We apprehend, then, that wondrous times have come upon us. Great
ecclesiastical systems are crumbling and are being left destitute
as God's people make their escape. This movement proceeds with no
show of prominence in the world. It causes no political disturbance,
but works only in the province of genuine Christianity, silently,
effectively, as the leaven in the meal. It is altogether a spiritual
movement and its discernment can therefore only be spiritual. It may
appear outwardly as only one religious body among many; for it is
only when judged by the spiritual standard of God's word that its
character is seen. It is a call to those who are willing to be led of
God.
The dispensations of God are in their beginning often insignificant
and despised in man's eyes. God chooses things that are not, to bring
to naught things that are. The fact that Brother Warner's work was
done in comparative obscurity counts for nothing against its being
the work of God. It is quality that counts. Brother Warner had the
right spiritual quality, the secret of which was letting God have
his way. His entire abandonment to God in a complete consecration,
together with his adaptable temperament and gifts, made him suitable
for God's use in this great work, and God chose him. The time was
at hand. Others, contemporary with him and leaders in the holiness
movement, saw the evils of sects and deplored them, but when it came
to renouncing their sectarian affiliations and coming out of the
spiritual Babylon in obedience to God's call, "Come out of her, my
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not
of her plagues," they drew back. This point of leaving the sects,
abiding in Christ alone and allowing God to reestablish his church on
the primitive basis, was the real test. They longed for the time when
God's people should all be one, but chose to believe that the time
was not yet. And so they have been believing for forty years, and are
today in the greater confusion. They lacked the spiritual equipment.
One of Brother Warner's special endowments was that of considerable
light on the prophecies. He saw that the sectarian denominations were
of the true spiritual Babylon in which God's people were being held
captive. He also had in the Spirit the prospective vision of the pure
church unruled by man. His contemporary leaders who opposed him were
too blind spiritually to have such a vision; or, if they had it,
were disobedient to it.
But there were those, the humble ones, who were willing to let God
have his way. At the sound of the trumpet, which God was giving
through Brother Warner, thousands have rallied to the standard of
truth, and through them the truth has been and is being vindicated.
If God has his way all Christians will be led out of sects, all
justified believers will be led into sanctification, the church will
be perfectly organized and governed by the Holy Spirit, the whole
truth will be preached uncompromisingly, full salvation will be held
out to the world, and all will be led to cooperate and do their part.
This is the full measure of Christianity today, and is God's design
with his people. Here is true Christian unity. Such unity can come
only by absolute abandonment to God, for _he_ must be the one-making
agent. Men may attempt a unity through some Interchurch World
Movement or other plan, but no plan can represent the true Scriptural
unity unless God does the work himself. He must have the full right
of way in human hearts.
Brother Warner's mission was strictly that of a reformer. It was
his part to venture boldly with the truth God had given him, with
a willingness to run the gauntlet of persecutions that were sure
to greet him on the right and left. His severe denunciation of all
things sectarian was consistent with his pioneer position. There
first had to be an awakening, a breaking up of old conditions,
particularly of the recognition (into which the minds of people
generally had settled) of the sects as being the church of God. His
work was the initial, or birth, stage of the reform.
Following the initial stage has come the constructive, which
comprehends the reformation in the local sense, the sense in which
the Christian life and true ideal of the church must be exemplified
in the community as something more than theory, something that will
appeal as being better than what is represented in the sects. The
constructive stage calls not so much for continual denunciation of
sects as for manifesting those essential principles that characterize
the church in her unity and entirety. The responsibility is to make
good the claim, and this means much. Any tendency to establish
traditions, or to regard a past course as giving direction in all
respects for the future, or to become self-centered and manifest a
"we are it" spirit and bar the door of progress against the entrance
of further light and truth, or in any way to refuse fellowship
with any others who may be Christians, would itself be sectarian,
altogether unlike the true reformation, which, if it be final, must
necessarily be a _restoration_ and possess universal characteristics.
For proper representation everything depends upon the understanding
of, and the attitude toward, this great movement. For any body of
people to hold that the reformation is entrusted to them, or that
they have become the standard for the world, is a self-centered
attitude, vastly different from that which regards the reformation
as something prophetically due, as having come independent of man,
and as being greater than the people who have been favored with its
light, and that it is their part to conform to _it_ in principle,
doctrine, and everything. The great movement is in the world, and any
attempt to "corner" it or to limit it to a particular body of people
could only result in making that body a sect, or faction, while the
movement itself would proceed independently.
The true spirit of the reformation will be, however, with those who
measure to its standard, whether they be few or many, and God will
manifest himself accordingly. Satan has tried to becloud and defeat
the movement by counterfeit factions--bodies of people who profess
to be on the reformation line, but who misrepresent the truth by
denying some part of it, as, for instance, the doctrine of entire
sanctification in this life, or of the Christian ordinances, or
who misrepresent it by advancing erroneous doctrine, such as the
continuation of the Old Testmental law and Sabbath, or the speaking
in tongues as a necessary evidence of having received the Holy Ghost.
Many are the counterfeit movements today. One must ignore every
influence of man and then rely on the witness of both the Word and
the Spirit in order to be guided aright.
Brother Warner was a remarkable example of a man possessing the
Christian spirit and the Christian graces wonderfully developed.
While he could rebuke evil and deceptive influences in the strongest
terms, he was one of the meekest and kindest of men. Christ-like, he
loved all men, even his persecutors. As a husband, father, Christian
brother and friend his love and respect were genuine and reached
to the very soul. And yet the responsibility of his calling as a
Christian and as a minister of God's truth as it applied to his time,
he held more dear than all else, and to it he was wholly devoted. Not
with any object of exalting the man, but to illustrate what God can
accomplish in and through one who is so devoted, we introduce him to
our readers.