THE DIVINE GRACE THAT SAVES.
It is by the application of this Divine grace that men are saved from their sins and from the power of hell. But they can never receive it as passive subjects. They must take it and apply it in and of themselves, and use it as if it were their own; yet never forgetting that it is the gift of God, and never ceasing to acknowledge and thank Him for His infinite goodness and mercy in teaching their "hands to war;" in "girding" them "with strength unto the battle," and in giving them a "lamp unto their feet and a light unto their path," so that they may walk in safety.
If salvation were of grace alone, as so many teach in this Gospel temperance work, what need of "sword," or "armor," or a "lamp unto the feet?" for if, in answer to prayer and faith, a man's evil nature is instantly changed, he is no longer subject to temptation, and cannot, therefore, enter into combat with evil; and if God lift him out of the darkness of his carnal nature into the light of regeneration solely in answer to prayer, what need of any lamp unto his feet or light unto his path? He is no longer a pilgrim and a wayfarer, journeying heavenward through an enemy's land.
We press this subject on the reader's attention, because so much of success or failure in this great Gospel temperance work depends on a right understanding of spiritual laws and a true comprehension of the means of salvation. Holding, as we do, that, for the thousands and hundreds of thousands of unhappy and wretched men and women in our land who have become the almost helpless slaves of an appetite which is rarely, if ever, wholly destroyed, no true succor lies in anything but Divine grace and help, we feel that a great responsibility rests with all who, in the providence of God, have been drawn into this work.
Referring to the loose, and we cannot help saying hurtful teachings of too many temperance revivalists, Rev. Charles I. Warren, writing in the New York Christian Advocate, says:
"Religious conversion, all are agreed, is the first necessity for all men, and especially for inebriates, as the surest hope of a real and permanent reformation of life. And intemperate men, especially those who become demented rather than demonized, it is well known, are always easily moved by religious influences, even when so drunk that they would wisely be deemed incompetent to execute a will for the disposal of earthly property, and incapable of giving testimony in a court of law.
"Yet, this idea of a spiritual renovation of the heart, while the head is too intoxicated to apprehend a moral obligation, is almost beyond rational belief. It is difficult to conceive that any man, in such a state of voluntarily-induced imbecility, too drunk to hold intelligent converse with men, can be competent to transact business with God, to receive and answer those calls from the Holy Spirit that decide the eternal destinies of the soul."
And he adds: "We judge instinctively that all men, intemperate or sober, must work out their own salvation with fear, while God works in them to will and to do."
This is the key-note to the whole subject of spiritual regeneration. It is active co-operation; work, conflict, victory; and this down on the sphere of common life, and in the midst of temptation—not out of the world, but "in the world;" not something done in and for a man while he waits in prayer on God, but after he has fought his battle with some enemy of his soul, and overcome in the strength which God has given him in answer to prayer. Only they who have fought and conquered can possess the land and dwell there in safety.
AN UNSOUND AND DANGEROUS DOCTRINE.
In a meeting at which we were present, and where from one to two hundred reformed men were gathered for religious worship, and for help and counsel, the hymn commencing
"Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,"
was sung. At its close, a man rose from his seat and entered his protest against the singing of that hymn any more. It is not true, he said, that the man whom God has converted feels any proneness to wander. He had had the grace of God in his soul for—we don't remember how many years—and he could testify that the desire to wander from God's commandments had been wholly removed. He, therefore, repeated his protest against the use of a hymn containing a sentiment so dishonorable to a truly saved Christian. As he sat down, a very young man arose and added the weight of his testimony to the assertion of his older Christian brother. He also, in answer to prayer, as he confidently asserted, had attained unto that higher life which is not only free from sin, but from even the desire to wander from the ways of holiness.
As we looked into and read the faces of these two men, we sighed for what we saw therein, and pitied them for the peril in which they stood. But our greater concern was for the poor, weak, almost helpless ones we saw around us, and for the effect of this delusive error which had been so needlessly thrown into their minds. If any of them should rest in the belief that they, too, had, by the grace of God, been wholly set free from the bondage of sin; that the appetite for drink and the lust of all evil had been extinguished, and their proneness to wander from God taken away in simple answer to prayer, then would their danger, we felt, be so imminent as to leave but little room for hope of their standing in the new life. A stumbling-block had been laid in their way over which they must almost surely fall.
We are writing for the help and safety of men for whom there is but little or no hope of rescue from the depths of evil and sensuality into which they have fallen, except in a truly religious life; not a life of mere faith, and sentiment and fancied holiness, but of earnest conflict and daily right living. A life in which not only intemperance is to be shunned, as a sin against God, but every impure and evil desire of the heart, and every thought and purpose of wrong to the neighbor. And, believing as we do, that God's grace and power can only be given to those who will take it as active subjects—not mere passive recipients—and by using it as if it were their own, avail themselves of its purifying and regenerating influence, we can do no less than question and reject any doctrine that even seems to give a different impression, as delusive and exceedingly dangerous.
To make Gospel temperance the true power of God unto the salvation of intemperate men, we must have in it, and with it, the Gospel of conflict with evil, the Gospel of daily right living, the Gospel of love to the neighbor and the Gospel of common sense. And these are coming more and more into the work, which is widening and increasing, and every year adding thousands upon thousands to the number of those who are saved from the curse of drink.
