G.o.dliness.
by Catherine Booth.
PREFACE.
In giving this volume to our American readers, we are a.s.sured that we are doing a special favor to all the lovers of "Christianity in earnest." "Aggressive Christianity," from the same talented author, has met with unusual favor, and has been the means of much good. We are confident that the present volume is in all respects equal to the former, and that no one can read it without great spiritual profit.
The Introduction, by Dr. Daniel Steele, is a forcible presentation of the main doctrines of the book, and is creditable to the head and heart of the writer, and a commendation which all intelligent readers will highly esteem.
Our object in publishing these sermons, is, that their perusal may kindle a flame of revival in the hearts of believers, which may result in many turning unto the Lord.
MCDONALD & GILL
BOSTON, Ma.s.s.
AUTHOR"S PREFACE.
In presenting another volume of reports of my Addresses, I have only to repeat what I have said with respect to similar books before-- Read, for the sake of getting more light and more blessing to your soul, and you will, I trust, partake of the good which many have professed to receive at the West-End services, wherein most of these words were first spoken.
I am well aware that, in such imperfect reports of, for the most part, extemporaneous utterances, often most hurriedly corrected, there may be found abundant ground for criticism; but, if this book may be the means of leading only a few souls to devote themselves more fully to G.o.d and to the salvation of men, I shall be more than compensated for any unfriendly criticism with which it may meet.
I have not sought to please any but the Lord, and to His fatherly loving-kindness I commend both the book and its readers.
CATHERINE BOOTH.
_London, Nov._ 10, 1881.
INTRODUCTION.
The sermons of Mrs. Booth already re-published under the t.i.tle of "_Aggressive Christianity_," came to American Christians as a tonic to their weakness, and a stimulant to their inertness.
The sermons in the present volume are a much-needed prophylactic, a safeguard against several practical errors in dealing with souls; errors which lead them into Egyptian darkness, instead of the marvelous light.
The sermon on _Repentance_ is a most faithful showing up of spurious repentance, the vain subst.i.tute for a downright abandonment of every form of sin, and right-about facing towards the Lord. In directness and point, it is a model for earnest revival preaching,--rather, for all preaching to unsaved souls, outside the church, or within it. All of these will be found in some subterfuge, which must be ruthlessly torn down, before it will be abandoned for the cleft Rock.
The sermon on _Saving Faith_ is next in order. The disastrous consequences of what, for the want of a better description, maybe styled an Antinomian faith, an unrepentant a.s.sent of the intellect to the historic facts of the Gospel, which too many evangelists and other religious teachers are calling saving faith, are clearly set forth and plainly labeled, POISON. This spurious trust in Christ following a superficial repentance, which has never felt the desperate sinfulness and real misery of sin, has furnished our churches with a numerous cla.s.s of members, aptly described by the prophet Micah: "The sin of Israel is great and unrepented of, yet they will lean on the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us?" We are convinced that much of the work of the faithful and pungent preacher, who preaches with his eye fixed on the great white throne and the descending Judge, is to dislodge professors from their imaginary trust in a Saviour who does not save them, and probe deeply their hearts festering with sin, which have been hastily p.r.o.nounced healed, "slightly healed." Many of us have incautiously said to awakened souls, "Only believe," before we have thrust the heart through and through with the sword of G.o.d"s law. We have dismissed G.o.d"s schoolmaster. The law, like the slave charged with the task of leading the boy to school, and of committing him to the teacher, we have thought to be too harsh and severe for our sentimental age, and have unwisely discharged, and have a.s.sumed its office of a _paidagogos_ to Christ, and we have missed the way, and misled a priceless soul. G.o.d have mercy on us, and give us humility, as He gave Apollos, to be set right by an anointed woman!
After her timely correction of erroneous teachings on faith, Mrs.
Booth proceeds, pruning-knife in hand, to cut away from the tree of modern Christianity the poisonous fungus of a "spurious charity." Her four sermons on _Charity_ are four beacons set on the rocks of counterfeit Christian love. She sets forth several infallible tests by which genuine love may be distinguished from the devil"s base imitation. Like the Epistles of St. John, these sermons are full of touchstones for testing love, that golden principle of the Christian life. It would be very profitable for all professors of that perfect love which casteth out all tormenting fear, to apply unflinchingly these touch-stones to themselves. They may find the word "perfection"
taking on a meaning deeper, broader and higher than they had ever before conceived. Why should not our conception of Christian perfection steadily grow with the increase of our knowledge of G.o.d and of His holy law?
The sermon on _The Conditions of Effectual Prayer_, we commend to all Christians and to all seekers of Christ, who are mourning because their prayers do not prevail with G.o.d. In the clear light of this sermon they will find that the difficulty lies, either in the lack of fellowship with Jesus Christ, or of obedience to His commands, or in the absence from their hearts of the interceding Spirit, or in defective faith. In the discussion of these hindrances to prayer, the preacher lays open the heart, and with a skilful spiritual surgery, searches it to the very bottom. The incisiveness of her style, her courage and plain dealing with her hearers, tearing off the masks of sin and selfishness, the various guises in which these masquerade in many Christian hearts and obstruct their access to a throne of grace, remind us of Dr. Finney"s unsparing exposure and condemnation of these foes to Christian holiness, and of John Wesley"s cutting up by the roots "Sin in Believers."
In this sermon Mrs. Booth turns her attention to another phase of faith and of practical error in the guidance of souls to Christ. Her views on this vexed question are not extreme but philosophical and scriptural. She teaches that G.o.d has made the bestowment of salvation simultaneous with the exercise of faith, and that "telling a person to believe he is saved, before he is saved, is telling him to believe a lie." But she insists that the act of faith is put forth with the special aid of the Holy Spirit giving an a.s.surance that the blessing sought will be granted. This a.s.surance, or earnest, given by the Spirit, becomes the basis on which the final act of faith rests, namely, "I believe that I receive." This corresponds with William Taylor"s Divine "ascertainment of the fact of the sinner"s surrender to G.o.d, and his acceptance of Christ," before justification.
[Footnote: Election of Grace, pp. 38-42.] Both teachers agree with Wesley"s a.n.a.lysis of faith which teaches that the fourth and last step, "He doth it," can be taken only by the special enabling power of the Holy Spirit, [Footnote: Sermons. Patience, Section 13; Scripture Way of Salvation, Section 17; and Whedon on Mark xi. 24.] All three locate the Divine efficiency before the declaration, "I believe that I receive," or "have received" (R. V.), making that declaration rest upon the perception of a Divine change within the consciousness. They all insist that saving faith is not a mere humanly moral exercise, but that power to believe with the heart descends from G.o.d, and that it must be waited for in prayer, and that it becomes in the believer a series of supernatural and spiritual acts, a habit of soul, at once the seed and fruit of the Divine life-stirring, uniting in itself the characters of penitent humility, self-renunciation, simple trust, and absolute obedience grounded in love. These teachers magnify the Divine element in faith. We look in vain in their writings for any such direction to a penitent as this, "Believe that you are saved, because, G.o.d says so in His Word," but rather believe that you are saved when you hear His Spirit crying, Abba, Father, in your heart.
Many modern teachers fall into the error of treating saving faith as an unaided intellectual act to be performed, at will, at any time. It is rather a spiritual act possible only when prompted by the Holy Spirit, who incites to faith only when He sees true repentance and a hearty surrender to G.o.d. Then the Spirit reveals Christ and a.s.sists to grasp Him. In the refutation of the high predestinarian doctrine that faith is an irresistible grace sovereignly bestowed upon the elect, there is great danger of falling into the opposite error, called Pelagianism, which makes saving faith an exercise which the natural man is competent to put forth without the help of the Holy Spirit. The real guilt of unbelief lies in that voluntary indifference toward Christ, and impenitence of heart, in which the Holy Spirit cannot inspire saving faith.
In our introduction to "_Aggressive Christianity_," we advertised, in behalf of the American churches, a universal want--Enthusiasm. In her brief Exeter-Hall address, Mrs. Booth discloses the source of the supply. Holiness is the well-spring of enthusiasm. Hence it is not a spring freshet, but an overflowing river of power in all its possessors, and, notably in the Salvation Army, bearing the unchurched ma.s.ses of England on its bosom. A holy enthusiasm is contagious and conquering. We cannot touch the people with the icicle of logic; but they will not fail to bow to the scepter of glowing and joyful love. Few men can reason; all can feel. Enthusiasm and full salvation, like the Siamese twins, cannot be separated and live. The error of the modern pulpit is that of the blacksmith hammering cold steel--a faint impression and huge labor.
The baptism of fire softening our a.s.semblies would lighten the preacher"s toil and multiply its productiveness.
The four addresses on _Holiness_ are hortatory rather than argumentative or exegetical. They are spiritual cyclones. It is difficult to see how any Christian could withstand these impa.s.sioned appeals to make what Joseph Cook calls "an affectionate, total, irreversible, eternal, self-surrender to Jesus Christ, as both Saviour and Lord," in order to attain that "perfect similarity of feeling with G.o.d," wherein evangelical perfection consists.
It gives me great pleasure to have some humble part in echoing across the American continent these glowing utterances from the lips of this modern Deborah, the Christian prophetess raised up by G.o.d for the deliverance of His people from captivity to worldliness and religious apathy. "Would G.o.d that all the Lord"s people," men and women, "were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!"
"Shall we the Spirit"s course restrain, Or quench the heavenly fire?
Let G.o.d His messengers ordain, And whom He will inspire!
Blow as He list, the Spirit"s choice Of instruments we bless: We will, if Christ be preached, rejoice, And wish the word success."
DANIEL STEELE.
_Reading, Ma.s.s., Nov._ 23, 1883.
CHAPTER I.
REPENTANCE,
And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of Heaven is at band.--MATT.
iii. 2.
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.--MATT. iv. 17.
"Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: but shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Qentiles, that they should repent and torn to G.o.d, and do works meet for repentance."--ACTS xxvi. 19,20.
In the mouths of three witnesses--John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and the Apostle Paul--this word shall be established, namely, that repentance is an _indispensable_ condition of entering the kingdom of G.o.d.
People generally are all at sea oh this subject, as though insisting that repentance were an arbitrary arrangement on the part of G.o.d. I believe G.o.d has made human salvation as easy as the Almighty, Infinite mind could make it. But there is a necessity in the case, that we should "repent and turn to G.o.d." It is just as necessary that my feelings be changed and brought to repentance towards G.o.d, as it is that the wicked, disobedient boy, should have his feelings brought back into harmony with his father before he can be forgiven.
Precisely the same laws of mind are brought into action in both cases, and there is the same necessity in both.
If there is any father here who has a prodigal son, I ask, How is it that you are not reconciled to your son? You love him--love him intensely. Probably you are more conscious of your love for him than for any other of your children. Your heart yearns over him every day; you pray for him night and day; you dream of him by night; your bowels yearn over your son, and you say, with David, "Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son." Why are you not reconciled? Why not pat him on the head, or stroke his face, and say, "My dear lad, I am well pleased with you. I love you complacently; I give you my approbation?" Why are you always reproving him? Why are you obliged to hold him at arm"s length? Why can you not live on amicable terms with him? Why can you not have him come in and out, and live with you on the same terms as the affectionate, obedient daughter? "Oh!" you say, "the case is different; I cannot. It is not, "I would not;" but, "_I cannot_." Before that can possibly be, the boy"s feelings must be changed towards me. He is at war with me; he has mistaken notions of me; he thinks I am hard, and cruel, and exacting, and severe. I have done all a father could do, but he sees things differently, to what they are, and has harbored these hard feelings against me until he hates me, and will go on in defiance of my will."
You say, "It is a necessity that, as a wise and righteous father, I must insist on a change in him. I cannot receive him as a son, till he comes to my feet. He must confess his sin, and ask me to forgive him. Then, oh! how gladly will my fatherly affection gush out! How I should run to meet him, and put my arms around his neck! but there is a "cannot" in the case." Just so. It is not that He does not love you, sinner; it is not that the great, benevolent heart of G.o.d has not, as it were, wept tears of blood over you; it is not that He would not put His loving arms around you this moment, if you would only come to His feet, and confess you were wrong, and seek His pardon; but, otherwise, He may not--He _cannot_. The laws of His universe are against Him doing so. The good, it may be, of millions of immortal beings, is involved. He dare not, and He _cannot,_ until there is a change of mind _in you._ You must repent. "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."
Well, if repentance be an indispensable condition of salvation, let us glance at it for a moment, and try to find out what repentance really is; and, oh! how full of confusion the world and the church are upon this subject! I say it, because I know it by converse with hundreds of people. May the Holy Spirit help us!
Well, first, repentance is not merely conviction of sin. Oh! if it only were, what a different world we should have to-night, for there are tens of thousands on whose hearts G.o.d"s Spirit has done His office by convincing them of sin. I am afraid we should be perfectly alarmed, astounded, confounded, if we had any conception of the mult.i.tudes whom G.o.d has convinced of sin, as He did Agrippa and Festus. Oh! I could not tell you the numbers of people, who, in our anxious meetings, have grasped my hand, and said, "Oh! what would I give to feel as I once felt! There was a time, fifteen, or seventeen, or twenty years ago," and so on, "when I was so deeply convinced of sin that I could scarcely sleep, or eat--that I could find no rest; but, instead of going on till I found peace, I got diverted, cooled down, and now, I feel as hard as a stone." I am afraid there are tens of thousands in this condition--once convinced of sin.