WE recently received a copy of a religious paper named The Life of Faith, and have looked through its pages. One or two good things are to be found here and there in it, but some of the chief articles seem to us misleading and dangerous in their references to the great matters of the conversion and salvation of the soul.
Two articles are devoted to the Chapman-Alexander Mission, which has been causing considerable stir and sensation in Glasgow and Edinburgh for some months back. The Mission was at the time in the capital—it has now returned to Glasgow—and one of the articles is headed, “Pentecost in Edinburgh.” Good it would be if that historic city, which knew so much of gospel light and liberty in days gone by, would be visited with a day of Pentecostal power in the genuine conversion of souls, but it is to be feared that the present wave of emotionalism will leave it and its sister city, Glasgow, little better than it found them, if indeed so well. The leading figures in this Mission are the Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D., of New York, and Mr. Charles Alexander, also from the United States. Dr. Chapman is the preacher, Mr. Alexander is the singer, of the movement.
Now, as far as our information goes from this paper and other sources, we freely admit that Dr. Chapman says many true and useful things. He speaks much of sin in various forms, and warns transgressors of its consequences. He urges his hearers to repentance, and declares that without repentance there can be no salvation. He preaches, to some extent, the atonement of Christ, and holds up the Bible as the Word of God, while he also exhorts the people to private and family prayer. He appears sincere and earnest. His preaching is certainly better than much that passes for gospel in the general pulpit of to-day. But, notwithstanding the very best that can be said about it, we believe it to be seriously defective. It proceeds almost throughout on the idea that the hearer can, by his own native efforts, if he chooses, respond to the exhortations addressed him and become a penitent believer in Christ. We certainly do not object to the addressing of solemn calls to repentance and faith to gospel hearers in general. Christ’s own personal message was “Repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark i. 15), and they err who deny that faith and repentance are duties upon all. But it is a very serious error, on the other hand, to urge men to the exercise of faith and repentance as if they could spin these graces out of their own bowels, and not to teach them that, while they are under a solemn responsibility to repent and believe in Christ for salvation, they cannot of themselves exercise these graces, but must seek them directly from Christ Himself, who is exalted to bestow them. Now where this most important truth is omitted, the effect in general is that men and women whose feelings are touched put forth some mental effort of their own and exercise a kind of natural repentance and faith. They express regret for their past sins, chiefly those of an outward kind, they believe in what they have heard concerning Christ with their native powers of mind emotionally influenced, and generally express a high assurance of their personal safety. To the superficial observer this appears to be conversion, and yet there is no new birth from above. The sinner is not really changed in heart or made the subject of a new creation. It is possible that he may persevere in the maintenance of his false religion to the end of his days, but it more frequently happens that he cools entirely down and gives up religion altogether. How dangerous then is any kind of doctrine which directly tends to foster a delusive and ruinous faith!
Then, Dr. Chapman makes sensational appeals which in our judgment are entirely injurious. In Edinburgh, at one of his final meetings, he called upon every young man and boy “whether Christian or not” who could say, “If God should ever call me to preach, I shall respond,” to come forward to the front of the hall, and nearly three hundred answered his invitations, when he remarked, “There are boys here who are going to get the call.” In a similar way he invited every girl and young woman in the audience willing to say, “If ever God calls me to be a Sunday-school teacher or a foreign missionary, or to be more true at home, I will respond,” and upwards of six hundred came forward. Now, what is the effect of all this but to impress upon these young men and women that their will and response are the determining factors in God’s calls, and not the divine grace and power, and still more, to bring them under a distinct and solemn pledge absolutely unnecessary and misleading? The impression is given that a great and good work has been accomplished by influencing these young people in the manner described, when the whole affair is fitted to do immense harm.
Mr. Alexander is the leader of the praise. He gathers choirs of a thousand voices, and carries through at the evening meetings before Dr. Chapman begins to speak, a programme of hymns fitted to stir the emotions of the audience. The people are thus worked up by a natural process to a certain pliability of mind which makes them more ready to receive impressions from the preacher, and leads them very easily to imagine that they have been or are being converted. Though Dr. Chapman says some sound and useful things, we cannot understand his religious faith when he carries on his work with the aid of such musical and sensational performances as are conducted by Mr. Alexander. Such fleshly works and their fruits will be “burned” at the last day (1 Cor. iii. 12, 13).
A series of articles has also been appearing in The Life of Faith from the pen of a Baptist minister in Glasgow. The title is “The Harvest of the Streets,” and the third of these articles appears in our copy of the paper. The writer gives a record of what are said to be “soul-winning triumphs” by personal contact and conversation with people on the streets of Glasgow. We have never read anything more credulous of the kind in our life. Mr. Last, the writer, makes it his work at various hours to give tracts and speak to persons, especially young men in the streets, and here he records case after case of what he calls “decisions for Christ” after fifteen minutes or half-an-hour’s conversation. It would seem that those he meets have only just to say that they trust in Christ, and immediately they are put down as new converts to the gospel. Truly Mr. Last seems to be an apostle of salvation by natural faith. It is in the highest degree improbable that one single individual of his triumphs is savingly converted. What self-deception on both hands! If indeed the supposed convert is self-deceived—he may be only smiling inwardly at the credulity of his questioner.
We are all fully sensible of the need of a day of awakening and quickening power whereby many souls might be brought to true concern about their eternal salvation, and made instruments to show forth the praises of the Redeemer, but better a few conversions of a genuine stamp under real gospel truth than the thousands manufactured by the artificial and unscriptural methods of the new evangelism.
I THANK my God that I preach unto you so sure a Gospel, even the oracles of the eternal God; the earth and the heavens shall pass away, but this Word and oracle shall never pass away; therefore it is not a doubtsome message that I carry unto you, for it is surer than the heavens and surer than the earth; and these eyes of yours, that have seen both the heavens and the earth, shall see the truth of this spoken here.—Welch.