POPULAR UNION MEETINGS.
S
SUPPOSEa modern popular revivalist such as Mr. Moody, in one of his great meetings should tell his audience that he would read the great commission of our Lord to his apostles, and proceed to read as follows:
“Go you, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you.”
“Go you into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned?”
Then, suppose he should follow this up with the words of Peter, in reply to the three thousand on Pentecost, when they inquired, “What shall we do?” when he said, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,” or that he should also quote the instructions of Ananias to Saul: “Why do you tarry? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord;” what think you would become of the great union meeting and the wonderful co-operation of so many parties? They would disperse almost as rapidly as the Jews did from our Lord when he overthrew the tables of the money changers and drove them out of the temple. They would hear him no more.
These great union meetings, in which many of different parties unite and co-operate, put a part of the word of God—the language of the Spirit of God—on the same level with their partisan peculiarities and opinions, and ignore all together, the human and the divine! They make no difference between the human and divine, in ignoring, but simply ignore the matters in which they do not agree, no matter whether human or divine. We make this difference;we ignore all that is human, andrecognize all that is divine. The true union ground isthe divine. We are not to unite simply on what we agree about. We may agree in the wrong—the erroneous—the false. The true ground is to ignore everything that did not come from God, and recognize everything that did come from God. The entire revelation from God to man is that on which to unite. All included in that is of supreme authority, and all not included in that is of no authority at all.
Men may join in union meetings, co-operate in them or unite permanently in them, but so long as they are alliances, leagues or confederations, in an understood, settled and persistent ignoring of clear instructions from the Lord in reference to the way of salvation, the approbation of the Lord will not be there. It matters nothing about the number that unite in these meetings, nor the variety of different parties, nor how many conversions may be claimed, the approbation of the Lord is not there so long as his authority is ignored in deference to people that do not receive it.
These meetings, the different parties pushing into them, and the various preachers participating in them, are simply demonstrations of the confused state of the public mind. Neither the preachers nor thepeople are settled. They are out at sea and ready for anything new, or anything better, but know not where to find it. They have become so bewildered that they can trust in almost anything, except the clear revelation of God. Whatever a man thinks is right, that is right to him, unless he thinksthe law of God is right. They can not admit that that is right if a mandoes think it is right! Butit is right, whether they think it is right or not, and will be right for ever and ever.