A. L. Byers

“ It is a fact which no man of intelligence will deny, that no one sect on earth is the identical church of God.
But it may be claimed by some that all the sects taken together constitute the true church in her visible organization. This is also a great mistake. How can all these bodies sum up the one organic visible church of God, when they have no organic relation to each other? In what a disgraceful light sectism presents the church! Does that look like a divine and heaven-born family, that is composed of numerous, rival, jealous, independent, and conflicting organisms? ”

“ Oh, how sensibly we felt the "fellowship of the suffering" of Jesus Christ! While the sweet peace of God flows a deep, everlasting undercurrent in our souls, we often feel the slaughter of immortal spirits in the streets of Babylon until our heart sickens and we long to leave this world and be with Jesus. But like the apostle, we always conclude that "for us to live is Christ"; and the rescue of perishing souls from the brink of hell fires us with a willingness to expose our soul to the hatred and jeers, violence and murder in hearts that are drunk on the wine of beast religion. ”

“ Do you believe that Christ is the only door to the church, and that "by him if any man enter he shall be saved"? Do you believe that the Holy Spirit sets the members in the body, the church? Do you believe there should be "no schisms in the body"? Do you believe that believers are "made perfect in one" and that "thorough holiness destroys sects and denominations"? Do you believe that 'divisions and offences are contrary to the doctrine we have received' of Christ? Do you believe that Christians should not be "unequally yoked together with unbelievers"? ”

“ Let sects alone until holiness prevails! What a device of the enemy! How can we expect to bring forth permanent fruits into holiness, if we allow the plowshare of God's truth to slip over this fallow ground of sin? Sects are the devil's "high places" in the land, the groves of his own planting, and gods that he has set up to corrupt Israel, and "provoke God." ”

“ When the sword of the Almighty is unsheathed against self-righteous orthodox sinners, there is soon war in the camp, and a general commotion in the heavens and the earth. The two-edged sword of definite testimony is now wielded in every church, which has never been the case in any of the past holiness reforms.... Amen! Let the battle rage, though the heavens and the earth be moved. Send down the fire, O Lord, send fire from heaven, and burn every Gog-schism out of the church! ”

“ It seems hard that a poor messenger of God must expose himself to drive about sixteen miles through mud and very raw air to hunt those necessaries. It seems a light thing nowadays to sow to the people spiritual things, but a heavy thing to reap a few temporal things, even when we try to live more simple and cheap than our poor. Oh, how good it would have been for me to have had this day in the warm with the Lord in my library! But glory to Jesus, we still joy in sustaining sacrifice for his sake and feel content with our lot. ”

“ What was my astonishment when Elder O. read letters from Vermillion and Brubaker's signed by about all the church, charging me with insanity whenever I touched on sanctification, also with causing division and schism in the churches and every evil work imaginable! As I heard the names of the dear brethren read over that were appended to those letters I had strange feelings. I truly felt myself in a queer world. Never in my life did my reasoning powers receive such a dreadful shock. I felt myself sinking, then looked to Jesus and all was calm and peaceful again. ”

“ Now, all you who have lifted up your heel against Christ and his body, the only true church in heaven and earth, have done so because you have some sect idol in your heart and can not receive the truth or endure sound doctrine, or else you have not the moral courage to assault the devil in his stronghold of divisions. What does Satan care for your clamor against the "sin in the sects" so long as you give him the best means of bringing God's house or kingdom to naught—the sin of sects? ”

“ You are praying and longing for the happy time when God's children shall all be one, but are you willing that the "once more" shaking shall have its designed effect in your own case? Do you, indeed, suffer the Holy Ghost fire to consume out of your own life, heart, religion, and conversation, all the shaky chaff and stubble the devil has made to divide the children of God? ”

“ When time, as we know it, has ended, when old earth itself has grown weary and ceased to go round, and when all the stars of the heavens have forgotten to shine, I shall still praise God for the revelation of divine life that thrilled my soul on that glorious morning. And when I wander over the green fields of the heavenly paradise, or sit down with my Lord in the city of God, I want to renew that association with Brother Warner and thank him for what he did for me. ”

“ It appears that the condemned sinner can think of nothing else and does not possess a capacity to grasp the idea that God is able to destroy all evil in depraved humanity. "God, forgive my past sins and help me in the future to keep from sin," is about as great a blessing as the mind beclouded by guilt can conceive and ask for. With a still more deep and fervent consecration I again sought the blessing of perfect holiness. Glory to God, I was able to claim the blessing by faith, though yet without the anointing of power. ”

“ Glory to God! Little Jacob has barely commenced threshing and separating. Soon we shall see clouds of chaff driven by the "mighty rushing wind from heaven."
Says Bro. I. Reed, in his paper, The Highway: "The great holiness movement is shaking harder than ever. It is to be a real moral earthquake yet. We have nothing to fear in that direction. We have allied ourselves to the Power that does the shaking, and feel a kind of holy joy at the falling walls, reeling Babels and ecclesiastical fortifications that can not stand the grand holiness shock. ”

“ If God has his way all Christians will be led out of sects, all justified believers will be led into sanctification, the church will be perfectly organized and governed by the Holy Spirit, the whole truth will be preached uncompromisingly, full salvation will be held out to the world, and all will be led to cooperate and do their part. This is the full measure of Christianity today, and is God's design with his people. Here is true Christian unity. Such unity can come only by absolute abandonment to God, for he must be the one-making agent. ”

“ Every soul feels that he has the very best place while he abides in Christ and Christ abides in us. Oh, what fools the devil has made of poor blind Babylonians whose backs are galded by the sect harness and whose hearts are often crushed beneath the sect machinery! We speak from experience. For ten years we felt this cold, heartless heel of selfish oppression. More than once we wet our pillow with the tears that the accursed Baal-idol pressed from our wounded heart. By the grace of God we shall "render unto her double," as God hath commanded us. ”

“ Once the threshold crossed, we were to be dragged out into the dark night to suffer all that Satan might dictate in the hearts of fiendish Catholic sect idolaters and wicked sinners. But all at once the Spirit said to our soul, "I will not leave thee in the hands of the wicked." Almost immediately every black hand let go and fled. Glory be to our God, he always causes us to triumph through Christ Jesus. ”

“ Now, brethren, if you dare drop the scales from your eyes and look squarely at the Holy Bible, you must admit that every one of those sect organizations which you call churches are schisms, just what God condemns and forbids. Unless you are shamefully blind, you know it to be the truth and nothing but the truth, and your slurs and sarcasms can not revoke that truth nor enable you to stand when you are judged by it. ”

“ Can it be said of professors of holiness that they have "one heart" and "one mind," while some have a mind to be Presbyterian, others Baptists, others United Brethren, and others have a mind to adhere to the several different sects of Methodism? Have they "one heart and one way" when they rise from the solemn altar in the holiness meeting and go, each one in his own way, to the synagog of his own sect? ”

“ Thou hast committed to our care a pure and spotless soul. Give us grace and wisdom that we may bring up this dear child sound in body and mind, pure and innocent in heart and life, that thou, O God, its Maker, may be honored and glorified by its life and career on earth. O God! thou author of its [104] being, this night I bow before thy throne and consecrate this precious household gem to thee. Thou hast given it to us, and we wait not for one sun to pass over its head until we lay it upon the altar of consecration to God, that all its days may be thine. ”

“ One thinks, when standing beside this grave, of the wonderful accomplishment crowded into that short career, and of the reward of a life of faithful service. And one feels springing from the depths of the heart this choice, that come what may of toil and self-sacrifice in the Christian service, come what may of reproach and persecution for Christ's sake, "let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." ”

“ Come, O ye poor and wayward Christians, and have your hearts established unblameable in holiness. Come, ye who are in bondage of sect captivity, and learn your way out of the wilderness unto the city that is set upon a hill, which hath foundations, and whose builder and maker is God. Come from far and near, whoever seeks the old paths and the peace of Jerusalem. ”

“ By the first class we understand everything that flinches and shakes before the searching light and sin-exterminating gospel of Christ; every vein of our nature, every motion "flesh and spirit," every temper of the mind and habit in life that does not perfectly harmonize with the "righteousness of God revealed" in the Bible, will naturally shake beneath the voice of the Holy One, and must, therefore, be removed. The second class—all "things that are made"—denotes every thing that is not original: every phase of our moral being that is not implanted by the hand of God. ”

“ If the bitter root of sectism is entirely destroyed out of your heart, you will ignore all sectional lines and party fences, the dreadful curse of which Brother Starr has so honestly pointed out. If you are a true, intelligent Bible Christian, a holy, God-fearing man, you must cast off every human yoke, withdraw fellowship from and renounce every schismatic and humanly constituted party in the professed body of Christ. ”

“ Others followed, some for healing, others for complete deliverance from every taint of the devil. God himself gathered the saints at that place, and the day was devoted to salvation work. Probably twenty-five or thirty souls were delivered from all the works of the devil and filled with the Spirit of God. Oh, what a mighty change has taken place here! Instead of gloomy and hideous looks, now shines the glory and beauties of holiness, upon the joyful faces of the redeemed, and clear, ringing shouts of praises are pleasing to God. ”

“ The faith that he gave us is an exclusive faith; no other saves the soul. The truth of God is exclusive in its nature; everything contrary to it is false. The kingdom of Christ is exclusive. It is a stone that breaks everything else to pieces. The one church that Jesus founded and named, and which is his own body, is also exclusive, for there is only 'one body in Christ.' During the reign of pagan persecution the rulers offered to stop the bloody martyrdom and allow the Christians to worship God in freedom, if they would confess that the pagan idols were also real Gods. ”

“ We pray that all who that day confessed the call of God may go forward, lest that "woe is me" be upon them, and perishing souls be lost for whom the blessed Savior died. In about all the meetings this fall the same great burden has come upon our soul for men and women of God to go forth and hold up the light of his saving truth. O ye that have the real fire of God in your souls, can you tarry at home to watch a few earthly effects, when there is such a sore famine in all the land! ”

“ His life, so exemplary, was an object lesson of Christian attainment and of what God can do for and through weak humanity. It was an inspiration to feel the touch of his Christian spirit. And thus we exalt, not the man—for apart from the divine influence that ruled his life he would have been very commonplace—but we exalt the God who can take such humble instrumentality and by a transformation of being use it to accomplish his work in the earth. ”

“ Here nature undisturbed, through the succession of bursting buds of spring, refreshing dews of summer, sighing breezes and gently falling leaves of autumn, and rigorous storms of winter covering all with a shroud of snow, is heard to speak silently but eloquently of the brief cycle of life on this earth, of the grave as our last resting-place, and of the fact that "here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come." ”