Part 5. OPINIONS

(The following excerpt from a Baptist, Dr. Richard Ellsworth Day, in his biography of another Baptist, Charles H. Spurgeon, and using phraseology not quite Methodistic, makes acknowledgment of the place of “holiness” churches. Also here a man whose church and theological training make no provision for a second work of grace finds such a work in the experiences of God’s ambassadors.)

     We carefully skirt the borders of controversy in this book. Yet here is an area of practical Christian mysticism which challenges a fresh evaluation in an age whose Century of Progress is miraculous in the mechanical and stereotyped in the spiritual. Among the most romantic pages of Christian history are those that record the story of small groups of people who from time to time recover the lost radiance of the church, and by reason of their resistless spirit make conventional religion appear drab indeed. These New Testament holiness movements, often strangely different in terminology and disposition, have a vital unity in certain deep, hidden agreements, and are really convergent streams toward one great flood which shall some day cover the earth with the glory of God—brothers, under the skin, all the way from the Moravians to the Victorious Life Movement.

     Every century since Pentecost has produced such dynamic sectors in the church. Upon anyone who will critically investigate this phenomenon, patience will confer her richest rewards. That person will discover, with amazement, that these movements emphasize eight principles, the chief of which is this: An original and thorough invasion of every area of personality by the will of Christ, daily sustained by fresh waiting upon Him, resulting in a life completely disciplined to His will—clear out to the fingertips.

     Let no one imagine that Revision and Invasion very often enter man-soul together. They do not. In most cases they are separated by a considerable space of time; earnest ministers of the gospel preaching ordinarily until on a sudden they find Pentecost. This is the story of Moody, who lighted his torch from Spurgeon’s; of Savonarola and Fenelon—and what shall I say more? For time would fail me to speak of Fox and Bunyan, of Wesley and Whitefield, of Finney and Gordon, who by reason of a broken will entered into a blessed walk, subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, and effectively labored to win for the Lamb that was slain the reward of His suffering!

     So far as Christian fruit-bearing goes, this pair of twin fountains, Revision and Invasion, thrust genius and education into the background or ordinaries, and explain the paradox of uneducated ministers so often leading the church toward the Promised Land. In Christian labors, shoddy intellectual work and lack-luster witnessing are due in no case to a lack either of native genius or subsequent intellectual training, but to a defective spiritual experience. This is a hard fact for men who stake their futures on curricula, and then cover up their inner lack with a cheerful professional air. It also explains why Spurgeon did not appeal to certain men who saw in him naught but “a green London preacher.” —“Shadow of the Broad Brim,” published by Judson Press.
 

     The rising generation of Free Methodists has a rich inheritance and a radiant prospect. The fathers had laid foundations—in doctrine, which need no amendments; in experience, that reach to the fullness of Christ; and in life, which harmonize with the simplicity of Jesus and accord with the standards of the apostles.

     Their church is an integral factor in the great holiness movement of this now-receding century, and this movement is in the dawn of a fresh era of aggression, expansion and spiritual enrichment, which will challenge the noblest efforts and complement the loftiest ambitions of Christian truth.

     And the simpler rules and restrictions of the Discipline will not be found to be manacles, but rather as a golden guard of the liberty, love and power of the Holy Spirit in the purified child of God.
 

     A Christian educator remarked to me that in Free Methodism there is a sense of spiritual reality. How fortunate are young people in these trying days of skepticism and cynicism to be associated with a people who provide an environment charged with a sense of such reality. This most precious contribution of Free Methodism to its youth is born of the fact that the founders, and their successors in the movement, have, like first-century Christians, taken Christianity seriously. This is attested by their separation from worldliness and their unswerving refusal to compromise vital principles. With them, heaven and heavenly rewards have been very real, as has the fearful fact of eternal night and the possibility of being lost.

     Free Methodism not only presents the challenge of moral restraint and rigorous self-discipline but the opportunity to know the joy of an inner experience which gives strength that the world cannot understand or appreciate.
 

     I have the utmost confidence in the Free Methodist Church. I have said again and again that I count it the cleanest single unit in our entire movement. I believe this to be true. Wherever this church has functioned long enough to produce results it has produced a type of character strong and substantial which I greatly appreciate.