We extract the following from a letter in the Christian Harvester
from E. Morgan, Maidstone, England:
"We have a number of people who enjoy holiness, men and women, old
and young, who do not belong to any sect. They have the presence of
the Holy Spirit with them in a much richer and more powerful way
than the friends in the churches. This seems to indicate that the
Lord will raise up an army to do his work, and perfect love will be
the uniting power that will keep them one."
It is not at all to be wondered at that those who have obeyed God
and come out of all human sects should have a superior degree of
God's grace and Spirit with them, who are free from the oppression
and interdiction that we hear so much of in all our holiness
papers. Yes, God is now raising up that holy army who stand free
in Christ, bound only by the truth and the love of God. From the
above, we see, as well as from the testimony of hundreds in this
country, that the assertion that coming out of sectism results in
spiritual death is a groundless falsehood. The result is always
the opposite, unless it be in some instances where souls have been
overwhelmed with the hellish rage and deceitful, persecuting spirit
of the sects, which has induced a superindignation.
Brother Warner's separation from the Northern Indiana Eldership was
the subject of comment by his contemporary editors and others. His
reply to a letter on the subject of his leaving the church is here
given.
A dear brother writes to us as follows: "I think you have erred
in leaving the Church of God, and yet God is blessing you and the
Trumpet."...
To talk about "leaving the church of God and yet receiving the
blessing of God," is Babylon confusion. There is absolutely no way
given under heaven and among men whereby we can leave the church
of God but by ceasing to live by faith in and obedience to Jesus
Christ, or falling into and continuing in sin; in which case God
does not and can not continue his blessings upon that soul as
before. Therefore, when certain preachers in Ohio published that I
had left the church (which was false, for they themselves cast me
out of their synagog for the crime of preaching real experimental
holiness), they declared the fact that what they worship in the
name of the "Church of God" is only a "creature" of men, to which
they invite members and report "accessions" through a different
process than that of regeneration, which is the only means of
accession to God's church. And when people talk of our having left
the church, because we withdrew last fall from a human corporation
called the "Northern Indiana Eldership of the Church of God," they
simply show that the devil's counterfeits still pass current with
them; they call that the church which does not answer the Bible
description of the church. Oh, how hard it is to get rid of the
marks of the beast, and the number of his name!
The Bible speaks of churches of God in Galatia, in Achaia, in Asia,
etc., but we do not read of any northern, southern, eastern or
western Galatian, Achaian, or Asiatic Elderships of the church of
God. You see this thing--Northern Indiana Eldership of the Church
of God--is too long for any use, so we just take the broad-ax of
God's Word and chop it in two between "of" and "the" and throw the
first part to the moles and bats, according to the sayings of the
prophet. Then we have the church of God left, which is the body of
Christ, "the fulness of him that filleth all in all." Glory to God
and the Lamb, "we are complete in him"!
If some more would suffer the excision of this useless appendage,
there would be quite a vacuum made for the reception of this
"fulness." The term "Eldership" as used in this case, is both
contradictory in itself and a perversion of God's Word. Where the
apostle Paul speaks of "laying on of the hands of the presbytery,"
the Bible Union and some other versions render "hands of the
eldership," and I think correctly, too. So I accept the word
"eldership" as a Biblical term. But what is its obvious meaning?
Simply the elders of the church in one locality, or in a district,
or country, as the case may be. To apply it therefore to an
organized corporation is a misapplication, a perversion of one of
the words of God's Holy Book. It is contradictory, and asserts a
falsehood, because the corporate "body" to which it is applied
is not composed of elders, but of brothers and sisters, a few
elders, and without doubt some sinners and backsliders; so this
use of the word changes the truth of God into a lie. Like every
other body that is not identical with the body of Christ, this
"new Eldership," as it is often called, is a rival of the body
of Christ, and is used by the devil to generate party spirit and
sectish bigotry. Nothing is more natural than the disposition of
carnality to want to get up something besides the glorious church
of the Firstborn.
The reason is obvious. Christ built his own church, adds the
members, and spews out the unworthy; 'He is head over all to his
body, the church,' the only real ruling power, except as he chooses
to execute his will through some of the members. Hence this gives
no place to aspirants who wish to work up something that men can
build, so as to receive the glory, and become lords over the work
of their hands. As Sister M'Creery says in her history of the
origin of the Free Methodists--during the six years that they were
contented to work with a single eye, and let God build up his
own church, and receive all the glory, the Spirit was with them
in mighty power to save souls, because they had no craft to look
after; but after they set up the Free Methodist idol, it was all,
"He 'o he, go up Free Methodism!" And ceasing to work exclusively
for God's kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy
Spirit, and founding another sect, that they call "Our Church,"
they necessarily became double-eyed, and lost the real power of
God. So after our meeting last fall we heard the call to rally up
the party spirit; and to apologize for the addition of this sect
corporation to the several hundred already in the mazes of Babylon,
it was called the "Northern Indiana Eldership of the Church of God,
opposed to Secret Societies." Just as though the church that Christ
himself founded did not oppose secret societies, therefore it is
necessary to form another "body" for that purpose. Thus every sect
on earth is an insult to God; even their formation implies that we
are not complete in Christ, hence the "necessity," as B. T. Roberts
said, of our organizing another sect.
The Trumpet's New Year's greeting, at the dawn of its second year,
has an interesting tone.