal In the or-der of his plan;
2. Since by sin this earth was blighted, God has whis-pered of his love,
3. Loud-er speaks his love in Je-sus, Heav-en sweet-ly chants his fame;
4. Yet the world is wrapped in slumber, Loud-er raise the trumpet's blast;
5. In the cag-es of de-cep-tion Souls are pin-ing to be free;
Loud-er, near-er rolls the thun-der Of his aw-ful word to man.
Dreams and vi-sions by his proph-ets Breathed of mer-cy from a-bove.
Earth re-ceives its glo-rious Sav-ior, Hal-le-lu-jah to his name!
Oh, in mer-cy let it thun-der, Ere the day of mer-cy's past.
Quick-ly sound the proc-la-ma-tion Of the glo-rious ju-bi-lee.
Chorus.
Loud-er, loud-er, hal-le-lu-jah! See the glo-rious foun-tain flow;
From the midst of heav'n pro-claim it, Oh, it makes me white as snow.
[Listen (midi)] [Listen (mscz)]
[XIV]
THE GOSPEL TRUMPET
After the Board of Publication of the Northern Indiana Eldership had passed the resolution in November, 1880, that they were willing to consolidate the Herald of Gospel Freedom with any other paper that advocated the same gospel principles, a consolidation was effected with a small paper called The Pilgrim, published in Indianapolis, by G. Haines. The Pilgrim was a monthly and had been issued but about eight times. The Herald equipment, it should be remarked, had been donated to Brothers Warner and Haines by the Churches of God in Indiana for the new paper.[9] The decision to effect this consolidation was made in a joint meeting of the Board of Publication and the Standing Committee held in Yellow Lake Bethel, Kosciusko County, Ind., Dec. 23, 1880. In an old memorandum tablet of Brother Warner's is recorded what is apparently a report of this meeting, in his own handwriting. One paragraph, which reads as follows, is of special interest:
"On motion it was agreed to consolidate the Herald of Gospel Freedom with the Pilgrim, at Indianapolis, Ind., and call the new the Gospel Trumpet."
Though he modestly does not say so, it was Brother Warner himself who suggested the name Gospel Trumpet. He felt impressed that the new paper should be called by that name, the idea being associated with such scriptures as the following:
"The great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come ... and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount" (from Isa. 27:13). "The Lord God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds" (from Zech. 9: 14).
A scripture containing the word "trumpet" always appeared in the heading of the paper. After a few years the heading contained the design of a flying angel blowing a trumpet from which was suspended a scroll containing this inscription, taken from Zech. 5:2-4: "He said unto me. What seest thou? And I answered, I see a flying roll.... Then said he unto me.... Every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and everyone that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it. I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of hosts."
At a later date the design was changed, the angel was reversed, and the following was substituted as an inscription on the scroll: "All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye" (Isa. 18:3). For many years the heading design contained one or more angels blowing the trumpet.
Brother Warner was a man wonderfully anointed of God for a special work. Since he had received the experience of sanctification, in 1877, the Lord had been gradually revealing to him that the true and divinely intended state of the people of God was not that of being scattered in a multiplicity of sectarian divisions but of being perfectly one in Christ, not only in spirit, but in name and in visible aspect. He felt that the teaching of genuine holiness would, in connection with the light of the prophecies bearing on the subject, bring the church out into her pure, undivided state. For such a reformation he was indeed a chosen instrument of the Lord. It was God's truth he was preaching. It led, of course, to a crisis in which he received much persecution and was deserted by many. The Trumpet, he realized, was a very effectual instrument God had placed in his hands for accomplishing the great reformation-work in this evening time of the Christian era. The time was ripe. True saints of God in various places, in whom was the Spirit of the Lord, were desiring and anticipating a oneness for God's people, and when the Trumpet appeared it was just what they were wanting. The fact that it was considered insignificant and ignored in popular religious circles proved its mission none the less divine. God's work is frequently accomplished by insignificant instruments. The Trumpet shared Brother Warner's difficulties and deprivations. The description of these in the spiritual phase will be reserved for the next chapter. What we shall note here are some of the mere facts of its history.
Fascimile of a copy of the Gospel Trumpet dated Mar. 1, 1881, the oldest in the Company's files. A paragraph from Brother Warner's notes.
The oldest copy of the Gospel Trumpet now in the files of the Publishing Office is of the issue of March 1, 1881. The paper began with January 1 of that year, at Rome City, Ind. Two issues were printed there, then the equipment was moved to Indianapolis. The removal occasioned some delay, so that there was no paper printed during the month of February. The new location was over N. 70 North Illinois St. The paper started as a semimonthly, at a subscription price of seventy-five cents a year. Agents were allowed a commission of fifteen cents on each subscription in clubs of five or upwards. Its object was stated as being, "The glory of God in the salvation of men from all sin, and the union of all saints upon the Bible." It was a four-page, five-column paper of about 13 by 19 inches in size. It at first contained considerable matter on prohibition; but the thing that brought it persecution and isolated it from the fellowship and sympathy of nominal professors was its teaching against sectarian divisions.
Financial privation was one of the handicaps that had to be contended with from the start. On the moving of the equipment to Indianapolis, new type to the amount of $147 had to be purchased. At this time also a new Prouty power-press costing $590 was contemplated, the old press being a Washington hand-press. It was some years, however, until a power-press was installed. In the issue of May 15, 1881, appears the following editorial:
We are experiencing that it takes a man wonderfully burned out for God to publish a paper that is simply true to Jesus and up to the Bible standard of salvation from all sin. A thousand points of expediency and policy must be disregarded, and the eye fixed on God alone. O reader, you that love God and the truth, do not forget to pray for us. We are here in the city with a family to support, and publishing expenses to meet, and many are withdrawing from us because we will not sanction their idols; but God is always present, and we fear no evil. Thus far, since the paper is all on God's altar, he has supplied our needs. Glory to his name!
Another difficulty that had to be contended with almost from the start was the unfaithfulness of some of those associated with him. He was scarcely settled in Indianapolis when the partnership with Haines had to be dissolved, and the latter then started an opposition paper. The following editorial from the June 1 number will explain: