p. 191 | SELECTIONS by Thomas North

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 4, 1858

SELECTIONS.

By Thomas North

Spurious Religion.

[The following is a portion of an article from the Northern Independent. While men are free to speak out in such a manner, we are saved from any effort of our own at describing fallen Babylon. And such a description from such a source, must forever remain free from the charge sometimes brought against our declarations, that they are overdrawn to suit our own opinions. Some of the language which is here used, not with reference to the old mother only, but to the "little popes," the harlot daughters, is even stronger than we should ever have thought advisable to make in the premises.—Ed.]

A certain Presiding Elder I once heard of, who, when he met with some of his brethren and sisters to seek the special-blessing sanctification, said to them, "brethren, we have met together on this occasion as Methodists, and not as Christians." Not as Christians! In the name of God and heaven, has it come to this, that the name of Methodist is superior to the name of Christian? And that Methodist, special-blessing sanctification, is better than Christian sanctification? This is the inevitable import of such a remark, and I hesitate not to affirm, that the spirit of it is the spirit of anti-Christ, the great damning evil of Churchism; "sitting in the place of God, it exalts itself above God, and all that is called God."

Anti-Christ! what is it? It is the spirit in a Church which takes the things that are not of Christ, (though perhaps necessary peculiarities of the organism as such,) and puts them in the place of Christ, or above him—the traditions and "commandments of men." The Churches are full of them, and Christ can scarcely be seen anywhere.

I tell you, Mr. Editor, that the straight jacket of Method-ism, is a tremendous small pattern for a Christian. It is Henry Ward Beecher's "two foot Christian."

Do you know that the woman that the Revelator saw driven off into the wilderness (post Apostolic Church) after she had been delivered of a man child, which was caught up into heaven, has ever since remained in the wilderness? And, though she has started divers times, under the lead of Luthers and Wesleys to come out, yet it has been a mere feint. She is in the wilderness yet, sick, blind, and weak, committing whoredoms with the Devil,—flying serpents are stinging her to death,—she is under the medical treatment of human doctors and Bishops, and there is no cure; and never will be until she gets up and out of the darkness and wickedness of human counsels.

She is in the wilderness still, I say,—gets gloriously drunk periodically, when revivals come round; she is not settled yet in the land of Canaan,—gets up and travels occasionally, but always in a circle, and makes some glorious military wheels as she comes round to the point of starting, and yet she is forever talking and gabbling about the promised land, until now she has come to think that it lies just across the river Styx beyond this world. Many of her leaders are "blind leaders of the blind," and their destiny is the "ditch."

I tell you, these leaders are piling up the "commandments of men," mountains high, and hence it comes to pass that before you reach the pure word, one has to wade a thousand miles through human rubbish, and persecuted every step at that; the Devil's constitutional bludgeons beat him in the face, and if at last he reaches the goal of truth and right with any of the life of Christ left in him, he is entitled to the martyr's crown.

O how truth is mystified and covered up in the damning darkness of unbelief and wickedness of human covetousness! The way to heaven as the Churches have it now-a-days, is paved every step with human creeds, opinions, and Church Constitutions; and unless you step according to constitutional uprightness, why you are not going to heaven according to the constitution, and the consequence is, the Church Peters bind you on earth, and imagine you are bound in heaven.

Every Church has its little contemptible Pope—the day of Popes is not over yet, nor of saint-worship; no, the days of man-worship are not yet ended.

But again, I affirm, that the Church is giving more attention to the "mint, anise, and cummin" of constitutional interpretation, administrative precedents, and legislative shams, than to the love-life and life-love of truth and right and the kingdom of heaven. They are full of cant and hypocrisy, lacking the very first element of the Christian life, to wit, sincerity. Give me a lamp; I want to go through the streets of Methodism to find a Christian. Sincerity, O thou child of heaven, how rarely thou art seen on earth!

The present administrative attitude of the M. E. Church, is this: If the Church at any time in her past legislative acts, has unconsciously or virtually, or by any possible technical implication, recognized the Devil as a Church member, why, he can never be expelled, because, forsooth, it would be "ex post facto."

Methodism is a grand column immovable, surmounted with the saintly statute of John Wesley, lying flat on the ground before the throne of slavery, helpless, and broken into fragments by the "sum of villainies." She is simply and practically claimed as an organizational monument to the name of John Wesley. O that she were truly even that, then would she not only say Devil about slavery, but turn the Devil out.

I sometimes think, Mr. Editor, that as Lutherans have but little idea of the single-eyed sincerity of Luther, so Methodists in these days have but little conception of the sincerity of Jesus Christ that marked John Wesley. We have become an overshadowing, mammoth Church organism, and now her leaders, Bishops, and doctors have deemed it their special work to defend her union, as though everything else were to be sacrificed to the glory of Methodist union.—Thus her damnation is sure, and destruction cometh as a whirlwind, and blessed is the man that shall stand from under, when the crumbling mass of ecclesiastical rottenness shall sweep her multitudes of victims down to hell!

Thus saith the spirit of the Lord, by the mouth of one of his humble prophets. And here, for the present, the stream of prophecy stops.

THOMAS NORTH.

Freeport, Ills., July 12th, 1858.