It must follow, and the assumption is already established, that a
reformation which takes in full the characteristics defining the
church in her wholeness must thereby reach the New Testament standard
and therefore be the last, or final, reformation. No reformation can
make good such claim if it does not proceed on whole-church lines or
principles. If a reform does progress on those universal principles,
we need look no farther for, nor await future years to reveal, the
final reformation resulting in the restoration of all things to the
Scriptural ideal.
The errors of the religious world are, and have been, the failure
to so preach salvation truth that people may obtain and enjoy full
deliverance from sin; failure to conform to the divine standard on
all lines; the human ecclesiastical system, which hinders Holy Spirit
organization and government; and separation of God's people into
parties, thus making true church relation impossible. A movement
that comprehends a correction of all these, and meets the Scriptural
standard, must therefore fill the measure of reform.
Reader, it is claimed for the movement represented in the teaching
and labors of D. S. Warner, that it possesses these elements of
finality, that by it God is bringing his people "out of all places
where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day" of
Protestant sectism, and is restoring Zion as at first. It is not
assumed that Brother Warner was right on every point of doctrine or
in every application of a Scriptural text, but that the movement, in
addition to being based on correct Scriptural principles otherwise,
possesses that flexibility and spirit of progress by which it adjusts
itself as God gives light.
1. It teaches the Scriptural process of salvation, by which people
may obtain a real deliverance from sin and have the Holy Spirit as a
witness to their salvation.
2. The truth only, and obedience thereto, is its motto; and it
recognizes the rule of the Holy Spirit in the organization and
government of the church.
3. It does not assume to possess all the truth, but stands committed
thereto, holding an open door to the entrance of any further light
and truth.
4. The spirit of the movement is to acknowledge good wherever found
and to regard no door into the church other than salvation and no
test of fellowship other than true Christianity possessed within the
heart.
Thus its basis is as narrow as the New Testament on the one hand, and
as broad as the New Testament on the other. May it ever go forward on
this line in the spread of the truth to all the world.