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Bishop G. Handley Moule: Keswick Quietist Leader, part 2 of 2
Scripture against such practices, and the terrible opportunities they gave to
the devil, Moule also claimed to communicate with the dead and offered prayer
for them, in a manner reminiscent of the interactions with the dead of the
spiritualist Higher Life pillars Mr. and Mrs. Mount-Temple. Moule also commended such frightfully
unscriptural practices to others. It was
his “sweet solace” to offer “[p]erpetual greetings to” his “beloved ones” who
had “gone” to the grave. He stated: “I daily and by name greet my own
beloved child, my dearest parents, and others precious to me,” although they
were already dead. Prayers for the dead
were “no sin;” rather, communication
with and prayers for the dead were a “sweet and blessed help” in the spiritual
life (pgs. 220-221, Veni Creator: Thoughts on the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit of Promise, by H. C. G. Moule. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1890; cf. repr. ed., Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1977), so Moule himself engaged daily in such spiritualistic
exercises. Moule stated: “I cannot think . . . that warrant for such
prayer is a fact of revelation,” but although no support whatever for prayers
for the dead appeared in Scripture, he stated:
“I for one cannot condemn such exercises of the soul,” and he both
practiced such himself and accepted such communications as a legitimate
“devotional” practice of other “Christians who so pray.” He even commended a “beautiful . . . prayer”
for the dead for the use of Christians, which included not only intercession
for the dead but a wish for communication with the dead person: “[I]f there be ways in which [he] may come. .
. grant me a sense of [his] presence” (pgs. 96-98, Christus Consolator, Moule).
Such interaction with the dead—who, Moule averred, really came back, as
such communications certainly were not simply the work of deceiving
demons—contributed to the bishop’s belief in the continuation of spiritual
gifts and his opposition to cessationism.
result of such fellowship with and prayers for the dead, Moule believed that
“the Lord grants what can only be called visions,” so that the dead return and
grant an even greater level of communication with the living than can be
obtained by invisible communication with the afterlife. Moule himself had received supernatural and
“deeply sweet dreams,” where dead people he communicated with and prayed for
appeared to him and looked on him “with an extraordinary look of bliss” (pgs.
220-221, Handley Carr Glyn Moule, Bishop
of Durham: A Biography, John B.
Harford & Frederick C. Macdonald).
Moule likewise commended others who had “veritable vision[s] of God”
coming to them and telling them things; furthermore, he encouraged and
supported those who received such visions to trust in their veracity (pg.
287). In light of his continuationism,
Moule’s sympathy for the leader of early British Pentecostalism, Alexander
Boddy, is unsurprising (pgs. 23-24, 88, The
Pentecostal Movement, Donald Gee).
Furthermore, Moule also had the
ability as a Anglican Bishop to convey special powers through the laying on of
his hands. One who received such power
from Moule testified: “At my interview,
he laid his hands on my head, and gave me his solemn blessing for the work. I
distinctly felt that it was something very real. This was not a matter of
faith, but a distinct physical experience, as definite as an electrical shock.
It was not like an electric shock, but something both spiritual and physical
which I cannot properly describe. . . . It had results, for both in my parish,
and where I was Bishop’s Messenger, the Mission was much more successful than
it usually was” (pgs. 222-223).
was also ecumenical, warmly accepting as brothers in Christ High Anglican and
Romanizing Anglican baptismal regenerationists and other heretics within his
denomination, instead of seeking to purge such false teachers out. “His breadth
of view gained for him in a marked degree the confidence of all schools of thought,”
and his “genial tolerance” of non-evangelicals brought him the “war[m]
prais[e]” of the “High Anglicans” (pgs. 186-187; cf. Luke 6:26). It probably helped that Moule could make
“strongly worded sacramental statement[s]” about “the Lord as present on the
Table” in the sacrament of Communion (pg. 95, Transforming Keswick: The
Keswick Convention, Past, Present, and Future, Price & Randall). The
Roman Catholic sacrament of Confirmation could bring one into the Anglican
communion, Moule held—even if the Anglican “Canons might say otherwise.” “[P]ublic renunciation” of Rome and her
heresies should be “waive[d]” for entrance into Anglicanism (pg. 215). Incense could be used in association with the
sacrament of Holy Communion (pg. 218-219).
Moule permitted those under his authority to practice the “Reservation
of the Blessed Sacrament” as an act of “real helpfulness” in certain situations
in worship, although it was a practice involving the worship of the communion
bread in Roman Catholicism (pg. 220). Sharing
wine and meals with his fellow clergy (pg. 201), Moule became “most devoted and
loving friends” with “the leading Ritualist in the North of England,” whom
Moule regarded as a “Christian man and
minister wholly devoted to his Lord” and to whom Moule “took special delight”
in providing ecclesiastical advancement (pg. 194). Moule “quite recognized that those who held
the Catholic standpoint had a perfect right to be included in the Anglican
Church. And his letters breathe the spirit of kindly sympathy with this point
of view. He desired that ‘all essential requirements of the High Anglicans
should be met’” (pg. 196), and, as a Bishop, he “rejoice[d]” to put “important
. . . living[s]” with “most important point[s] of vantage” into the hands of
those with “extreme opposite” views to his generally evangelical Anglicanism
(pg. 195). Thus, he happily worked as an
Anglican Bishop not to purge, but to promote those under his charge who led
countless precious souls into false ritualistic gospels and the fires of an
eternal hell. Moule was so far from
seeking to remove those who believed a false gospel that “he would have erred
in favour to High Churchmen lest he should even appear to be unkind” (pgs.
196-197). He wrote:
least in my later years, to know and to love, as friends in Christ, holy men of
other types and schools, and to see with reverence their Lord’s likeness in the
countenance of their lives. . . . These men are beyond shadow of question at
least as much Christ’s own as I dare to think myself. From their example, from their words,
sometimes from words definitely shaped by their distinctive tenets, I have
often received exhortation and edification. (pg. 197)
Critics and Romanist Anglicans were as much Christians as himself, and he often
received exhortation and edification from their distinctive tenets, although
these were damnable heresies. To Moule,
in his appointments of ministers to lead the people of God, “the question of
views was secondary” (pg. 203); “nor was he a good judge of character” (pg.
211; contrast 1 Timothy 3). In his
bishopric he brought about “entire freedom . . . from ritual trouble and
partisan division” (pg. 200), although the gospel itself had to be jettisoned
to do so. Thus, Moule was “scrupulous”
to treat well “High Churchmen in [his] Diocese[.] It fell to his lot to appoint
incumbents to many parishes where the teaching and practice were not in accord
with his personal convictions, but he was always at pains to secure the
continuity of the tradition of such churches” (pg. 203). That is, when a false gospel was being
preached by a minister of Satan in a parish overseen by Moule, the Bishop was
very diligent to make sure that the true gospel was not brought in; but upon
the retirement of one minister of Satan, Moule consecrated another servant and
preacher of Antichrist. While the
Bible affirms that believers must “earnestly contend for the faith” (Jude 3),
and although the Anglican denomination descended ever further into rationalism
and Romanism as Moule grew older, he nonetheless wrote: “As
life advances, I feel less and less the value of controversy, where spiritual
matters are concerned” (pg. 215).
praise and commend ritualism, it is not surprising that Moule could write: “Only it is right that I should say for my
own part that not one word . . . has
been written [by me] in forgetfulness of my obligations as a presbyter of the
English Church, or with faltering convictions as to the rightness of the
language of its sacramental ritual” (pg. 80, Veni Creator). Moule thus
endorsed the language employed in, for example, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, in “The Ministration of Publick Baptism of
Infants, to be Used in the Church,” which requires the priest to pray:
in the river Jordan, [Thou, God] didst sanctify Water to the mystical washing
away of sin. . . . We call upon thee for this Infant, that he, coming to thy
holy Baptism, may receive remission of his sins by spiritual regeneration.
Receive him, O Lord, as thou hast promised . . . that this Infant may enjoy the
everlasting benediction of thy heavenly washing, and may come to the eternal
kingdom which thou hast promised by Christ our Lord. Amen.
form for “The Ministration of Private Baptism of Children” requires the priest
to act as follows:
baptize thee in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen.” Then, all kneeling down, the Minister shall give thanks unto God, and
say, “We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased
thee to regenerate this Infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine
own Child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy Church. And we
humbly beseech thee to grant, that as he is now made partaker of the death of
thy Son, so he may be also of his resurrection; and that finally, with the
residue of thy Saints, he may inherit thine everlasting kingdom; through the
same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Ministration further commends the “baptizing of [a] Child; who being born in
original sin, and in the wrath of God, is now, by the laver of Regeneration in
Baptism, received into the number of the children of God, and heirs of
everlasting life.” The binding Anglican
Confession of Faith, the 39 Articles,
affirms that as “by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly are
grafted into the Church; [and] the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of
our adoption to be the sons of God, by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and
sealed” (Article XXVII). While one can be glad that Moule personally denied
baptismal regeneration and strove, albeit with questionable efficacy, to make
the sacramental language of his denomination cohere with more evangelical views
(cf. pgs. 259ff., Outlines of Christian
Doctrine, H. C. G. Moule.
London: Hodder & Stoughton,
1890), he nonetheless swore commitment to the Anglican documents that actually
did teach sacramental salvation, and he had good “Christian” fellowship with
the multitude of his fellow Anglican ministers and members that took more
seriously than he the language of Anglican creed and ritual and consequently
affirmed baptismal regeneration.
errors, from weak views on the inspiration of Scripture, continuationism, and
ecumenicalism, to prayers for the dead.
He also had a terrible lack of discernment about heresy. It is consequently not surprising that
unregenerate false teachers such as Hannah W. Smith and Robert P. Smith were
accepted as Christian brethren by Moule, and their Keswick theology adopted and
promulgated by him.
Postscript to Analysis of Skelly Gospel Video
When I wrote the post on the Skelly video for Monday, I knew that far more people could or would be upset, unhappy, or just ambivalent about my writing something like that, than they would be likewise with the actual video and its contents. Not only in independent-Baptist-land is someone better and better off leaving that kind of thing alone in most theological and practical outlooks, but many men don’t really have a problem with what Skelly said. For some, who cares? They don’t care, or they don’t even think it is wrong. It’s fine. As a matter of fact, probably most independent Baptists think that what Skelly is doing, what he said, is better than my analysis of what he said. To them, he’s right and I’m wrong. To them, what he did there was fantastic. Please, rethink that.
Hopefully you are evangelizing. If you are evangelizing, you are telling people what the Bible says. Skelly and those like him mainly use (emphasis on “use”) Bible verses to give a pre-packaged presentation. The authority for what they are saying doesn’t have to come from the verses themselves.
Romans 6:23 doesn’t tell how to “receive the gift of eternal life.” Skelly though tells you that receiving the gift of eternal life is “trusting Jesus as your Savior,” that’s how you receive it. Romans 6:23 doesn’t say that, but it is what Skelly reads into the verse. Since “receiving the gift of eternal life” is “trusting Jesus as your Savior,” then how do you “trust Jesus as your Savior?” You “call upon the name of the Lord to be saved,” which means “praying a scripted prayer to trust Jesus as your Savior.” This instruction follows from something that wasn’t in the verse in the first place. The first step isn’t biblical and then none follow from the other. If someone does any of what Skelly teaches, it’s because he trusts what Skelly is telling him is true. He’s not starting with the Bible, but with Skelly.
As evangelism regards preaching something from the Bible, I briefly want to consider from the Bible what was needed. It is true that Jesus died for us, died for our sins. He is the Savior. That is true. However, the threshold through which we are saved by Him is through “believing in Jesus Christ.” “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ” is not the same as “trust Jesus as Savior,” the latter something the Bible doesn’t anywhere tell anyone to do. The latter is an invention.
I would be quite sure that Skelly and others like him would say that they believe in the truth of John 3:15, 16, 18, and 36, the latter three verses saying essentially the same thing as verse 15:
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
We must believe in Jesus Christ to have eternal life. That is different than “trusting in Jesus as Savior.” At this point, I think Skelly would say that “believing in Jesus Christ” is “trusting in Jesus as Savior.” Those are not the same. The latter falls short of what the former means.
John 3:15, 16, 18, and 36 are found in the gospel of John. John at the end of his gospel writes in John 20:31:
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
If someone wanted a message of salvation that would be acceptable to the world and more successful at gaining more adherents, lordship is the part to remove. People want the salvation part, but they don’t want the lordship part. 2 Peter makes it clear that lordship is the problem of apostasy. Self-will is the issue, even as Romans 1 says they know God, but glorify Him not as God. They worship the creature rather than the Creator. Skelly didn’t concoct this. He’s taking it from others, but it is a message tailored to the spirit of the age.
Think about the aspect of indifferentism with me. Skelly is invited to and preaches with Crown College and Clarence Sexton. Bob Jones III and John Vaughn, president of the FBFI, preach with Sexton at his church and college, as does Skelly. Sexton preaches with Mike Sproul, Kevin Bauder, and other fundamentalists. Do these men repudiate what a Skelly would preach? Skelly fits in with most of fundamentalism. He preaches at a Camp Cobeac in Michigan with crossover to Ambassador Baptist College. The indifference is how it spreads. I see the indifference. I see it also among unaffiliated Baptists too. This all relates to the gospel. Will you stand with a true gospel?
Bishop G. Handley Moule: Keswick Quietist Leader, part 1 of 2
Keswick classic, So Great Salvation,
Steven Barabas alleges that “Keswick is very careful to point out that its
doctrine of sanctification by faith is not Quietism,” quoting “Bishop Handley
Moule”[1] to support this alleged
opposition to Quietism by Keswick.
However, Barabas either overlooks or misrepresents[2] the fact that Moule
himself, who Barabas affirms was the greatest scholar ever to adopt the Keswick
theology, wrote that the believer’s part in the Keswick model of sanctification
is “a blessed and
wakeful Quietism,” so that “Quietism . . . express[es] one side of [the] truth”
in sanctification.[3]
explains Moule’s importance to Keswick: “The
adherence of Dr. Moule to the Keswick platform was a great accession of
strength . . . there is no doubt that Dr. Moule was [Keswick’s] greatest . . .
scholar.”[4] Moule adopted the Keswick theology through
the influence of Evan Hopkins.[5] Nevertheless, even Bishop Moule did not write
any works for the world of scholarship, a fact put in the most favorable light
by his biographers:
would give to the Church some great work, which would appeal to the world of
pure scholarship and advanced studies; but . . . he deliberately consecrated
all his powers to meet the needs of the general body of Christian people . . .
it is not surprising that Dr. Moule should have felt that he could best serve
his day and generation by using his all-too-scanty leisure upon such writings
as were in the line of his pulpit and platform ministrations.[6]
Moule did not write any exposition or defense of the Keswick theology for the
world of scholarship, just as nobody else has done, despite what will soon be a
century and a half of the worldwide promulgation of the Keswick theology. Perhaps such an exposition has never been
written because Keswick doctrine is unscholarly and cannot be defended at an
advanced level.
affirmed Quietism was one side of the truth, he also affirmed it was “only” one
side of it, adding: “In the history of
theological language [Quietism] has some associations with dangerous
error.” While such a warning is better
than an unqualified endorsement of Quietism, it is far too bland and
nonspecific; nobody knows who exactly is teaching “dangerous error” or what
“some associations with” such error actually means, so that Moule’s disclaimer
has no practical value. It seems that
Moule thought that those teaching “dangerous error,” or at least error that was
damnable and really and truly serious, did not include the actual promulgators
of Roman Catholic mystical Quietism such as Archbishop Fenélon, for Moule wrote
concerning him: “There are assuredly
many Roman [Catholics] that know that light [of salvation], as Fenelon and his
friends [such as Madame Guyon] so beautifully did.”[7]
If beautiful knowledge of the light of
Christ is found in such a central figure of medieval Romanist Quietism as
Archbishop Fenélon, despite his rejection of core elements of the gospel such
as justification by faith alone, and despite the fact that he was so zealous as
a partisan for Rome and against Protestantism that he led a mission to bring
French Huguenots back into the fold of Mystery Babylon and her idolatry, one
wonders what advocates of Quietism actually qualified as dangerous.
Christ-like, pointed, and specific denunciation of false teachers and false
teaching (cf. Matthew 23) was not limited to applying a feather duster to Roman
Catholic Quietism instead of hewing it in pieces with the sword of the
Spirit. Moule himself held to numerous
serious heresies. He was “quite willing
to read” the creation account in “Gen i-iii . . . as hieroglyphics [rather]
than as pictures or photographs of scenery.”
He wrote:
spoke syllables meaning “Let there be light.” We are not bound to literalism in
the mysterious details of the creation of woman. We are not bound to every
particular of the temptation. They are . . . fact not necessarily painted
exactly as it happened, but conveyed in hieroglyphic signs . . . a prophecy of fact, conveyed through
non-literal symbols . . . I think the action of the serpent in Gen. iii. may be
of the same class. We thus have Scripture beginning . . . with facts so
mysterious that they need in our present state mysterious representation.[8]
Word did not have to mean exactly what it says in the account of the Creation
and Fall; rather, this portion of the Mosaic narrative may be “hieroglyphic signs”
filled with sound and fury, signfying nothing, or at least nothing anyone could
know for certain. Moule also affirmed
that a “new and higher law for the Christian mind” made it well if portions of
the Psalter were “omit[ted] . . . [from] public use . . . in common worship,”
as parts of God’s Word in songs such as Psalm 69 and 109 were allegedly
sub-Christian,[9]
despite profuse references to these very psalms in the New Testament (Matthew
27:34, 48; Mark 15:36; Luke 23:36; John 2:17; 15:25; 19:28-29; Acts 1:16, 20;
Romans 11:9-10; 15:3, etc.). Concerning
“Old Testament Criticism” Moule wrote: “I do not forget that large recognition has
often and obviously to be given to the presence of many documents or ‘sources’
in one writing, and to many an after note or comment usefully embodied in the
text.”[10] JEDP and masses of editorial revisions to the
Old Testament by those who were not prophets writing under inspiration were
apparently acceptable. Moule also
“showed a large-hearted tolerance” for those, including “many of his pupils and some of his colleagues,”
who “took more advanced positions”—that is, who delved further into the hellish
pits of the Higher Criticism than he did himself; such people were certainly
not false teachers in need of deliverance from the kingdom of darkness, but
could be “loyal to the Master Himself” while holding to higher critical
heresies.[11] It is not surprising, then, that many of
Moule’s pupils accepted Higher Criticism when Moule taught them: “The Lord . . . stated no theory of th[e]
construction . . . [of] the Scriptures,”[12]
such as the Biblical fact that the Bible was dictated, although not
mechanically, by the Holy Ghost, in such a manner that its very words, and all
of its words, were inspired by God. But
if the Creation and the Fall could be “hieroglyphic signs,” why could not the
saving work of Christ be a mere symbol also?
Does not the Apostle Paul parallel the fall of men in Adam and their
deliverance through Christ in Romans five?
Great Salvation, Barabas. Packer, commenting on Barabas’s denial that
Keswick is quietistic, notes:
on the ground that intense activity in using the means of grace is necessary to
keep up one’s consecration and to maintain faith. But such activity, as is explicitly stated in
the passage from Bishop Moule which he quotes, is merely preparatory: “the temptation
of the hour will be met less by direct efforts of the will than by indirect”—i.
e., by handing the matter over to the Spirit and ceasing to act in it oneself.
This is the quietism of Keswick teaching. (pg. 161, “‘Keswick’ and the
Reformed Doctrine of Sanctification,” J. I. Packer. The Evangelical Quarterly, Vol. 27 (1955) 153-167).
from W. H. Griffith Thomas, who quoted Moule to respond to Warfield’s criticism
of Keswick Quietism on pgs. 278-279, “The Victorious Life (I.),” Bibliotheca Sacra 76:303 (July 1919), 267-288.
Griffith Thomas was Barabas’s predecessor in ignorance of or in failing
to state that, decades before Thomas wrote, Moule himself specifically
affirmed, in print, the Quietism of his beloved Keswick doctrine of sanctification. Perhaps, if ignorance of or bypassing of
inconvenient facts worked well enough for Griffith Thomas, it could work well
enough for Barabas also.
Creator: Thoughts on the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit of Promise, by
H. C. G. Moule. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1890; cf. repr. ed.,
Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1977.
175, So Great Salvation, Barabas.
106, 148, Evan Harry Hopkins: A Memoir, Alexander Smellie.
Pg.
173, Handley Carr Glyn Moule, Bishop of
Durham: A Biography, John B. Harford
& Frederick C. Macdonald.
215, Handley Carr Glyn Moule, Bishop of
Durham: A Biography, John B. Harford
& Frederick C. Macdonald).
Pg.
175, Handley Carr Glyn Moule, Bishop of
Durham: A Biography, John B. Harford
& Frederick C. Macdonald.
295-296, ibid.
176, ibid.
174, ibid.
Keswick’s History: Keswick Theology’s Rise and Development in an Analysis and Critique of So Great Salvation by Stephen Barabas, part 1 of 5
and Keswick Theology
Barabas’s So Great Salvation is
widely considered the standard interpretation of Keswick theology. In the words of Fred Mitchell, Chairman of
the Keswick Convention Council from 1948-1951 and writer of the book’s preface,
Barabas’s book is “faithful and accurate; it is well annotated with sources of
his information; [and] it is saturated with an appreciative spirit, for he
himself has been so much helped by Keswick.
The book will form a text-book and a reference book on this unique
movement.”[1] Thus, its contents accurately represent the
theology of the original Keswick movement.
Indeed, “Steven Barabas[’s] . . . book So
Great Salvation is perhaps the single best interpretation of the message of
Keswick.”[2] Proponents of Keswick generally affirm: “The most objective account and appraisement
of the . . . Keswick . . . movement is So
Great Salvation: The History and Message
of The Keswick Convention—an extraordinarily exact account . . . [written]
after exhaustive research.”[3] Thus, Keswick’s “standard interpretation is
Steven Barabas, So Great Salvation.”[4] Consequently,
the analysis of the Keswick system below will engage Barabas’s book in detail
while also evaluating other Keswick classics.
that in “the early 1870s . . . the Keswick movement had its rise in England.”[5] The Quakers introduced the subject[6]
of the Higher Life, although there were also very significant background
influences of Roman Catholic mystics and heretics such as the monks Thomas á
Kempis and Brother Lawrence,[7]
and especially the Catholic mystical quietist Madame Guyon.[8] Catholics and Quakers were essential
theological precursors for the rise of the Keswick movement.
out of his “monastic formation,” zealously practiced the anti-Christian piety
that springs from the Roman Catholic false gospel. Thomas loved:
sacrificial character of the Eucharist . . . “meritorious” works . . . [and]
den[ied] the crucial importance of Christ’s mediatorship and sacrifice. . . .
[In his writings, such as] The Imitation
of Christ . . . the atoning significance of Christ’s work is overshadowed
by the exemplary perspective . . . the Holy Spirit . . . remains unmentioned .
. . throughout . . . [Thomas has] little to say . . . about the Lord Jesus as a
ransom and as our righteousness . . . [he] cannot be considered a fore-runner
of the Reformation . . . [but] brokers . . . ideas that are characteristically
Roman Catholic.[9]
therefore, not surprising that “Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order[,]
. . . was accustomed to reading a chapter in the book [The Imitation of Christ] daily.”[10]
claims that more orthodox writers were also antecedents to the Keswick
movement. He follows W. H. Griffith
Thomas in claiming that Walter Marshall’s The
Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, written in 1692, is a Keswick
antecedent. However, “the Keswick view
is incompatible with Marshall’s because the Keswick view is influenced by a
Wesleyan second work of the Spirit that is conditioned on the believer’s
consecration. . . . Despite their claims to the contrary . . . Keswick theology
is both historically and theologically novel.”[11]
A more accurate and less historically
revisionistic view of Marshall’s work is that the book is a “Puritan classic on
sanctification.”[12]
claims that William Romaine’s books The
Life of Faith, The Walk of Faith, and The
Triumph of Faith were Keswick antecedents.
However, J. C. Ryle’s assessment that the books taught the older
evangelical doctrine of sanctification, not the Keswick doctrine, is more
accurate.[13]
perhaps be cleared somewhat from historical revisionism in that he only implies
that Walter Marshall and William Romaine taught Keswick theology, without
actually stating it. In the midst of his
discussion of the Pearsall Smith’s actual origination of Keswick theology, he
cites Romaine and also Griffith-Thomas’s claim that the essentials of Keswick
are found in Marshall. The only specific
claim Barabas himself makes for Marshall and Romaine is that the men taught
“the possibility of fellowship with Christ closer than that enjoyed by the
generality of Christians.”[14]
Of course, an affirmation that Christians
can walk more closely with God could be made for nearly every devotional book
ever written in Christendom. The reader
will naturally assume that Barabas is not just making an empty affirmation that
Marshall and Romaine wrote books that explained how believers could draw closer
to God but that the two men actually taught Keswick theology. It is uncertain whether Barabas qualified his
specific affirmations simply because he wrote carelessly or because he knew
that neither Marshall nor Romaine actually taught Keswick doctrine.
Barabas’s inaccurate and hagiographical explanation of the development of the
Keswick movement with B. B. Warfield’s accurate one, which carefully documents
the widespread influence of both Mr. and Mrs. Smith and their connection to
earlier and later errors in sanctification, in “The ‘Higher Life’ Movement,”Chapter 4 in Perfectionism, Vol. 2,Benjamin B. Warfield, pgs. 463-558. Note
also Chapter 5, “The Victorious Life,” pgs. 559-611; and Chapter 1, pgs. 3-218,“Oberlin Perfectionism,” which examines the perfectionist errors of Mahan,
Finney, and others.
Catholics and Quakers, the “Higher Life teaching . . . [in] the books of the
American religious leaders, T. C. Upham and Asa Mahan . . . [and] W. E. Boardman’s The
Higher Christian Life”[15]
is also undisputed theological background for the development of the Keswick
theology; Barabas thus recognizes Thomas C. Upham as a Keswick antecedent.[16] He notes without a hint of criticism that
Upham wrote Life and Religious Experience
of Madame Guyon, a book which Barabas affirms contributed to “the interest
of the Church in the subject of sanctification and the Spirit-filled life,” as
did other works of Upham.[17] What, then, was Upham’s theology? Upham “experienced [entire] sanctification
under Phoebe Palmer’s influence and gave popular expression to the doctrine in
a series of books drawing . . . explicitly on Catholic mysticism and Quietism.”[18]
Upham taught, in addition to his
Quietistic and Romanist Higher Life doctrine of sanctification associated with Wesleyan
perfectionism and Pelagianism, that God was a duality of Father and Mother
instead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
However, this Duality became a Trinity through the appearance of a Son,
who is identified with the created order itself. Upham sought to prove this gross idolatry
from sources ranging from ancient Gnostics such as Valentinus and Heracleon, to
the Jewish Cabala, to assorted other later heretics and perfectionists. He blasphemously wrote:
. from the eternal Fatherhood and Motherhood . . . all things proceed. [A]
Maternal Principle . . . Sophia . . . [exists] in the Divine nature[.] . . .
[T]he Jewish Cabala . . . [speaks of] a feminine deity . . . called Sophia. . .
. John’s Gospel . . . identif[ies] the Logos and the Sophia. . . . Sophia . . .
was God; not only with God, but was God. . . . [T]he somewhat mystic
words of the Apostle John . . . [are] the announcement of the infinite
Paternity and the infinite Motherhood. . . . Valentinus . . . speaks of the
Aeon Sophia . . . [T]he mystics and Quietists . . . recognized . . . the divine
Sophia[.] . . . [T]he Sophia . . . or Maternal Essentia or Personality of the
Godhead . . . incarnated itself in Christ . . . caused him, in a mother’s
Spirit though in a male form, to endure his great sufferings[.] . . . [T]he
Familists . . . recognize the Maternal Principle as a true and distinct
Personality in the Godhead. . . . [The] Shakers . . . [and] Bible Communists .
. . [recognize] that the Divine Nature is dual in its personalities . . . and
includes the fact of a divine maternity[.] . . . [T]he Catholic Church is often
regarded . . . as embodying the idea of the Motherhood element which exists in
the Infinite, in its recognition of the holy or deific nature of Mary . . . and
in the high honors, and even worship, which it is understood to render to her.
. . . [U]nder the influence of inward suggestions, which I will not stop to
explain and define . . . [and to] the thoughtful mind . . . the duality of the
Divine Existence, written everywhere in the book of nature, necessitates a
Trinity. . . . we must supplement the eternal Fatherhood and Motherhood by the
eternal Son . . . the great and unceasing out-birth of the Divine Duality. . .
. Generically, or considered in the whole of its extent, the trinal out-birth,
otherwise called the Son of God, without which the eternal Fatherhood and
Motherhood could have neither name nor power nor meaning, is the whole of
creation from its lowest to its highest form. . . . [N]ot an insect that floats
in the air, nor a fish that swims in the sea, nor a bird that sings in the
forests, nor a wild beast that roams on the mountains; not one is or by any
possibility can be shut out and excluded from the meaning and the fact of the
divine Sonship[.] . . . All living nature then . . . constitutes the Son of
God.[19]
stomach-turning idolatry in the subsequent pages of his book, but the quotation
above is enough, if not far more than enough, of a sampling of his vile and
devilish nonsense to give the sense of his doctrine. Despite being an unconverted idolator, he was
very influential:
leader after contact with Phoebe Palmer.
He studied Fenelon and Guyon, writing a biography of the latter entitled
Life, Religious Opinions, and Experience
of Madame Guyon. His [works] . . .
influenced much of nineteenth and early twentieth century thinking on faith,
including A. B. Simpson . . . leade[r] of [the] CMA [Christian & Missionary
Alliance].[20]
writers, Upham also emphasized ecumenicalism and sought to prepare for the
one-world religious system of Revelation 17.
Thus, “[o]n the basis of his experience of the baptism of the Spirit, T.
C. Upham proposed the foundation of a League of Nations.”[21] Such a man was Keswick antecedent Thomas
Upham.
See here for this entire study.
ix-x, So Great Salvation, Barabas.
and the Higher Life,” http://www.seeking4truth.com/keswick.htm.
Roots of Pentecostalism, Dayton.
Great Salvation, Barabas.
Keswick Convention: Its Message, Its
Method, and Its Men, ed. Charles Harford.
Convention, ed. Harford; cf. pg. 482, Record of the Convention for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness Held
at Brighton, May 29th to June 7th, 1875. Brighton: W.
J. Smith, 1875, for testimony to discovery of the Higher Life through “Brother
Lawrence” at Brighton.
Keswick Convention, ed. Harford.
Communion: Trajectories of Spirituality from the Middle Ages through the
Further Reformation, Arie de Reuver.
74-75, The Keswick Convention: Its Message, Its Method, and Its Men, ed.
Charles Harford.
72, 211 Let Go and Let God? A Survey and
Analysis of Keswick Theology, Andrew D. Naselli.
692, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for
Life, J. R. Beeke & M. Jones. Compare
also “Sanctification by Faith: Walter
Marshall’s Doctrine of Sanctification in Comparison with the Keswick View of
Sanctification,” Cheul Hee Lee. Ph. D. diss., Westminster Theological Seminary,
2005.
pg. xxix, Holiness: Its Nature,
Hindrances, Difficulties and Roots, J. C. Ryle. London: William Hunt and
Company, 1889.
16, So Great Salvation.
Great Salvation, Barabas. The wider
background to the Keswick Convention included the “work of such figures as
Charles Finney; Asa Mahan; W. E. Boardman; Hannah Whitall Smith and her
husband, Robert Pearsall Smith; Charles Cullis; and others” from the Wesleyan,
Oberlin, and Higher Life perfectionisms and continuationisms (pg. 104, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism,
Dayton). Thus, for example, as noted in
more detail below, both the persons and books of Mahan and Boardman were
promoted at the Oxford Convention (e. g., pg. 90, Account of the Union Meeting for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness,
Held at Oxford, August 29 to September 7, 1874.
Chicago: Revell, 1874).
16, So Great Salvation, Barabas.
81, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism,
Dayton.
49-78, Absolute Religion, Thomas C.
Upham. New York, NY: Putnam, 1873, pgs.
45-67; cf. also pgs. 337-459, Warfield, Perfectionism
Vol. 2. Italics in original. The “inward suggestions” of which Upham
speaks came from the devil, who worked through the Higher Life preacher’s corrupt
and unregenerate nature.
43, Only Believe: Examining the Origin and Development of
Classic and Contemporary Word of Faith Theologies, Paul L. King. See also “The Mystical Perfectionism of
Thomas Cogwell Upham,” Chapter 3 in Perfectionism,
Vol. 2, B. B. Warfield.
21, The Pentecostals, Hollenweger.
Judgment Must Begin in the House of God, pt. 2
Part One.
We look around the nation and the world, and people aren’t doing what God says. I see one major contributing factor to the demise with one corollary. First, people want to do what they want to do, and they’re easier to get along with if you let them do what they want. Second, the corollary, uncertainty buttresses this self-will. Without absolute truth, people can do what they want. More toleration equals larger coalitions. Sometimes getting and then staying big provides enough incentive to discard teachings.
The Charismatic movement — continuationism — doesn’t produce signs. Its “healers” don’t heal like Jesus and the Apostles. They don’t create new eyes and replace missing limbs. The “tongues” of its adherents are not real languages. What I’m saying is, it’s a fraud, a lie, a complete fabrication. Its worship is false. It undermines discernment with a perversion of true spirituality. The one and only God is mutually exclusive from lies. Satan is the liar and the father of lies, not God.
This year Together for the Gospel meets in Louisville, Kentucky, April 12-14. What is getting together for the gospel? Apparently, it ignore the lies of continuationism, because this conference brings continuationists (Mahaney and Piper) and cessationists (MacArthur, etc.) together for fellowship — tongue speakers and healers together with those who say they deny it. Why? How? Not all doctrines rise to a high enough level of importance. Some things God says are less important compared to others, even if it means the lies of continuationism, which is a series of lies about God, His power, the Holy Spirit, worship, sanctification, and more.
Continuationism isn’t all. They are together for the gospel, but not for premillennialism. You can allegorize most of the prophetic passages of scripture with amillennialism (Duncan, Dever, and Sproul), but that isn’t important enough to exclude someone from fellowship. Prophecy is non-essential. Getting together for the gospel does not exclude those who sprinkle infants like Duncan, Sproul, and DeYoung. When these distinctions are dismissed to get together, it’s no wonder that the church and the world both don’t think someone can know the truth.
No one has written more than me on this matter of essentials and non-essentials, primary and tertiary doctrines. This post continues in that theme. In December of last year, David Cloud picked upon on that subject, especially as he reads it among independent Baptists. I’m assuming he’s been reading here or A Pure Church. You hear the same tune from them on this as you would from the evangelicals, and for the same reasons. He quotes Paul Chappell from his Church Still Works (p. 215):
On the other hand, one of the weaknesses of independent Baptists has been calling non-essentials, essential. . . . . Practically speaking — it will be impossible for our churches to be what God intended and to make the difference that ‘salt and light’ should make if we are debating minor issues.
Cloud’s article is excellent and worth reading, as it moves into almost every circle of independent Baptists to join the Southern Baptists and evangelicals in this unbiblical teaching.
False doctrine and practice is justified by calling it a non-essential or tertiary doctrine or practice. When evangelicals use that language, they especially mean biblical standards of dress, holiness with regards to entertainment and recreation, and worldliness in music and worship. The use of unbiblical methods is another area that you will be discouraged from judging, because it is a non-fundamental part of the Bible.
Last week, the wife of former NBA head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans and assistant coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Monty Williams, died in a fatal, tragic car accident. Because of the celebrity of Williams, her death was national news. Williams said a lot of great, actually amazing, things at his wife’s funeral at Crossings Community Church in Oklahoma City. I was interested in what kind of church that might be, so I looked at its website, and I read this statement among others to inform potential attendees:
We will focus our teaching on the non-debatable principles of Scripture while leaving freedom for personal convictions related to non-essential doctrinal issues.
On the “I’m new” page, the lead pastor writes the all too typical:
What’s it like at Crossings? Well, we are most definitely a “come as you are” church. The comment I hear most from people is that the big building was a bit intimidating at first, but once inside, it was so friendly and easy to get around that “I just fit right in.” Dress is a little bit of everything—some in coats and ties, many in jeans. Just be yourself—and be comfortable.
I’m also asked what Sunday services are like. We offer five Sunday services with three unique styles in three different worship environments. If you prefer the sounds of a large choir and orchestra offering a blend of traditional and contemporary music, choose either the 9:15 or the 10:45 a.m. service in the Sanctuary. If you like a relaxed, upbeat atmosphere with all contemporary Christian music, led by Josh Edington and Venue Worship Team, then one of the two services in The Venue (9:15 and 10:45 a.m.) is the right place for you. For a more traditional, yet powerful, worship, where communion is offered every Sunday, come to the 8:15 a.m. Chapel service.
So much is preferential and personal taste. You can choose whatever worship or worship environment or dress you choose. None of that means anything, unless you judge something to be wrong. Come as you are. Come to God as you want. If Cain or King Saul could have known the same.
I use Crossings Community as an example, not because it is even the worst. It’s pretty typical today. Most populated areas are inundated with these types of churches, varying mostly in how small their list of essentials is and how extreme they’ll go in their entertainment and creature comforts — the more tolerance, the bigger the church. If you don’t want sinners to feel too uncomfortable, you’ve got to shrink the list of requirements. Crossings is the kind of church to host an occasion of a large number of celebrities.
A percentage of the Bible and a fast decreasing amount really matters. As long as a certain and diminishing agreement can be found in a shrinking number of essentials, everyone will be fine. Nothing is more important than toleration.
Judgment must begin in the house of God.
*************************
As an aside, but maybe not — I wanted people to know that I was adding this, who might wander over here to read this today. There is a bit of a “fight” among those “together for the gospel,” because of a few of the characters involved. Phil Johnson, most well known assistant to John MacArthur, has a strong conflict with Thabiti Anyabwile over #blacklivesmatter. I’m not going to attempt to explain it, but a lot of your readers know of an interesting lean toward liberal social issues and causes even among those included in conservative evangelicalism. It might be hard to wrap your brain around, but it is happening. While they have this conflict, John MacArthur and Anyabwile are still getting together for the gospel with the T4G conference that I mentioned above. At what point does anyone separate over anything — does any of it matter? It has to be explained as a non-essential even though it is very fervent and heated in its non-essential-ism and tertiary-ism.
The other relates to John Piper’s recent discussion about self-protection and gun rights. Piper has come out plainly as anti-gun, and in the midst of this says he wouldn’t even defend his wife in given violent situations. This is, again, “a non-essential.” Everyone gets together anyway. This position of Piper can’t stand as isolated belief. You can’t take that type of position without having other problems.
French Protestants and the Waldenses: The Church and the Text of the New Testament, pt. 1
Theodore Beza was the assistant to and the successor of John Calvin among the Protestants with a high view of the Word of God. When I thought of French Protestantism, I thought of the history of Christianity in France and then Europe. I thought of the relationship of the persecuted Protestants in France, the Huguenots, and the Waldenses. Their Christianity cost them most highlighted by the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. The 16th century is an amazing and colorful period in France and in many ways. I want to explore them here.
In 1864, J. H. Merle D’Aubigne had published his The Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin. In volume three, he wrote the chapter, “The Waldenses Appear (1526 to October 1532).” It’s public domain, so read this chapter below. The origination of and then budding of this relationship means something — quite a bit.
On Friday, 12th July, Farel came from Morat to Grandson, where a quiet conference was to be held. Four disciples of the Gospel begged to receive the imposition of hands. Farel and his colleagues examined them, and, finding them fitted for the evangelical work, sent them to announce the Gospel in the neighbouring villages of Gy, Fy, Montagny, Noville, Bonvillars, St. Maurice, Champagne, and Concise. But the conference was to be occupied with more important business.
For two or three years past a strange report had circulated among the infant churches that were forming between the Alps and the Jura. They heard talk of christians who belonged to the Reformation without having ever been reformed. It was said that in some of the remote valleys of the Alps of Piedmont and Dauphiny, and in certain parts of Calabria, Apulia, Provence, Lorraine, and other countries, there were believers who for many centuries had resisted the pope and recognised no other authority than Holy Scripture. Some called them ‘Waldenses,’ others ‘poor men of Lyons,’ and others ‘Lutherans.’ The report of the victories of the Reformation having penetrated their valleys, these pious men had listened to them attentively; one of them in particular, Martin Gonin, pastor of Angrogne, was seriously moved by them. Being a man of decided and enterprising character, and ready to give his life for the Gospel, the pious barbe (the name given by the Waldenses to their pastors) had felt a lively desire to go and see closely what the Reformation was. This thought haunted him everywhere : whether he traversed the little glens which divided his valley, like a tree with its branches, or whether he followed the course of the torrent, or sat at the foot of the Alps of Cella, Vachera, and Infernet, Gonin sighed after Wittemberg and Luther. At last he made up his mind; he departed in 1526, found his way to the reformers, and brought back into his valleys much good news and many pious books. From that time the Reformation was the chief topic of conversation among the barbes and shepherds of those mountains.
In 1530 many of them, threading the defiles of the Alps, arrived on the French slopes, and following the picturesque banks of the Durance, took their way to wards Merindol, where a synod of Waldensian christians had been convened. They walked on, animated with the liveliest joy; they had thought themselves alone, and in one day there had been born to them in Europe thousands of brethren who listened humbly to the Word of God, and made the pope tremble on his throne. . . . . They spoke of the Reformation, of Luther, and Melanchthon, and of the Swiss as they descended the rough mountain paths. When the synod was formed, they resolved to send a deputation to the evangelicals of Switzerland, to show them that the Waldensian doctrines were similar to those of the reformers, and to prevail upon the latter to give them the hand of fellowship. In consequence, two of them, George Morel and Peter Masson, set out for Basle.
On their arrival in that city, they asked for the house of Oecolampadius; they entered his study, and the old times, represented by these simple-minded worthy barbes, greeted the new times in the person of the amiable and steadfast reformer. The latter could not see these brave and rustic men standing before him and not feel an emotion of respect and sympathy. The Waldenses took from their bosoms the documents of their faith, ‘and presented them to the pious doctor. ‘Turning away from Antichrist,’ said these papers, and Masson and Morel repeated the words, ‘we turn towards Christ. He is our life, our truth, our peace, our righteousness, our shepherd, our advocate, our victim, our high-priest, who died for the salvation of believers. But alas! as smoke goeth before the fire, the temptation of Antichrist precedeth the glory. In the time of the apostles Antichrist was but a child; he has now grown into a perfect man. He robs Christ of the merit of salvation, and ascribes it to his own works. He strips the Holy Ghost of the power of regeneration, and attributes it to his ceremonies. He leads the people to mass, a sad tissue of Jewish, pagan, and christian rites, and deprives them of the spiritual and sacramental manducation. He hates, persecutes, accuses, robs, and kills the members of Jesus Christ. He boasts of his length of life, of his monks, his virgins, his miracles, his fasts, and his vigils, and uses them as a cloak to hide his wickedness. Nevertheless, the rebel is growing old and decreasing, and the Lord is killing the felon by the breath of his mouth.’ Oecolampadius admired the simplicity of their creed. He would not have liked a doctrine without life, or an apparent life without doctrine, but he found both in the Waldensian barbes. ‘I thank God,’ he told them, ‘that he has called you to so great light.’
Ere long the doctors and faithful ones of Basle desired to see these men of the ancient times. Seated round the domestic hearth, the Waldenses narrated the sufferings of their fathers, and described their flocks scattered over the two slopes of the Alps. ‘Some people,’ they said, ‘ascribe our origin to a wealthy citizen of Lyons, Peter de Vaux or Waldo, who, being at a banquet with his friends, saw one of them suddenly fall dead. Moved and troubled in his conscience he prayed to Jesus, sold his goods, and began to preach and sent others to preach the Gospel everywhere. But,’ added the barbes, ‘we descend from more ancient times, from the time when Constantine introducing the world into the Church, our fathers set themselves apart, or even from the time of the apostles.’
In the course of conversation, however, with these brethren, the christians of Basle noticed certain points of doctrine which did not seem conformable with evangelical truth, and a certain uneasiness succeeded to their former joy. Wishing to be enlightened, Oecolampadius addressed a few questions to the two barbes. ‘All our ministers,’ they answered on the first point, ‘live in celibacy, and work at some honest trade.’ ‘Marriage, however,’ said Oecolampadius, ‘is a state very becoming to all true believers, and particularly to those who ought to be in all things ensamples to the flock. We also think,’ he continued, ‘that pastors ought not to devote to manual labour, as yours do, the time they could better employ in the study of scripture. The minister has many things to learn; God does not teach us miraculously and without labour; we must take pains in order to know.’
The barbes were at first a little confused at seeing that the elders had to learn of their juniors; however, they were humble and sincere men, and the Basle doctor having questioned them on the sacraments, they confessed that through weakness and fear they had their children baptised by Romish priests, and that they even communicated with them and some times attended mass. This unexpected avowal startled the meek Oecolampadius. ‘What,’ said he, ‘has not Christ, the holy victim, fully satisfied the everlasting justice for us? Is there any need to offer other sacrifices after that of Golgotha? By saying Amen to the priests’ mass you deny the grace of Jesus Christ.’ Oecolampadius next spoke of the strength of man after the fall. ‘We believe,’ said the barbes modestly, ‘that all men have some natural virtue, just as herbs, plants, and stones have.’ ‘We believe,’ said the reformer,’ that those who obey the commandments of God do so, not because they have more strength than others, but because of the great power of the Spirit of God which renews their will.’ ‘Ah,’ said the barbes, who did not feel themselves in harmony with the reformers on this point, ‘nothing troubles us weak people so much as what we have heard of Luther’s teaching relative to freewill and predestination. . . . Our ignorance is the cause of our doubts: pray instruct us.’
The charitable Oecolampadius did not think the differences were such as ought to alienate him from the barbes. ‘We must enlighten these christians,’ he said, ‘but above all things we must love them.’ Had they not the same Bible and the same Saviour as the children of the Reformation? Had they not preserved the essential truths of the faith from the primitive times? Oecolampadius and his friends agitated by this reflection, gave their hands to the Waldensian deputation: ‘Christ,’ said the pious doctor, ‘is in you as he is in us, and we love you as brethren.’
The two barbes left Basle and proceeded to Strasburg to confer with Bucer and Capito, after which they prepared to return to their valleys. As Peter Masson was of Burgundian origin, they determined to pass through Dijon, a journey not unattended with danger. It was said here and there in cloisters and in bishops’ palaces that the old heretics had come to an understanding with the new. The pious conversation of the two Waldensians having attracted the attention of certain inhabitants of Dijon, a clerical and fanatical city, they were thrown into prison. What shall they do? What, they ask, will become of the letters and instructions they are bearing to their coreligionists? One of them, Morel, the bearer of this precious trust, succeeded in escaping: Masson, who was left, paid for both; he was condemned, executed, and died with the peace of a believer.
When they saw only one of their deputation appear, the Waldenses comprehended the dangers to which the brethren had been exposed, and wept for Masson. But the news of the reformers’ welcome spread great joy among them, in Provence, Dauphiny, in the valleys of the Alps, and even to Apulia and Calabria. The observations, however, of Oecolampadius, and his demand for a stricter reform, were supported by some and rejected by others. The Waldensians determined therefore to take another step: ‘Let us convoke a synod of all our churches,’ said they, ‘and invite the reformers to it.’
One July day in 1532, when Farel was at Grandson, as we have seen, in conference with other ministers, he was told that two individuals, whose foreign look indicated that they came from a distance, desired to speak with him. Two barbes, one from Calabria, named George, the other Martin Gonin, a Piedmontese, entered the room. After saluting the evangelicals in the name of their brethren, they told them that the demand that had been addressed to them to separate entirely from Rome had caused division among them. ‘Come,’ they said to the ministers assembled at Grandson,’ come to the synod and explain your views on this important point. After that we must come to an understanding about the means of propagating over the world the doctrine of the Gospel which is common to both of us.’ No message could be more agreeable to Farel; and as these two points were continually occupying his thoughts, he determined to comply with the request of the Waldensian brethren. His fellow-countryman, the pious Saunier, wished to share his dangers.
The members of the conference and the evangelicals of Grandson gazed with respect upon these ancient witnesses of the truth, arriving among them from the farther slopes of the Alps and the extremity of Italy, where they would have had no idea of going to look for brethren. They crowded round them and gave them a welcome, overflowing with love for them as they thought of the long fidelity and cruel sufferings of their ancestors. They listened with interest to the story of the persecutions endured by their fathers, and the heroism with which the Waldenses had endured them. They were all ears when they were told how the barbes and their flocks were suddenly attacked by armed bands in their snowy mountains during the festival of Christmas in the year 1400; how men, women, and children had been compelled to flee over the rugged rocks, and how many of them had perished of cold and hunger, or had fallen by the sword. In one place the bodies of fourscore little children were found frozen to death in the stiffened arms of their mothers who had died with them. . . . In another place thousands of fugitives who had taken refuge in deep caverns (1488) had been suffocated by the fires which their cruel persecutors had kindled at the entrance of their hiding-place. Would not the Reformation regard these martyrs as its precursors? Was it not a privilege for it thus to unite with the witnesses who had given glory to Jesus Christ since the first ages of the Church?
Some of the Swiss christians were alarmed at the idea of Farel’s journey. In truth great dangers threatened the reformer. The martyrdom of Peter Masson, sacrificed two years before, had exasperated the Waldenses of Provence, and their lamentations had aroused the anger of their enemies. The bishops of Sisteron, Apt, and Cavaillon had taken counsel together and laid a remonstrance before the parliament of Aix, which had immediately ordered a raid to be made on the heretics: the prisons were filled with Waldensians and Lutherans, real or pretended. Martin Gonin, one of the two Waldensian deputies, was in a subsequent journey arrested at Grenoble, put into a sack, and drowned in the Isere. A similar fate might easily happen to Farel. Did not the country he would have to cross depend on the duke of Savoy, and had not Bellegarde and Challans laid hands on Bonivard in a country less favourable to ambuscades than that which Farel had to pass through? That mattered not: he did not hesitate. He will leave these quarters where the might of Berne protects him and pass through the midst of his enemies. ‘There was in him the same zeal as in his Master,’ says an historian; ‘like the Saviour, he feared neither the hatred of the Pharisees, nor the cunning of Herod, nor the rage of the people.’ He made every preparation for his departure, and Saunier did the same.
Just as Farel was about to leave Switzerland, he received unpleasant tidings from France, and thus found himself solicited on both sides. He wrote to his fellow-countrymen one of those letters, so full of consolation and wisdom, which characterise our reformers. ‘Men look fiercely at you,’ he said, ‘and threaten you, and lay heavy fines upon you; your friends turn their robes and become your enemies. . . . . . All men distress you. . . . Observing all modesty, meekness, and friendship, persevering in holy prayers, living purely, and helping the poor, commit everything to the Father of mercies, by whose aid you will walk, strong and unwearied, in all truth.’
Towards the end of August, Farel and Saunier took leave of the brethren around them, got on their horses, and departed. Their course was enveloped in mystery: they avoided the places where they might be known and traversed uninhabited districts. Having crossed the Alps and passed through Pignerol, they fixed their eyes, beaming with mournful interest, on the lonely places where almost inaccessible caverns, pierced in the rugged sides of the mountains, often formed the only temple of the Christians, and where every rock had a history of persecution and martyrdom. Their place of meeting was Angrogne, in the parish of the pious Martin Gonin. The two reformers quitted La Tour, and following the sinuosities of the torrent, and turning the precipices, they arrived at the foot of a magnificent forest, and then reached a vast plateau abounding in pastures : this was the Val d’Angrogne. They gazed upon the steep ranges of the Soirnan and Infernet, the pyramidal flanks of mount Vandalin, and the gentler slopes upon which stood the lowly hamlets of the valley. They found Waldenses here and there in the meadows and at the foot of the rocks; some were prepared’ to be a guard for the ministers of the good law;’ and all looked with astonishment and joy at the pastors who came from Switzerland.’ That one with the red beard and riding the white horse is Farel,’ said John Peyret of Angrogne, one of their escort, to his companions; ‘the other on the dark horse is Saunier.’ ‘There was also a third,’ add the eye-witnesses, ‘a tall man and rather lame:’ he may have been a Waldensian who had acted as a guide to the two deputies. Other foreign Christians met in this remote valley of the Alps. There were some from the southern extremity of Italy, from Burgundy, Lorraine, Bohemia, and countries nearer home. There was also a certain number of persons of more distinguished appearance: the lords of Rive Noble, Mirandola, and Solaro had quitted their castles to take part in this Alpine council. Clergy, senate, and people were thus assembled; and as no room could have held the number, it was resolved to meet in the open air. Gonin selected for this purpose the hamlet of Chanforans, where there is now only one solitary house. There, in a shady spot, on the side of the mountain, surrounded by an amphitheatre of rugged cliffs and distant peaks, the barbe had arranged the rude benches on which the members of this Christian assembly were to sit.
Two parties met there face to face. At the head of that which was unwilling to break entirely with the Roman Catholic Church were two barbes, Daniel of Valence and John of Molines, who struggled for the success of their system of accommodation and compliance. On the other hand Farel and Saunier supported the evangelical party, who had not such distinguished representatives as the traditional party, and proposed the definitive rejection of all semi-catholic doctrines and usages. Before the opening of the synod the two ministers, finding themselves surrounded by numbers of the brethren, both in their homes and under the shade of the trees where the assembly was to be held, had already explained to them the faith of the Reformation, and several of the Waldenses had exclaimed that it was the doctrine taught from father to son among them, and to which they were resolved to adhere. Yet the issue party was strong, and described the reformers as foreigners and innovators who had come there to alter their ancient doctrines. But Farel had good hopes, for he could appeal to Holy Scripture and even to the confessions of the Waldenses themselves.
On the 12th September the synod was opened ‘in the name of God.’ One party looked with favour on Farel and Saunier, the other on John of Molines and Daniel of Valence; but the majority appeared to be on the side of the Reformation. Farel rose and boldly broached the question: he contended that there was no longer any ceremonial law, that no act of worship had any merit of itself, and that a multitude of feasts, dedications, rites, chants, and mechanical prayers was a great evil. He reminded them that Christian worship consists essentially in faith in the Gospel, in charity, and in the confession of Christ.’ God is a spirit,’ he said, ‘and divine worship should be performed in spirit and in truth.’ The two barbes strove in vain to oppose these views, the meeting testified their assent to them. Did not their confession reject ‘all feasts, vigils of saints, water called holy, the act of abstaining from flesh, and other like things invented by men?’ The worship in spirit was proclaimed. Farel, delighted at this first victory, desired to win another and perhaps more difficult one. He believed that it was by means of the doctrine of the natural power of man that popery took salvation out of the hands of God and put it into the hands of the priests: ‘God,’ said he, ‘has elected before the foundation of the combat appeared doubtful; for the semi-catholic the world all those who have been or who will be saved. It is impossible for those who have been ordained to salvation not to be saved. Whosoever upholds free will, absolutely denies the grace of God.’ This was a point which Molines and his friend resisted with all their might. But did not the Waldensian confessions recognise the impotency of man and the all-sufficiency of grace? Did not they call the denial of these things ‘the work of Antichrist?’ Farel moreover adduced proof from Scripture. The synod was at first in suspense, but finally decided that it recognised this article as ‘conformable with Holy Scripture.’
Certain questions of morality anxiously occupied the reformer. In his opinion the Romish Church had turned everything topsy-turvy, calling those works good which she prescribed though they had nothing good in them, and those bad which were in conformity with the will of God.’ There is no good work but that which God has commanded,’ said Farel, ‘and none bad but what He has forbidden.’ The assembly expressed their entire assent.
Then continuing the struggle, the firm evangelical doctor successively maintained that the true confession of a Christian is to confess to God alone; that marriage is forbidden to no man, whatever his condition; that Scripture determines only two sacraments, baptism and the Lord’s Supper ; that Christians may swear in God’s name and fill the office of magistrate; and finally, that they should lay aside their manual occupations on Sunday in order to have leisure to praise God, exercise charity, and listen to the truths of Scripture. ‘Yes, that is it,’ said the delighted Waldenses, ‘ that is the doctrine of our fathers.’
Molines and Daniel of Valence did not, however, consider their cause lost. Ought not the fear of persecution to induce the Waldenses to persevere in certain dissimulations calculated to secure them from the inquisitive eyes of the enemies of the faith? Nothing displeased the reformers so much as dissembling.’ Let us put off that paint,’ said Calvin, ‘by which the Gospel is disfigured, and let us not endeavour slavishly to please our adversaries; let us go boldly to work. If we permit compromises in some practices the whole doctrine will fall, and the building be thrown down.’ Farel thought as Calvin did. Perceiving this loophole for the two barbes, he urged the necessity of a frank confession of the truth. The members of the assembly, pricked in their consciences by the remembrance of their former backslidings, bound themselves to take no part henceforward in any Romish superstition, and to recognise as their pastor no priest of the pope’s church. ‘We will perform our worship,’ they said, ‘openly and publicly to give glory to God.’
The two barbes, who were no doubt sincere, became more eloquent. The moment was come that was to decide the future. In their opinion, by establishing new principles they cast discredit on the men who had hitherto directed the churches. No doubt it was culpable to take part in certain ceremonies with an unworthy object, but was it so when it was done for good ends? To break entirely with the Catholic Church would render the existence of the Waldenses impossible, or at least would provoke hostilities which would reduce them completely to silence Farel replied with wonderful energy maintaining the rights of truth. He showed them that every compromise with error is a lie. The purity of the doctrine he professed, his elevated thoughts, the ardent affection expressed by his voice, his gestures, and his looks, electrified the Waldenses, and poured into their souls the holy fire with which his own was burning. These witnesses of the middle ages called to mind how the children of Israel having adopted the customs of people alien to the covenant of God, wept abundantly and exclaimed: ‘We have trespassed against God!’ The Waldenses felt like them, and desired to make amends for their sins. They drew up a brief confession in 17 articles, in conformity with the resolutions that had been adopted, and then said: ‘We adhere with one accord to the present declaration, and we pray God that, of his great charitv nothing may divide us henceforward, and that, even when separated from one another, we ‘may always remain united in the same spirit.’ Then they signed their names.
The agreement was not however universal. During the six days’ discussion several barbes and laymen might have been seen standing apart, in some shady place, with gloomy air and uneasy look, talking together on the resolutions proposed to the synod. At the moment when every one was affixing his signature to the confession, the two leaders withheld theirs, and withdrew from the assembly.
During the discussion, and even before it, Farel and Saunier had had several conversations and conferences with the Waldenses, in the course of which the barbes had displayed their old manuscripts, handed down from the twelfth century, as they said: the Noble Lesson, the Ancient Catechism, the Antichrist, the Purgatory, and others. These writings bore the date of A.D. 1120, which probably was not disputed by Farel. One line of the Noble Lesson seems to indicate this as the period when it was composed. Since then, however, more recent dates have been assigned to the other writings, especially to the Antichrist, and even to the Noble Lesson. In any case, however, these documents belong to a time anterior to the Reformation. The Waldensians displayed with peculiar pride several manuscript copies of the Old and New Testament in the vulgar tongue. ‘These books,’ they said, ‘were copied correctly by hand so long ago as to be beyond memory, and are to be seen in many families.’ Farel and Saunier had received and handled these writings with emotion; they had turned over the leaves, and ‘ marvelling at the heavenly favour accorded to so small a people,’ had rendered thanks to the Lord because the Bible had never been taken from them.
They did not stop there: Farel addressing the synod, represented to them that the copies being few in number they could only serve for a few persons: ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘if there are so many sects and heresies, so much trouble and confusion now in the world, it all comes from ignorance of the Word of God. It would therefore be exceedingly necessary for the honour of God and the well-being of all christians who know the French language, and for the destruction of all doctrines repugnant to the truth, to translate the Bible from the Hebrew and Greek tongues into French.’
No proposal could be more welcome to the Waldenses; their existence was due to their love of Scripture, and all their treatises and poems celebrated it:
The Scriptures speak and we must believe.Look at the Scriptures from beginning to end.Thus spoke the Noble Lesson. They agreed ‘joyfully and with good heart to Farel’s demand, busying and exerting themselves to carry out the undertaking.’ The proposition was voted enthusiastically, and the delighted reformers looked with emotion and joy at this faithful and constant people, to whom God had entrusted for so many ages the ark of the new covenant, and who were now inspired with fresh zeal for his service.
The hour had come for them to separate. John of Molines and Daniel of Valence went to Bohemia, and joined the Waldenses of that country; the pastors returned to their churches, the shepherds to their mountains, and the lords to their castles. Farel mounted his white horse, Saunier his black one; they shook hands with the Waldenses who surrounded them, and descending from Angrogne to La Tour, bade adieu to the valleys.
Where should they go? What would be the next work undertaken by Farel ? . . . . Geneva had long occupied his thoughts, and as he crossed the Alps he had before him in spirit that city with its wants and its inhabitants, especially those who were beginning to ‘meditate on Jesus Christ.’ Already, before his departure for Italy, Farel had conceived the plan of stopping at Geneva on his return, and with that intent had even received from my lords of Berne some letters of introduction addressed to the leading Huguenots. ‘I will go to them now,’ he said, ‘I will speak to them, even if there is nobody that will hear me.’
This idea, which never quitted him, was the beginning of the Reformation of Geneva.
D’Aubigne is a Swiss Protestant and might tend toward a Protestant bias, but you read his admission of the existence of a people, of churches, separate from Roman Catholicism, the Waldenses, who followed the Bible as their authority for faith and practice, with a history back before Constantine and the state church. Here is a Protestant historian, (1) speaking of the perpetuity of a true church with biblical doctrine and practice separate from Roman Catholicism, (2) perpetuating a trail of blood, and (3) debunking English separatism for either landmark or spiritual kinship belief.
To Be Continued
The Truth Shall Make You Free, pt. 1
One of the most well-known statements in the Bible Jesus made in John 8:32:
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
God ordained government to restrict people. Restriction seems to people as something that isn’t freedom. If you are restricted, you are not free. However, government exists not to restrict freedom, but to protect it. Government protects people’s rights and their rights are their freedom. This subject that I’m addressing, that relates to everything that we do, Paul addressed in the epistle to the Galatians.
In Galatians 5:13-16 Paul wrote:
13 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. 14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. 16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Freedom is not the indulgence of the flesh (v. 13a), is not the opportunity to injure others (vv. 13b, 15), and not disobedience to God’s law (vv. 14, 16). The essence of human freedom is, like Jesus (Romans 15:1-3), not about pleasing yourself.
When you do what you do compelled by your lust, that is bondage, not freedom, and everyone is compelled by lust to choose something other than God, which is idolatry, worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator. You think you’re getting your way, but you’re getting domination of sin and damnation of the soul. The desire of things more than Jesus sends you on a ride all the way to hell. People call that freedom, but it is license.
Knowing that men call the indulgence of the flesh, freedom, Jesus said in John 8:36:
If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
The most perfect freedom consists in obeying the dictates of right reason, and submitting to natural law. When a man goes beyond or contrary to the law of nature and reason, he becomes the slave of base passions and vile lusts; he introduces confusion and disorder into society, and brings misery and destruction upon himself. This, therefore, cannot be called a state of freedom, but a state of the vilest slavery and the most dreadful bondage. The servants of sin and corruption are subjected to the worst kind of tyranny in the universe. Hence we conclude that where licentiousness begins, liberty ends.
Sacred Music
Perhaps like me, you rarely hear the two words “sacred music” much anymore. There isn’t a category for the Grammy awards called “sacred music.” I’m quite sure that almost no one knows what sacred music is. If I asked you to define “sacred music,” what would you say? Does your church use sacred music? What makes it sacred?
Even sacred music is not exempted; particularly when accompanied with instruments. Frivolous and airy passages sometimes mingle with such strains as should never deviate from the solemnity which suitable ideas of the Being to whom they are addressed ought always inspire. Even in Hallelujahs and expressions of devout gladness, we should, in the language of Scripture, “join trembling with out mirth.” Owing to inattention in this respect, some pieces of sacred music, intended for that kind of expression, seem better calculated to promote convivial hilarity.
For there is no doubt but that the heart may be weaned from everything base and mean, and elevated to every thing that is excellent and praiseworthy, by sacred music. The evil spirit may still be dispossessed, and the good spirit invited and obtained, by the harp of the son of Jesse.
Whatsoever is dedicated to God, is by that solemn Act of Dedication, made so entirely his, that the Application of it to civil Uses, tho’ jointly with Sacred, is one Degree of Sacrilege.
That the first day of the week is the Lord’s-Day, . . . and is to be kept sacred to religious purposes, by abstaining from all secular labor and [sinful] recreations; by the devout observance of all means of grace, both private and public; and by preparation for rest which remaineth for the people of God.
Christmas: Christians Were Against It Before They Were For It Before They Were Against It
Let me give you a summary of Christmas, writing completely off the top of my head, which is bald. One, we can be pretty sure that Jesus wasn’t born December 25th. Two, there is no history of Christmas celebration until medieval times. Three, Christmas originated with Roman Catholicism. The pope essentially invented it to compete with, four, the revelry of pagan festivals revolving around Winter solstice. He gave an alternative to offset what he considered the damage it did, would do, and had done. Five, at the beginning actual Christians were against Christmas. After the Reformation, when Protestants could take charge, they did away with it. Six, the Plymouth colony did not observe Christmas. Seven, early Congress continued to meet on Christmas, which was a bit of a protest against England, where Anglicanism was good with it. Eight, Christmas grew in the United States, but it was influenced by secular notions like Santa Claus, sort of coming full circle to the revelry again. Nine, Christmas became an American tradition. Ten, Christmas is the only traditional observance of the birth of or the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Eleven, evangelical churches in the United States see Christmas as a time to exalt the coming of Jesus to the earth, the most important event in world history.
As I grew up in a small town in the Midwest, I never heard that Christmas was pagan or Roman Catholic. I never paralleled any of the Christmas traditions with that. I never heard of anything against Christmas until I was already a pastor (there was no internet at the time). The first I heard it was bad was when a couple who had moved from Pennsylvania and started attending our church told my wife and I they were against Christmas trees. We didn’t have a Christmas tree our second Christmas in California because we thought it would be a stumbling block to this couple.
My family started going to church faithfully when I was three or four, and I never heard Christmas was bad. We attended an independent Baptist church. I never heard in school, in church, or from anyone that Christmas was bad. My family moved to Watertown, Wisconsin and my dad went to Bible college and I started into a Christian school for the first time when I was 12 years of age. For the next thirteen years in church, Christian school, Christian academy, Christian college, and Christian graduate school, no one told me Christmas was bad. Nothing I read said it was wrong. I didn’t hear anything about it until this couple from Pennsylvania started attending our church. As I think about how bad Christmas was, this was a very well kept secret that it was bad.
Since all of the above, I had never had anyone oppose Christmas to and with me in our church. I had been asked about it a few times, because of something someone heard, but no one said we shouldn’t celebrate it. As Christmas came around, my biggest concern was not Christmas itself, but the secularization and commercialization of it. It seemed like Christ was being taken out of Christmas. When I was young I heard that X-mas was a conspiracy, not knowing that the X was the first letter of “Christ” in the Greek alphabet, so it meant “Christ.” It had never occurred to me that Christ wasn’t in this season to begin with and that His being put into this season was a development. I probably wrote three or four school Christmas programs exploring the theme of Christ being taken out of Christmas.
My only challenge recently against observing Christmas has come from a few outside of our church not from our area. I have had to defend Christmas almost entirely in emails from people asking why we have anything to do with it. I don’t like being an offense to these people, but I’m not convinced that we can’t take this traditional time of celebrating the incarnation of Christ and use it to extol the birth of Christ. I have a long built up reservoir of Christmas good will with a lot of people to stamp out suddenly, and I don’t have the conviction to do it. I’m not ready to move for the armchair quarterbacks who want me to make life easier for them.
On the other hand, in our church is an elderly lady who is raising her grand daughter, who just started in the public school. She went to the Christmas program there of her grand daughter and there wasn’t one mention of Jesus or Christ in the entire program. It was all about Santa and gifts and candy canes and Rudolph and Frosty and the like. The state has removed Jesus as if it must to obey the Constitution. It celebrates Christmas now. The Congress goes home and doesn’t keep working, but it can’t mention Christ except in the word “Christmas,” which most of you know is removed for Happy Holidays, whatever the “Holi” means.
I’m torn here. I’ve got to defend Christmas and I’ve got to fight Christmas. Both. It seems like both of these actions, the defending and the fighting, place a lot of emphasis on Christmas. Both of them are very serious about Christmas. The secularists are very serious about keeping Jesus out and the pious are very serious about keeping Jesus out. If I keep Jesus out, I’ll please both of them, the former for their love for my love of tolerance and the latter for my anti-paganism and Roman Catholicism. On the other hand, I’ll displease all the people who see both positions as extreme. Is it really that serious an issue? My personal take is that secularization or commercialization is easily the biggest problem here.
If I regulate my worship by scripture, can I preach and sing about the birth of Christ? Yes. That’s what our church does. We do it a lot in December.
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