Part 20

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!"