DANGEROUS SHOALS

Wesley, after speaking of what the established church condemned as irregularities, the calling of sinners to repentance in all cases, extemporaneous prayer and uniting in a religious society, disclaimed being a dissenter, whom the law defined as one who renounced the service of the church. He said, "We do not, we dare not, separate from it. We are not seceders, nor do we bear any resemblance to them. We must set out on quite opposite principles. The Seceders, Non-Conformists, Independents and Come-Outers laid the very foundation of their work in judging and condemning others. We (Methodists take note, particularly those who claim to be purely Wesleyan) laid the foundation of our work in judging and condemning ourselves. See Corinthians 11:31. They (the Separatists) begin everywhere by showing their hearers how fallen the church and the ministers are. We begin everywhere by showing our hearers how fallen they are themselves."

Thus he avoided the spirit so prevalent in independent churches of our day -- that salvation is a science committed to them, as was the assumption of the priests of the Hierarchy -- each church a little charmed circle with a little pass-word like the lodges, which, unless you have down to the precision of parrot-repetition through initiation into the mysteries of the new and wonderful sect, you cannot get in and you must ever be regarded as of the uninitiated.

Exclusiveness is the order. We must use our preachers and workers and zealously guard our church for ourselves and our children and our descendants and adherents and their descendants. We must keep out all doctrines foreign to our established and rigid doctrines and we must censor all others who fail to conform to our immovable creeds which we have deducted from the Bible. We must not let them into our pulpits lest they make a stir in the established order and quicken our people to do some original investigating. Oh, Popery, in the disguise of Protestantism -- Higher Life, Pentecostal, Holiness, Four-Fold Gospel-ism! Wherein is the difference in the assumption of infallibility, whether the Pope assumes it or if we do? [3] It is not an expressed tenet of belief with us, as it is with the Catholics, but the implication of it is so strong everywhere that we might as well come out in the open and profess it. Who will censor the censors? What boots it if the Hierarchy of Rome assumes lordship over our consciences or if the last little split-off of the split-off Mission does it? A vision of God's Son clarifies the issue and sets the soul at perfect liberty from all encroachments and from all assumptions of infallibility everywhere. Many of the churches of our day, regular and irregular, are as unable to endure the message of untrammeled freedom in Christ as the Catholic Church of Luther's day was to bear the truth as preached by the men who broke with Luther for liberty in Christ.

The banning word, boycotting the free soul in Christ, is as systematically passed from ocean to ocean now, as then, and the passers are kin to the inquisitors. Paul never referred to the work assigned to him as his work, or my work or our work, but as THE WORK OF THE LORD. He warned the Colossians against the diverters from the sufficiency of Christ. "Beware lest ANY MAN spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily, (this fulness dwells nowhere else God has not lodged it in any system) AND YE ARE COMPLETE IN HIM."

The effort to find the perfect church always ends in disappointment. All other lights are failing except the Light of the World; systems decay, for they are composed of that flesh which God says is grass. How many jealousies and animosities are gendered by the depredations of proselytizing. We may try all else and then must we return to Christ, for the Son only abides forever.

Mr. Wesley wrote: "You know when a man leaves one religious party or society, it is a theme both to him and to them. Those of his old friends who loved him MERELY AS A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY (numerical love because he swelled the statistics of members by one) will cease to love him because the motive of it was to use him to swell the number of their sect, to hel.p make a fair show in the flesh; or it was a selfish love for his tribute and not the pure, unselfish love of Christ for his own sake, which would not cease because he went to another fold but bid him God-speed in the new home. Those who have little or no grace will treat him as a Deserter, and express their anger or ill-will by speaking against him. This stabbing a man in the back as soon as he turns it upon us, I abhor and protest against, and discourage to the utmost of my power. One who forsakes his former friends will be tempted to speak evil of them, and to mention their faults, real or supposed, to justify himself for leaving them, or to recommend himself to his new friends. I ALWAYS STOOD IN DOUBT OF SUCH CONVERTS, whether from the Calvinist, Moravians, Dissenters, or any other. Besides, a young convert is always zealous in making proselytes, which awakens suspicion in the deserted party, and arms them against further DEPREDATIONS."

ERRONEOUS CONCEPTIONS OF SELF-DENIAL Much of the so-called self-denial is an expression of self-preference; it overlooks entirely" the Master's meaning of self-denial; it substitutes the denial of certain unvalued things to self instead of the denial of the monster Self. As one suggests, there is no virtue in the mere denial of THINGS TO SELF, but there is all virtue in the denial of self. Jesus invites men to deny SELF. One may easily deny some things to self which cost little, and yet refuse to deny self which costs much, and he may develop a subtle self-righteousness while doing it. He may, like the Pharisee seek to make the inside clean by making the outside clean, and thus ignore the Master's method, first make the inside clean that the outside may be clean also. First deny SELF and then the things which properly should be denied to self will follow.

To use a homely illustration; one may substitute oleomargarine for butter because of inability to pay the difference in price, he needs sympathy; another is abundantly able to pay the difference in price, but is too stingy to pay it, but let him not, as he often does, think that this is what the Scriptures mean by the denial of self, it is only the denial of butter, with a motive that will not bear scrutiny; to have more money to add to the miserly hoard, not to aid the needy with the difference saved, which would be commendable. Of Jesus it is prophetically said -- "Butter and honey shall he eat, " yet His life was a perfect expression of the denial of self.

To sit up at night when traveling, in order to save the Lord's money, as an expression of self-denial, may be only the expression of the love of money and its hoarding, which exceeds the care of the Lord's body-the temple of the Holy Ghost, "which temple ye are."

"But, " said a perplexed soul to the writer, "I cannot see the distinction you make between the denial of self and the denial of something or things to myself-are they not both the same? I denied myself a valuable premium for the sake of a poor man who burned out. It was very dear to me and I had to struggle to part with it -- did I not deny self?" In fidelity to truth we must write that it was not the denial of self which Jesus demands of all who would follow Him. That was only the denial of the premium to self and left self untouched-in fact it may have been an expression of self-preference if, in the giving there was a subtle motive underlying it -- to be seen of men in its denial, to give because you were expected to and strong public sentiment demanded it and you feared to be termed close, or a slacker. But had self been truly denied in the sense which Jesus meant, there would not have been the struggle to give to him in need, but joy in the sacrifice.

Again, that party toward whom you say it is impossible to feel right you will love with a Christ-like compassion, when you have learned the secret of denying self.

Hence we see that one may deny to himself ever so many things and yet leave self untouched -- yea, he will thereby often deepen the hold on self by his false conception of true self-denial.

There is a commendable frugality, an economy of the fragment that nothing be lost, which is pleasing to God, but this is far removed from the miserly stinginess and from attempted salvation by works of so-called self denial, it is rather the healthy sign and fruit of salvation through grace.  

3 There goes a man, with a heavy heart and downcast took and many misgivings, to a field of labor the Holy Spirit has not called him to, (and, therefore, will not largely use him in). but the Modern Hierarchy orders it and he must obey. It was not so in the Early Church, they were sent forth by the Holy Ghost. Where does Christ's Headship of the Church come in when men of like passions with us order us to fields of labor conscience and the Holy Ghost protest God does not call us?