The people God has raised up in the nineteenth century and founded upon
the apostles and prophets, Jesus the Christ, the chief corner-stone,
have not been raised up in vain. Only a small part of their work is
in history yet. What has been done is only a drop to the bucket of
the stupendous work to be accomplished. It is only a foretaste, an
earnest of what is yet to come. It is only the incipient movement,
the inauguration of the work, the entering wedge. The great body of
the work lies in the future. Let no man become disheartened if a few
faint-hearted do turn back and hanker after the flesh-pots of Egypt.
In all great movements some of these have been found. They were in the
camps of Moses and among the first followers of Jesus. They have been
the timid, faithless time-servers, afraid of the people and lovers of
the world. But these are only spots in the feast, mere blemishes, and
no more to the great body than the spots in the sun compared with that
wonderful body. These poor little souls that desire to be _like the
clergy_, or to be actual _clergymen themselves_; that want titles, and
the people to call them _Dr._, _Rev._; that get on the white cravat,
the priestly coat buttoned up to the chin; that drop on their knees and
make a _public private_ prayer, as they enter the “sacred desk,” and
that teach the disciples to drop the head and offer a _secret private
public prayer before an assembly_, are not the men whom God sends. They
are the men who think the _largest offer in money is the loudest call
from God_, and the call which they obey most implicitly. They can be
bought and sold like sheep and oxen. God never calls such men as these.
They are a burlesque on the religion of Jesus Christ; the plainness,
simplicity and humility of our Lord. The idea has never entered into
their heads to be _servants_ of Jesus Christ. Their idea is to be
_masters_. They are not thinking of obeying, unless to obey the men
with the largest purses; but their idea is to be obeyed. They are not
thinking of adoring, but of being adored. The third epistle of Peter is
the one in which they find their likeness, and they are following the
directions in that epistle. Some of these may be reformed, and others
will go to their own place. They are not the men that _run the world_;
the world _runs them_.
But there is another class, that do not worship at the same altar
with these, nor are they of the same stripe. They do not draw their
divinity from clerical titles or clerical attire, nor from _public
private prayers_, from imitating Jewish rabbis, or sectarian rabbis,
from imitating ancient or modern Pharisees or Sadducees, but from the
living oracles of the living God. They are not under the thumbs of
rich men, nor under the influence of high salaries; nor ancient nor
modern priests. They cannot be bought and sold. They are the Lord’s
_free men_. They have cut loose from the bondage of the world of
sin, of sectarianism and the clergy. They belong to Christ. They get
their gospel from him. They are his servants. They adore and worship
him. They are men of faith and of prayer, too, but when they pray in
_secret_, it is _in secret_, where none but Him who sees in secret
sees them. They know their Bible and they are devoted to it. There
is a grand army of these, we believe, as time as the needle to the
pole. We cannot say that there are seven thousand in the field, public
preachers, but we are astonished wherever we go to find such numbers of
them, and to find their firmness and determination in the faith; and
to learn, too, of the sacrifices they are making and the additional
sacrifices they are determined and willing to make. They are many of
them living almost as economically as we did thirty years ago, in our
incipient work of opening the way.
When the British general found General Marion living _on roots_, and
his men _fighting without pay_, he admitted that the prospect of
overcoming such men was gloomy. So, when our opposers see the glorious
army of which we speak, of faithful young men struggling with only a
half support, and, in some instances, not that, and behold the love
for the gospel, the Lord Jesus and their fellow-men that impels them
on; and when they witness their determination, zeal and energy; that
they cannot be discouraged, disheartened and turned back, they give
up all idea of ever conquering them or withstanding them. Let not one
word we are saying be construed into an excuse for any Christian who
has the ability not sustaining these precious men whom God has raised
and put into the field. Nor need any one wait for a “plan,” nor an
“organization,” or “system.” Plans, organizations and systems give no
money. Men and women must give the money, if it is given at all. No man
who has the means, and refuses to do his part, according to the ability
God has given, to aid in this glorious work, need flatter himself that
he will be a partaker in the final reward. According as a man sows
shall he also reap. We know that there are hard-hearted and sordid men
in the church, that do nothing of consequence, and men of this sort
that will never be any better. They have but one idea ingrained and
imprinted on their entire being, and that is to hang on with a grasp
like death itself to the goods of this world. But the good and the
true, the men of faith, and love, and zeal; the men who have their eye
on a kingdom not of this world, and who are devoted to saving men and
women from ruin, will not stop for these, nor brood over them, but turn
away from them as they do from other abandoned characters who are past
feeling, and go on with their glorious work. God will be with them,
and, though poor in this world, they will be rich in faith, and the
Lord will hold them up.
But what has this great army of young preachers to do? Where is their
work? There is work enough for them to do. The only fear we have is,
that when they look and see the vastness of the work, they will think,
like one of old, “There be more against us than for us.” We have a
vast amount of worldliness and carnality to drive out of the Church;
conformity to the world; love of pleasure more than love of God; the
love of Christ to restore; the gospel and the true worship. Where the
cause has gone back, it must be recovered; where the gospel has been
lost and superseded by something else, it must be restored, and where
the worship has been corrupted, it must be purified, and the right way
of the Lord established. Men who do not love the gospel, the worship
and the things of God, will slough off when everything is driven out
that did not come from God; when the only things they loved are taken
away. In a few instances entire congregations may be carried away with
worldly policies and appliances; but the whole number thus lost will
amount to but little, compared with the grand throng that will stand
together for the faith once delivered to the saints, and that will
go on. What remains for good men to do is, to go on; stand fast; be
strong in the Lord and in the power of his might; put on the whole
armor of God and fight the good fight of faith, and stand to the Bible
and nothing else, and thus make the Bible a grand power in the earth.
We have started with our Bible, and let us go on with it and carry it
through the world. We have a book that nobody denies, except out and
out skeptics, and one of supreme authority. Let us assert and maintain
its authority, and carry it through the world. All the other books that
in any way rival it, or are in anywise in the way of it, must be set
aside and rendered a _dead letter_. There is not one particle of divine
authority in anything that did not come out of the Bible. We must push
all other books aside.
All the names not applied to the people and Church of God in the
Scriptures must be repudiated and discarded, and we must determine to
speak of the people and Church of God in the language of Scripture.
This we can do; to this, no child of God can reasonably object. There
will be no difficulty in this, when we shall have no other kind of
people or Church but the people and Church of God. While we have other
kinds of people and churches, we shall need other names for them. But
we shall have no trouble about this, for they will select and give
themselves other names, such as they think fitting and appropriate.
All we have to do in the matter is to call them by the names they
give themselves. If they will not permit the Lord to name them, but
will call themselves by some name not given to the Lord’s people in
the Bible, it is their own doing, not ours. There is no reason why
the Lord’s people should follow their example, and not accept the
designations found in Scripture, and use them exclusively. If we are
the Lord’s people, we can be spoken of in the language of Scripture; if
we are not, then we might have some other name.