01.15. The Wise Men of the West

Chapter 15 THE WISE MEN OF THE WEST.

There is much talk these days about Advanced Thought, and a New Theology. According to these latter day lights, all of us are tremendously in the dark who do not go with them in their new psychologies and religious creeds. According to some of these writers and speakers, the disciples and the Saviour Himself were much cramped and limited in their expressions and declarations of doctrine, while the Fathers of our Methodism were simply nowhere. A small sized clerical sprig on this wild vine of latter days, made a motion in an annual conference that John Wesley’s Plain Account of Christian Perfection be removed from the course of study and reading for Methodist preachers, and a book written by a college president of Nebraska fame be substituted. A presiding elder told the writer that the old time way of defining depravity and remaining sin in the soul of the regenerated, as given by Wesley and Clarke was an offense to him. That it created a nausea, sense of repugnance, and instant rebellion both in mind and heart. We happily remembered as he spoke, that this is the invariable feeling of all in whom the Old Man still abides, and is most unmistakable confirmation of Bible statements, and proof of the carnal mind in the regenerated as taught by the old time Wesleyan Theology.

Before accepting this advanced thought with its new definitions, and this modern theology that puts the old with all its advocates to shuns, we must insist on two things.

First, that it turns out better, stronger, and holier followers of Christ, and, second, that it brings with it a corresponding increase of the power, favor, and approval of God. This is not an unreasonable or improper demand, as any candid reflecting mind must admit.

God wants His creatures to have the pure and full truth, in that it "makes us free" and becomes a blessing in every way to the church and the world. So that if the New Theology is of God, then we have a right to expect the Heavens to open and the Holy Ghost to fall on this kind of preaching and living as occurred on the Day of Pentecost; and after that continuously on the lives and labors of such disciples.

We do not refer here to the miracles attendant on some of these occasions, but to the unquestionable presence, blessing, and power of God.

Let the honest seeker after Truth compare the piety, spirituality, preaching, labors and fruit in salvation lines of the Wesleys, Fletcher and Clarke, with that of men today who are riddling the Bible, and tearing to pieces what is known as Methodist or Wesleyan Theology, and the difference or rather contrast is simply overwhelming.

Then let him mark the spiritual lifelessness, the lack of unction, the notable absence of the Holy Ghost in the sermons, and services of these Latter Day Wise Men of the West, and he is compelled to feel another blow that is a regular knock down in its convincing power, that these teachers are altogether off, and gone as well.

There may be a great lot of rhetoric, oratory, philosophy and "science falsely so-called." But these Wise Men of the West as we have concluded to call them are not trying to find Jesus, but to get rid of Him; and their Star of Bethlehem is a will-o’-the-wisp from Massachusetts, or a Jack o’lantern from Nebraska. An additional blow of conviction is received in marking the liberty, power, unction, gladness, and marvellous spiritual results attending the ministry of these who preach a Bottomless Hell, a Topless Heaven, Total Depravity, Repentance, Regeneration, Entire Sanctification as a second work of grace, and the other great truths and doctrines we find in the New Testament and faithfully incorporated in the Arminian-Wesleyan Theology of the Methodist church.

We have yet to see or hear of a preacher getting happy and shouting in the pulpit, as he preached against these great facts and experiences laid down in the Word of God, and in the standards, writings of our Fathers. Nor have we ever heard of God granting a revival to any of these nineteenth and twentieth century stabbers of Divine Truth? They may have protracted meetings, a worked-up enthusiasm, and a number of accessions, but the supernatural is not beheld, and the Holy Spirit does not fall upon them and the people; there is no dreadful conviction for sin; and there is no tidal wave of salvation rolling upon sinners; and no sight of congregation and preacher with shining faces beholding the scene, full of joy and the Holy Ghost.

If this New Theology and latter day way of presenting the Bible is right and ahead of the disciples and the Wesleys, why does it not get foremost in salvation, ands why does not Heaven open and pour itself out on such people and preaching! When we furthermore observe how the Spirit of God continues to honor men who preach the great doctrines we have mentioned, how conviction rests upon the congregation, how the altars are crowded with penitents and seekers, how souls leap with shining faces and glad cries and shouts into pardon and holiness, we cannot have and do not entertain a single doubt as to who has the Truth these days, who are in the divine order, and who are preaching the Word and declaring the whole counsel of God.

Recently we were in a city holding a meeting on the old Gospel plan, while one of these Wise Men of the West, a pastor of a leading church, was at the same time preaching a series of sermons to his people. He at his end of the town, was belittling and slurring at the Bible. We, in another quarter of the community, were upholding and magnifying the Book. One evening he spent a whole hour ridiculing the history of the Deluge, the ark of Noah, and the story of Jonah. The same evening I exalted the sacred volume as much as he had slurred at and struck it; and the different results attending the two services would have convinced the most skeptical as to who had the truth, and on whose side was the Lord.

We were told that after the man of Higher criticism was through with his assault on the Bible, not a soul was at the altar, not a tear was shed, not a sign of conviction or salvation was beheld, and not a single prayer even, was uttered. The assembly was dismissed from a service where God’s Word had not been honored but dishonored; and where faith had not been strengthened, but weakened and shaken to its center. That same night when we had exalted the Word of God (Deluge, Noah’s Ark, the history of Jonah and all), we beheld deep conviction throughout the whole service, felt the presence and power of God every moment, had the altar quickly filled with seekers for pardon and holiness, and after a regular storm of song, exhortation and prayer, we saw nearly twenty souls sweep with tears, shouts and happy laughter into the experience of justification and sanctification.

Here was a difference indeed between the New and the Old Theology; between thought that was "advanced" clear out of and away from the Bible, and thought that was content to keep in the Scripture and clothe the expression of truth in language used not only by men of old who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, but in words that fell from the lips of Divinity itself. A second Wise Man of the West, a great preacher and official in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, claimed to have received three distinct spiritual experiences, which he called Introductions to the Three Persons of the Trinity. He had first an introduction to the Son, subsequently one to the Father, and still later one to the Holy Spirit. Being a gifted man, and possessing a royal imagination, he made these epochs of his soul marvellous indeed. The Holiness movement had not yet swept through the South, so quite a number of the ministry and laity felt humble indeed as they heard this great orator talking about three different blessings, when they had been glad to get one. They did not stop to reflect that our great pulpit declaimer must have been quite a stranger indeed to God, or had a way of running from and forgetting Him, inasmuch as he required three introductions!

After this the Holiness movement began to sweep things in the South, and behold our great preacher was indignant over our claiming a second work of grace! Just where the propriety of his displeasure, and the consistency of his conduct came in we failed to see, for according to his own count, he was still ahead of the Holiness people one step or notch; for they had secured only two blessings and he claimed three.

After this, our much introduced friend and fellow servant, became so stirred up and wrathful over the Full Salvation movement, and did so persecute these who claimed the experience of sanctification, that it speedily became apparent to all that he had received another and Fourth Introduction, and this time it was to the Devil! A third Wise Man of the West, speaking before a Methodist college in the North, took occasion in his Baccalaureate address to score the Bible teachings of Depravity, and yet he had sworn he would stand by the doctrines of his church. But he had "advanced" his thought and was now clear out of his own church standards as well as the Bible itself. Moreover in his Western wisdom he failed to see how he was pulling redemption, and the whole Christian edifice down about his ears with a complete destruction. For it must be evident to the thoughtful that if there is no depravity, then there is no need of regeneration and sanctification. The Blood is useless, the Atonement a farce, the Tragedy of the Cross a piece of empty acting, and all the calls to repentance, faith, consecration, and holiness, preposterous and absurd. In fact, Heaven itself is lost as a finality to this Incredo of New Theology. For if, convinced that there is no sin nature, a man fails to come by humble faith to the Saviour for the redemption and transformation that is alone in Him, then heaven cannot be gained! The Bible plainly declares that without the divine supernatural birth of the Spirit, no man can enter the Kingdom of God. And without holiness no man shall see the Lord.

Here is wisdom indeed that saws the limb off between the man and the tree, that throws a lighted candle into the cellar stored with gunpowder, that pulls out the pillars and sleepers of the building in which one lives, and calls it advanced Thought. Truly "if the foundations be destroyed" what will become of the superstructure of the Christian life? A fourth Wise Man of the West was lately laughing at the idea of depravity or inbred sin in children. The day before he had been attacking the doctrine of holiness in another quarter. He asked an old saint the question, "If both parents of a child are sanctified how can the child be born with inbred sin? How can you account for the badness of their offspring?"

Evidently this philosopher of the west had forgotten his wisdom and argument of the preceding day, when he scoffed at a sin nature being in children. But the servant of God did not remind him of this inconsistency and contradiction, but simply replied, "If you express surprise at sin existing in the offspring of sanctified parents, how can you insist that the children of unconverted and unregenerated fathers and mothers are born pure and without sin"! This is a specimen of the wisdom of the Wise Men of the West, and it is only a very little of what we could tell about these Latter Day Lights, who have come up to Boston and Chicago (not Jerusalem), riding on hobby horses (not camels) and bringing (not gold and frankincense and myrrh), but tobacco, Free Masonry, old revamped heresies, a bloodless theosophy and a Christian Science falsely so called.

We beg to be excused by our Advanced Thought brethren, but we prefer the Old Theology of the disciples and the Wesleys, to the New Theology of men who never see a conversion, and never had a revival in their lives. We prefer the Bible and Wesley’s Plain Account of Christian Perfection to the notorious antagonistic writings of certain men in Massachusetts, Nebraska and Alabama. We would rather go with the Wise Men of the East, who came to find and worship Jesus; than to follow the Wise Men of the West who have evidently, in their attacks on the Bible and Christianity, given the infant Moses over to Pharaoh to nurse, and surrendered the child Jesus to Herod.

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