Godliness : being reports of a series of addresses delivered at James's Hall, London, W. during 1881Booth, Catherine Mumford
Religion
Godliness : being reports of a series of addresses delivered at James's Hall, London, W. during 1881
Booth, Catherine Mumford
Salvation Army -- Sermons; Sermons, English
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 God. Then the Spirit reveals Christ and assists
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 masses 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 assemblies 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 impassioned
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 God," 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 God for
the deliverance of His people from captivity to worldliness and
religious apathy. "Would God 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 God 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, Mass., Nov._ 23, 1883.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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