He did not attend college as long as he had expected to; for it was while he was there that he began to feel God's hand upon him for the ministry. When he saw how long it would take to complete his college work and the need of laboring in the Lord's harvest while it was day, he felt impressed that God wanted him to cut short his college course and to prepare at once for the ministry. He accordingly went home, arranged for a room in his father's house, and spent one season there in applying himself to prayer, Bible-study, and those other things which he believed were directly necessary to his ministerial preparation.
Preparation for the ministry is more successful when, along with it, there can be more or less of actual practise. We can believe that Brother Warner was spiritual enough to keep in touch with God and to discern the divine leading in the important matter to which he had committed himself. At any rate, in connection with his work of preparation he began to engage in ministering the gospel. He preached his first sermon on Easter night, 1867, in a Methodist Episcopal protracted meeting in the Cogswell Schoolhouse, not far from where he lived. Text, Acts 3:18—"But those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled."
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The use of tobacco, was very common among the professors in his community. It is related that he received an impression of the evil of this habit when on attendance at a prayer-meeting he saw one of those present attempt to take a chew secretly, by hiding his face behind a chair.
[IV]
CHURCH OF GOD (WINEBRENNERIAN)
At the time of his first effort in the ministry, which occurred more than two years after his conversion, Brother Warner had not as yet given his name to any religious society. To join a sectarian denomination is never by divine prompting, but is urged from human source. A young convert possessing the spirit of Christ is naturally at home in the Lord and with Christians anywhere. It is foreign to that spirit for one to limit oneself by subscribing to any particular creed of men. Accordingly, our young brother was only "acting natural" when he manifested no particular anxiety to "join the church." Representatives of the denominations in his neighborhood proposed to him and presented their articles of faith. The fact that he referred the great question to the Scriptures and could see no authority for joining anything not recognized in the Scriptures shows that he was already poor material for sectarian construction, at least so far as the common arguments for sects go.
There was one society, however, by which he was persuaded. The followers of John Winebrenner called themselves the Church of God. As they professed to hold to no creed but the Bible, repudiated sectarianism, baptized by immersion, and observed as an ordinance the washing of feet in conjunction with the Lord's Supper, all of which seemed good to him, and especially as they had the exact New Testament name for the true church, he was constrained to unite with that body. The mark of fellowship which differentiated them from other Christians and constituted them a sect, was not apparent to him, and so, even during the many years of his earlier ministerial career, he identified this body with the true church. He said in later years that he had more liberty as a minister before he took that step than he had during the years he belonged to the denomination, which after all was but a sect.
The Church of God, spelled with a capital C, and more fully denominated General Eldership of the Churches of God in North America, was founded by John Winebrenner, in 1830. Winebrenner had been baptized and confirmed in the German Reformed Church (now the Reformed Church in the United States), and was given the pastorate at Harrisburg. He was a good man and the work of the ministry became the uppermost desire of his heart. He sought to raise the standard of true piety. His earnest preaching resulted in a revival in which he opposed theaters, dancing, gambling, lotteries, and racing. Revivals of religion were new experiences in the churches of that region, so that his ministry awakened strong opposition, which resulted in official charges against him. He severed his relations with the Reformed Church but continued his ministry, extensive revivals following.