This volume, a reprint of the book originally published in 1921 and
out of print for many years, is in response to a long felt need that
this biography of D. S. Warner, along with a brief mention of a few
of his associate ministers and gospel workers, should be available to
the readers of the present generation and those to follow, should the
Lord extend time.
The original book is herewith reproduced without alteration or
change, except a very few minor omissions, and accounts of events and
conditions existing after the period of Bro. Warner's life.
The reader should bear in mind that Bro. Warner's coming out of
sectism was a gradual process over a period of time leading to the
climactic step, and any improper or questionable action on his part
while involved in sects was merely a result of his lack of clear
light and understanding of God's Word. After the light broke through,
he himself renounced these practices.
In 1878 D. S. Warner wrote: "The Lord ... gave me a new commission
to join holiness and all truth together and build up the apostolic
church of the living God."
Bro. Warner and his associates, discerning the impossibility of the
true church existing within the framework of denominationalism,
declared their freedom from the "sin of sectism and division" and
instituted the "evening light" restoration movement in the latter
part of the nineteenth century in direct fulfillment of Bible
prophecy. See Zech. 14:7. These vital Bible truths, especially on the
line of holiness and the nature of the church, which those reformers
proclaimed, are imperative today in preserving the church after the
apostolic pattern.
Many reformations have come to the religious world since the decline
of the apostolic church from its pristine glory of the first century.
Yet the nineteenth century reform is more complete, radical and
fundamental than any previous movement. A historian has penned this
significant observation: "No sooner had D. S. Warner and others begun
to preach as men had not preached for time out of mind than men saw
in their message the grandest truths the mind of man is capable of
receiving. They saw the church built up by Christ, led and organized
by the Holy Spirit, the names of whose members are in the Lamb's
book of life, which takes the Scriptures as its only discipline, and
fellowships every blood-bought soul. Here is real Christian unity.
"Despised and rejected in 'religious' circles, these men preached
more real Bible truth in one sermon than one would expect in months
of the ordinary kind. They preached profound truths; and it created a
furor wherever they went. Thousands received Scriptural light. Many
joyfully embraced the great truths they heard and spared neither
pains nor money to spread the message everywhere."
In his book, "The Cleansing of the Sanctuary," Bro. Warner wrote thus
on the subject of exclusiveness: "Christ is an exclusive Christ;
there is none beside him. The faith that he gave us is an exclusive
faith; no other saves the soul. The truth of God is exclusive in its
nature; everything contrary to it is false. The kingdom of Christ is
exclusive. It is a stone that breaks everything else to pieces. The
one church that Jesus founded and named, and which is his own body,
is also exclusive, for there is only 'one body in Christ.' During
the reign of pagan persecution the rulers offered to stop the bloody
martyrdom and allow the Christians to worship God in freedom, if
they would confess that the pagan idols were also real Gods. This
they could not do, but chose rather to die. And on this very point
of exclusiveness is the present offense of the cross. People would
not seriously object to God's ministers setting forth the church as
contained in the Scriptures, if we would recognize their earth-born
institutions as being also God's churches. But this we cannot do and
be honest before God and faithful to his Word. "There is but one
household of faith. Christ does not have a plurality of wives. He has
but one bride, and she has no sisters. Thus saith her husband, 'My
dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother.'
S. of Sol. 6:9."
"Three score and ten" years ago Bro. Warner's earthly career in the
service of the Master was ended, yet God in His infinite plan has
preserved a holy remnant through the intervening years which has
retained and maintained those precious original reformation truths.
The two witnesses (Rev. 11:11)--the Word and the Spirit--have resumed
their rightful positions as Governors of the church in this "evening
time" of the gospel day. Jesus Christ will find His Church "without
spot or wrinkle" when He comes again for His Bride.
--THE PUBLISHERS