J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH by John Norton Loughborough

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 14, 1907

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH

By John Norton Loughborough

Things That Differ—No. 3

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH

The Lord in his Word teaches us that his Spirit has a work to do for us in leading us into all truth, helping our infirmities, and like a voice behind us, saying, “This is the way,” when we are liable to stray from the right path. In our natural condition our heart is said to be “a heart of stone,” yet the Lord by his prophet has said, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” Eze. 36: 26, 27.

By the same prophet the Lord has said of one brought into such a position, “If he trust to his own righteousness and commit iniquity, all his righteousness shall not be remembered.” Eze. 33: 13. Such then “follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing.” Eze. 13: 3. Having tasted the presence of the Holy Spirit, if they begin to trust in their own strength, they are quite sure to fall. So they were admonished, “Take heed to your spirit” (Mal. 2: 15); that is, be sure that the spirit leading you is the Lord’s Spirit, and not the spirit of Satan, or simply the leadings of your own mind. So also in the New Testament times our Saviour said to some who were zealous to see vengeance upon those who did not favor them, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.” Luke 9: 55. The beloved apostle John left on record this admonition: “Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God.” 1 John 4: 1.

The apostolic church was troubled with those who labored with great “zeal,”—zeal that was “not according to knowledge.” The beloved John thus spoke of Diotrephes, “who loveth to have the preeminence,” as “prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.” 3 John 9, 10.

What was true in the early church has been manifest also in later times. When the Lord has a special work going forward, Satan will seek to move some souls to follow their own spirit. Professing to have light from the Holy Spirit, they bring reproach upon the cause by their fanaticism. Thus it was in the days of the Reformation, under Luther and Melanchthon. A counter movement was started, in which the leaders claimed that all should be taught directly by the Holy Ghost. Of these it was said, “They rejected the Word of God as the all-sufficient rule of faith and practise, and substituted the changeable, uncertain standard of their own feelings.” They pleaded that they were “led by the Holy Spirit.” Of them Melanchthon said, “There are spirits of no ordinary kind in these men; but what spirit? On the one hand, let us beware of quenching the Spirit of God, and on the other, of being seduced by the spirit of Satan.”

Of these fanatics Luther said, “I always expected that Satan would send us this plague.” Of the leaders in the movement he said, “To them the Holy Scriptures are but a dead letter, and they all began to cry, ‘The Spirit! the Spirit!’ but most assuredly I will not follow where their spirit leads them.”

Again we read of them, “The fanatical leaders gave themselves up to be governed by impressions, calling every thought of the mind the voice of God. Consequently they went to great extremes.” The teaching of Munster, one of the leaders in the fanaticism, “led them to break away from all control, and to give the reins to their prejudices and passions.”

In the great second advent movement, which so mightily stirred the people from 1840 to 1844, Satan was restrained from introducing his fanaticism. As an illustration of the work, we quote the testimony of Elder L. D. Fleming, where he speaks of the labors of Brother William Miller in the Casco Street Christian church of Portland, Maine:—“The interest awakened by his lectures is of the most deliberate and dispassionate kind, and though it is the greatest revival I ever saw, yet there is the least passionate excitement. It seems to take the greatest hold on the male part of the community. What produces the effect is this: Brother Miller simply takes the sword of the Spirit, unsheathed and naked, and lays its sharp edge on the heart, and it cuts! That is all. Before the edge of this mighty weapon, infidelity falls, and Universalism withers. False foundations vanish, and Babel’s merchants wonder. It seems to me that this must be a little the nearest like apostolic revivals of anything modern times have witnessed.”

The winter of 1844-45, after the close of the 2300-day period, until the people began to receive the true light on the sanctuary question and the third angel’s message—the explanation of their disappointment—was a time when Satan was busy seeking to introduce his fanaticism. One of the most effective of his snares was the extreme teaching that every one was to get his light in all things directly from the Lord—from the Holy Ghost—thus to come into a state of “holiness” where his every thought would be from the Lord. A few claimed that they had reached that “spiritual state.” Their course, however, seemed to develop more of the animal than was consistent with their claim.

Sister Harmon, now Sister E. G. White, was sent by the Lord from place to place to reprove and correct these fanatics. For this reason her enemies charged her with teaching those things which she had actually condemned. By the aid of her instructions those accepting the third angel’s message were shielded from these deceptions. Of course Satan did not like to be defeated, so, until order was established among us, he tried to have some of these individuals ventilate their peculiar ideas.

Regarding the way of safety in these things we have this instruction: “The peril which threatens our usefulness, and which will prove our ruin, if not seen and overcome, is selfishness—placing a higher estimate upon our plans, our opinions, and moving independently of our brethren. ‘Counsel together,’ has been the word repeated again and again. . . . Satan may move through one man’s mind to warp things out of their proper channel; he may succeed with two who view things in a similar light; but with several minds enlisted, there is greater safety against his wiles. Every plan will be more liable to be viewed from all sides, every advance will be more carefully studied, so that no enterprise will be likely to be entered upon which will bring confusion and perplexity, and defeat the work in which we are engaged. In union there is strength; in division there is weakness and defeat.”—“Special Testimony,” No. 5, page 3. Following such wholesome instruction would surely be a safeguard against that kind of trusting in the spirit, and a great aid in trying—proving—“the things that differ.”

Healdsburg, Cal.