An alarm to Methodism with an account of the reconstitution of a Methodist church at Leith in Scotland ... ; and John Wesley's sermon on the reformation of manners

Part II. The Re-constitution Of A Methodist Church In Leith

Declension and Worldliness .

The Higher Criticism Ghosts and Shades of the Past Both Devil and Saint The Double Cure .

The Second Change A Great Question .

Work in Leith A Covenant Made .

The Cult of Success The End and the Expulsion .

A Fresh Start Sanctification is by Faith The Burning Bush Is there a Second Blessing? .

Doors Closed and Doors Opened The Offertories Scottish Methodism Patrick Hamilton's Doctrine .

Lady Maxwell's Account of Entire Degrees of Perfection The Joy of Harvest

Bishop Taylor's Experience of Entire Sanctification Science and Prophecy ......

Sanctification

WESLEY'S SERMON MANNERS .

PART

ON THE

III Re

IFORMATION OF

Part IV. Appendices

A. The League and Covenant ...... 14S

B. After the Entertainment 149

C. The Methodist Weekly and the Leith Case . . . 151 1). The Methodist Church of Scotland 153

E. Income and Expenditure of the Methodist Church, Leith 156

F. Plan of Services of the Methodist Church, Leith . . 159 7 Vic Baruiny Bwih Advertisement and Publications . . 163

ALARM

TO

METHODISM.

ROM the north, behind the ramparts of Edinburgh, a little Methodist Church, strangely set apart, send,1- and ventures to address question to the Church at large.

greetings,

IS METHODISM IN DANGER?

By Methodism we do not mean the outward fabric, but the inward and spiritual life of the great movement led by the Wesley s. John Wesley's account of the rise of Methodism ran thus : —

"In 1729 my brother and I read the Bible; saw inward and outward holiness therein, followed after it, and incited

B i.

II. AN ALARM TO METHODISM.

-others so to do. In 1737 we saw 'this holiness comes by faith.' In 1738 we saw 'we must 'be justified before we are sanctified.' But still. holiness was our point; inward and outward holiness. God then thrust us out, utterly against our will, to raise a holy people."

As the Founder of Methodism understood that the centre and heart of the movement lay in a spirit and life •of holiness, it is necessary to be more precise in explaining what he understood by that word. At the First Methodist Conference, held in 1744, the first doctrine considered was that of justification, the second, that of sauctification. With regard to the latter, the questions asked and the substance of the answers given were as follows : —

Q. 1. — What is it to be sanctified ?

A. — To be renewed in the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness.

Q. 2. — Is faith the condition, or the instrument of sauctification?

A. — It is both the condition and the instrument of it. When we begin to believe, then sanctification begins. And as faith increases, holiness increases, till we are created anew.

Q. 3. — What is implied in being a perfect Christian ?

A. — The loving the Lord our God with all our hearts, and with all our mind and soul and strength. — Deut. vi. 5, xxx. 6 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 25-29

Q. 4. — Does this imply that all inward sin is taken away ?

A — Without doubt: or how could he be saved "from all his uncleannesses " ? — Ezek. xxxvi. 29.

It will be seen at a glance that this teaching runs counter to what had been current before the Methodist movement began. The dedication of Durham?* Exposition of the Ten Commandments, a book long deservedly esteemed, says : " God hath thought it fit that some relicts of sin (exauctorated of its reign and dominion) should indwell ; and that thereby the spiritual condition of sojourning saints should be a mixture of grace and corruption."' The teaching of this old Covenanter is exactly the belief of a large majority of Protestants to-day. Doubtless, many who read thus far will say that Wesley must have been mistaken in his belief that inbred sin can be cast out of a Christian's heart on earth. Many professed Methodists themselves now-a-days reject Wesley's doctrine. Still, " whatever may be thought of the doctrine or its evidence," says the poet South ey, " it was a powerful one in Wesley's hands." " This doctrine," said Wesley himself, "is the grand depositum which God has lodged with the people called Methodists ; and for the .sake of propagating this chiefly, He appears to have raised

AN ALARM TO METHODISM. III.

us up." In the glow of her first love, if the Church flourished like a palm tree, this life was the heart, the growing point, the centre and crown of the whole movement. Let this be removed, and though the lofty stem may be festooned by bright foliage of other and newer developments, its glory will be but the triumph of parasites, and the presage of decay.

The definite second experience of the work of the Holy Spirit on the believer's soul was of course never confined to the Methodist movement.

The following passages from the Biography of Frances Ridley Havergal illustrate her transition from a knowledge of Jesus to a full knowledge of Him. For many years she had loved her Lord and delighted in His service, but there were reservations in her surrender, and her experience was consequently intermittent. It was on Advent Sunday, 1873, that she first saw clearly the blessedness of entire sanctification. "I saw it," she says, "as a flash of electric light, and what you see you can never unsce." "It lifted my whole life into sunshine, of which all that I had previously experienced was but as pale and passing April gleams compared with the fulness of summer glory." Referring to the Scripture which God used to lead her into this full light, she says : " One of the intensest moments of my life was when I saw the force of that word ' deansetli.' The utterly unexpected and altogether unimagined sense of its fulfilment to me on simply believing it in its f illness was just indescribable. I expected nothing like it short of heaven." This was no evanescent experience. She wrote : " For nearly a year I have not known what it is to have a shadow of care in things temporal or spiritual. All is cast upon Him, and He gives me victory and gladness in response to the utter trust. So that it is living a new life, and one which I did not even suppose to be possible on earth."

Christians who have never passed into this summer glory may be compared to those famous scientists — Dr Rontgen, Hertz, Lenard, and other scientists who had been experimenting, all unconsciously, on the very verge of a great discovery for years. The wonderful X-rays were proceeding invisibly from the vacuum-tube with which they were at work. A brilliant and beautiful glow shone from the negative end of the tube, which is called the cathode. "This glow resembled somewhat the fierce burning of an alcohol lamp, only it was softer, more evanescent, and more

IV. An Alarm To Methodism

striking in its colouring." These wonderful cathode rays were found to penetrate thin films of wood and aluminium, and they set up brilliant phosphorescence in glass and other substances.

Here was a light of suspected that a still the visible glow from wonderful potency : but no one more marvellous light, invisible to ordinary eye, was going forth in the midst of the the cathode. The scientists were like the explorers m foreign lands, who tread on diamonds or gold nuggets without knowing it. They did not yet "possess their possessions." They were exactly like the many good Christians who believe that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, clean seth from all sin, without ever realising the full light and meaning of that great promise. These glorious words do indeed shine on them with a beautiful glow of real potency They carry the sensation of a perfect forgiveness for all past sins of omission or commission. They convey the implication that in Christ Jesus we have a sinless and perfect representative to plead our cause before God. They shine with the promise of a glorious time coming — possibly only beyond death — where the defilement of inward sin shall be destroyed. But these radiant words carry a clearer and more penetrating import — an import which multitudes of good Christians have never yet grasped, because they do not yet possess their spiritual possessions.

AN ALARM TO METHODISM. V

It remained for Dr Rontgen, with his keener scientific insight, to see the unseen. It was on a definite date, at a definite moment (how could it be otherwise ?), that this discovery burst on his mind. On November the 8th, 1895, in a dark laboratory, when the vacuum-tube was covered with a shield absolutely impervious to light, he noticed a distinct luminescence on a piece of sensitive paper which lay on a shelf. Whence came the invisible light which set up this responsive glow ? He began an ■ eager investigation; "and finally he came to the conclusion that certain unknown rays, whether of light or not, he did not know, were actually coming through the screen, and giving the sensitive paper a distinct luminescence. It was contrary to all reason, to everything the text-books taught, and yet Dr Rontgen was forced to believe it."

Precisely similar was the great discovery which Wesley made in regard to the work of the Spirit in entire sanctification. It mis contrary to all the reasonings of the natural man ; it was against everything many theological text-books have taught ; but it was the truth nevertheless— the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, does actually cleanse from all sin. There are still candid, during, and resolute believers who have taken this promise of God to mean, for them, exactly 'what it sa//s. They find in experience this mysterious energy of the blood of Christ actually to accomplish the immense transformation, which God in His promise has guaranteed.

Carnal Christians imagine that perfect holiness will be most attractive to the world. Their ideal is a kind of glorified good-nature and amiable acquiescence which can " live and let live," and take things as it finds them. "One ought not to judge," they say, "or be censorious: one ought to caress the Serpent. Let us live so that all the world may speak well of us."

The coming of the X-rays led to much unpleasant but beneficial surgerv. True holiness creates a mighty stir in the world. Christ was holy, and the world crucified Him. The world hates Christ still. Every outpouring of the Spirit creates a counter-movement among the powers of darkness- ''Think not that I came to send peace on the earth : I came not to send peace, but a sword/'

Original Methodism was a church militant indeed. I'Viendship with the world was regarded as enmity with God. The preachers went forth to call sinners to repentance. The members of society had not yet learned

VI. AN ALARM TO METHODISM.

that devil's charity which forbears to protest against sin. We have reprinted John "Wesley's Sermon on the Reformation of Manners, in this volume, to show how courageously and practically the early Methodists " rose up against the wicked." In four years, 1757 to 1762, ten thousand offenders were brought to justice in the law courts. This was unpleasant work ; but how mightily it must have contributed to the Evangelical Revival ! It is observable that it was in 1760, in the very midst of this vigorous onslaught upon rampant evils that the Great Revival of Holiness broke out, first at Otley, then throughout the kingdom. Wesley tells us that the work of sanctification had been nearly at a stand for twenty years. He did not hesitate to call this mighty movement of 1760 "the Methodist Pentecost." We hear multitudes of Methodist ministers now-a-days excusing themselves from the unpleasant task of opposing evils by saying, "Lead the people into a higher life and the idols will disappear." Not so, God's order is the reverse. W7hile idols remain, the Spirit cannot be given.

Read John Wesley's sermon in Part III. of this book, and you will find the answer to most of the current excuses which Laodiceans make use of in order to escape from the duty of contending against sin. You will see, also, why tke early Methodists roused the mobs to such a pitch of brutal opposition.

How fares the battle now ? Let Dr Maclaren state the case: — "There is manifest on every side the obliteration of the distinction between the salt and the mass into which it is inserted. In other words, Christian men and women swallow down bodily, and practise thoroughly, the maxims of the world as to life and what is pleasant, and what is desirable, and as to the application of morality to business. There is not a hair of difference in that respect betAveen hundreds and thousands of professing Christian men and the irreligious man who has his office up the same staircase. You cannot lay the flattering unction to your souls that the reason why there is so little difference between the Church and the world to-day is because the world has got so much better. I am afraid that a great many of us who call ourselves Christians get a great deal more harm from the world than we ever dream of doing good to it. Remember this — 'You are the salt of the earth,' and if you do not salt the world the world will rot you."

AX ALARM TO METHODISM. VII.

The methods of what is called "The Forward Movement" in the churches are worldly, and therefore lowering to the spiritual life of their members. They bringin a relaxing of discipline and a reduction of the standard • of requirement of church membership. Gold rather than godliness becomes the qualification for office and a title to fulsome adulation. The tones of the pulpit are accommodated to the "itching ears" of those who "cannot endure sound doctrine." The "conversions" resulting are too commonly simply an enrolment of worldlings as Christians. In this way numbers are kept up, while prayer meetings and fellowship meetings are discouraged and languish toward extinction. Faithful Christians are grieved at the inrush of the world, and for their protests they are persecuted as cranks, and if not driven out by their persecutors, elect to seek a more congenial spiritual fellowship outside the denominations.

These facts doubtless influenced the late excellent Dr R. W Dale to advance these solemn reflections : — " "We cannot tell how the grace and power of God will next be manifested. It may be He will turn aside from all existing churches, leaving them to perish in desolation and darkness as the penalty of their unfaithfulness, and revealing His transcendent power in kindling religious faith among the vast masses of our fellowcountrymen who are living in the open neglect of all religious obligation. Churches as well as individuals have their periods of probation ; and inasmuch as they have known for many generations the very truth of Christ and have so grievously resisted the Spirit of Christ, the power of the Gospel may pass away from us to others, who will receive it with more fervent gratitude and with heartier joy."

Fverv great spiritual movement, after its first days of struggle are over, accumulates material resources ; and in the effort to safeguard the material, the spiritiml interests are first neglected, and then betrayed. At last the Church enters into a tacit compact with the world, surrendering the right of aggression in return for substantial favours. When the Turks took Constantinople, the Christian Patriarch entered into such an alliance with the Mohammedan Sultan. The Patriarch has his recognised agent, the Gm-nd Loi/otJirfc, at the Sublime Porte, and his imposing guard of Turkish soldiers when he lides abroad. In return for such favours, the Greek

VIII. AN ALARM TO METHODISM.

Church renounces all efforts to win Moslems to Christ.. The duty and peril of bearing witness against the dominant world-power are* quietly bartered away for temporal considerations. The parallel in modern Methodism is perfectly plain. In return for the monetary favours of worldly adherents, the old witness against worldliness is surrendered, and unfashionable Scriptural doctrines are suppressed.

As this degeneration proceeds the Church sinks from a spiritual body, into a mere body corporate, and if the process is not counteracted it will become a body cadaverous.

Our Blessed Lord has shown us beforehand the final scene, the flight of the Spirit from the expiring Church, in the rapture of the saints, in the day that the Son of Man is revealed. "Where, Lord1? And He said unto them, Where the body is, thither will the eagles also be gathered together" (Luke xvii. 37). For body (o-w/xa) St Matthew has the significant word carcase (7rr(opi) a fallen thing (Matt. xxiv. 28).

It will now be plain that there is grave reason for sounding an alarm in Methodism. Our danger is lest material interests should crowd out the spiritual, and our care for the body should ruin the soul.

An era oi church building and of million funds is not necessarily a time when true religion is flourishing. Was not the age of the Gothic Cathedrals an age of spiritual petrifaction, when the Word of God was hidden, and the faithful were put to death '? The great pile of St Peter's at Rome is a horrible monument of iniquity, built by traffic in indulgences for sin.

The Mormon Temple pictured below cost over a million of money (£1,200,000). Its walls of snow-white granite are ten feet thick, and can be seen in the clear atmosphere of that valley for fifty miles. Yet the whole of this massive structure rests upon a rotten basis of delusion, and the walls are bulwarks of defiance against morality and God. We must know what spirit possesses the great material erections of modern Methodism, before we can decide whether they are for the glory of God.

It is at this point that a serious question arises which should be carefully pondered by all who are giving their energies to advance the material interests of Connexional Methodism. The question is, to what end is the modern development of Methodism being directed 1 Few will deny that the Church, as a whole, is departing rapidly from the

AX ALARM TO METHODISM.

IX.

form and spirit, the doctrine and ideals of the primitive time. If this be so, is it not of the highest importance to .know precisely what is the goal to which the present movement tends ?

What, too, is the governing power which controls and directs the movement of this vast body? A prominent member of Parliament describes Wesleyan Methodism as " the most democratically-governed Church extant." ( 'mild anything be further from the facts? No congregational vote is ever taken in Wesleyanism. Do the ministers rule? Careful observation will show that the rank and file do not possess even the liberties of Presbyters. Take, for example, the late great movement to raise a million of money. "Whence did it emanate I- To what are its forces to be applied? Is it unreasonable to enquire, now that we have confessedly forsaken the old ideals, what is the direction, and who arc the directo- s of our further a< lvanc<

One-fifth of the million was raised for the denominational schools. The money is hardly gathered in before the Board

X. AX ALARM TO METHODISM.

of Education expostulates with us that the trust-deeds arebeing ignored, and that the religious instruction given in the schools is no longer AYesleyan in character. The Methodist Times replies that this fact has been patent for long, and seems delighted to certify that the schools "have no denominational character to lose." If this be so, why spend £200,000 upon them? And since the schools are admittedly no longer AVesleyan, what precise religious or secular character are they destined to bear? Surely, before going further, the whole Church ought to know what principle of evolution is at work.

Methodism, as a body corporate, contains at least as great a multitude of earnest ministers, and faithful members of Christ's spiritual body, as are to he found in any Church on earth. But this body corporate is, as far as we can observe, more and more in danger of being controlled and directed by a concealed " management," which is incessantly perfecting its machinery, disciplining its agencies, numbering its adherents, raising its "millions," increasing its buildings, repressing individuality, breaking up local and personal liberties, and spreading a network of control over the churches. Probably the directors of this movement themselves have but a faint idea as to what its goal will be. They know" not what spirit they are of. They have, doubtless, a deep pride in their Denomination, an admiring estimate of the mighty force of the movement which has spread so rapidly over the world, and gained so .many millions of adherents, a far-seeing calculation of the social and political possibilities which lie in the manipulation of such multitudes.

Happ}^ is the Church when the powers that control her are the powers ordained of God. But in all times the powers of darkness seek to intrude and rule the Temple. The present book is written because there are plain proofs that such an invasion is now taking place. We are not enemies, but friends to true Methodism, because we raise the alarm. Those who object to the publication of facts must know that every effort has been made privately and in the proper courts to get the abuses remedied. But when all such efforts fail, we ought to make them known to the Church, according to the Saviour's rule (Matt, xviii. 17). In the worst times, God has his seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal. May the faithful Methodists be aroused to consider whither the present drift is carrying them.

AN ALARM TO METHODISM. XI.

Probably the leaders of the new movement sincerely believe they are working for the highest aim, <ul major civ- Dei f/loriani. It may be that to them Methodism represents the purest form of Christianity on earth. In labouring: for the extension of a Denomination, however, their aim has insensibly swerved from its original. In their zeal to add to their numbers they have been continually relaxing the conditions of membership, until now little more is required than avoidance of scandal and the payment of money. " What is the condition of ineinbcrshij) in the Methodist Church?" was asked the other day in a South African quarterly meeting. " The possession of a ticket and the jjai/ment of i none //," answered the Chairman of the District.

At such a point we are far indeed from John Wesley s aim of raising up a holy people. The whole system is tending to Simon}?- Is it not even thus that, as Dante says : —

" The Church of Rome,

Mixing two governments that ill assort, Hath missed her footing, fallen into the mire, And there herself and burden much defiled."

In another aspect the question is merely that of Patuonagk again. Patronage is not peculiar to Established Churches. A prosperous grocer may be as great a tyrant in a so-called " Free Church " as a great landowner in a National Church. He may thrust out and thrust in ministers at his pleasure. The Methodist system of constant itinerancy was once an admirable system for evangelism, and is now a proportionately abominable instrument for tyranny The ''important" and wealthy man has but to carry his whisperings to the official ear, and unless the victim be very powerful ho will be disposed of in the secret conclaves of the "brotherhood," and refused any hearing in the Church courts. Surrounded by a growing cloud of intangible yet poisonous rumour, the undesirable or the conscientious man may be pushed along from place to place till he is wearied to death. The injustice is as great in the case of the guilty as in that of the innocent. Lt is a kind of secret assassination. Cases have been known on the Mission Field where every minister in a Synod knew that arrangements had been made for the removal of one of their number but the victim himself. In due time a telegram of recall arrived and the victim dis-

XII. AX ALARM TO METHODISM.

appeared from the land. Such is "the brotherhood" when' the methods of secret management have sway.

This evil had begun to work seventy years ago. Dr Adam Clarke, the great commentator, was ejected from the active ministry by the Conference in his absence, without his knowledge, and sorely against his will. This was effected by manipulators behind the scenes — the President himself suppressing Dr Clarke's letter to the Conference. Dr Beaumont, who protested against this wrong, was censured by the Conference, and the President received a vote of thanks ! The saintly and learned Dr Clarke submitted to the injustice in meekness. But it is now felt that if other men had done their duty and protested with Dr Beaumont against such patent acts of injustice, the Disruption of 1849 might have been prevented.

The Seminary System adopted in the training of the ministry is at present confessed to be sadly inadequate. All honour to the Tutors who have struggled so heroically with their impossible tasks. Is not the system, however, as a system, at fault 1 It seems almost to have extinguished those doctrines which it might have been expected specially to conserve, the doctrines of entire sanctification which were the special trust committed to the Denomination. At one of our theological institutions, says the Rev. Thomas Cook, in the preface of his new book on "New Testament Holiness," the students asked their tutor in theology to give them a definition of Scriptural holiness. The professor replied that the holiness he found in the Bible seemed to him to be not so much a definite experience to be reached immediately, as " an eternal approximation towards an unrealisable ideal." "But," he continued, "there is, beyond doubt, an experience attainable by faith, which some describe as holiness, and which has brought to many Christians a great spiritual uplifting, so as to mark an epoch in their spiritual life. This was taught by Wesley and the early Methodist preachers, and the teaching was intimately associated with the early successes of our Church." He advised the students to make themselves familiar with the works of Wesley and Fletcher, and to use their own judgment as to which aspect of the subject they would preach, and concluded with this testimony : — "In my last circuit an Evangelist conducted a series of mission services in the church over which I had pastoral charge, and emphasised the definite view of holiness which Mr Wesley teaches, and urged the people to believe and

AX ALARM TO METHODISM. XIII.

enter in. Several of the most thoughtful members of my congregation were so greatly blessed that from that time their Christian life seemed to be on a higher plane. Because of this, I have never spoken other than respectfully of that form of teaching, though I have never been able to teach holiness in that way myself."

It seems that Mr Cook was the evangelist referred to, and his new book contains the substance of the addresses which were so much blessed to the congregation mentioned.

Is it not a sorrowful thing that a Divinity Professor should have to confess that he cannot teach the divinity he professes '? The following pages will show that this is by no means a solitary instance. In fact we may ask which of the prominent Wesleyan theologians of to-day does teach the AVesleyan theology in its central and most characteristictopic. The cessation of the Methodist testimony is the death of Methodism.

The Itineran y of the Ministers, when once the discipline of Methodism is relaxed, hastens its destruction. Xo Methodist minister, in the rank and file, has more than a years tenure of his position. The situation is more like that of the religious orders than that of the parochial clergy. A parish minister, secure ad ritam ant c.ulpam, may long maintain his ground against innovations. In Methodism one man can do little to maintain the discipline unless his colleagues in the circuit assist. He will move on in three years' time. Cut houo ? It is notorious that men are tempted to let things slide, and hope for something better at the next remove. The ceaseless friction of tins Itinerancy, following the Seminary System, tends to the destruction of individuality. Men are ground to pattern: like marbles in a mill. Probably no ministers are so consumed in a perpetual round of meetings. When these were mainly spiritual the evil was less. To-day the proportion of business meetings, committees and secondary engagements of all kinds is perpetually increasing. This system must tend to sterility. It is amazing when we consider how many millions of Methodists exist that the proportion of master minds amongst them is so few AVhat notable contributions to the religious thought of the world have, been made since this denominational management took control of the spiritual forces I In the time of Adam Clarke, one might have anticipated a bright succession of original and powerful scholars, whose efforts would have brought illumination and inspiration to the national mind.

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V)

V)

o a

AX ALAR}] TO METHODISM. XV-

How soon was the dawn darkened. Adam Clarke seems to have been the last amongst the leaders of Methodism whoboldly proclaimed the full Methodist doctrine of sanctification. His mind was too large to be forced into the narrow grooves of the Connexional managers, and he found little favour from them.

The effect ox Morals will, in the long run, be as pernicious as that on sacred learning. Since I commenced to write this book a brother minister has arrived from India and placed in my hands the whole correspondence concerning a system of misappropriating to the funds of the Church Government allowances granted only for the travelling expenses of chaplains. Wesleyan ministers are signing and sending in bills to Government, and drawing money for expenses they never incurred. Hitherto the whole force of officialism in the Church, both in India and in England, has been exerted to repress enquiry into this matter. The minister who protests is threatened with suspension if he will not be silent, and is practically cast out to starve. If Synods, Mission Houses and Presidents cannot find time to enquire into this scandal it is time that the citizens of the country scrutinized the abuse of public money.