be any reserve in treating the subject with such freedom as it may seem to require? We may well feel indeed that the subject is solemn. All that relates to the interests of revivals, and the welfare of souls, is solemn; and it becomes us to approach it in a serious way. But this is no reason why we should close our eyes against the truth, or refuse to call things by their proper names. This would be to trifle with sacred things truly.
And it should be born in mind that the danger against which we need to be warned in this case is not confined by any means to one side. It is a serious thing to profane the worship of God by offering upon His altar strange fire.116 Those who recommend and practice New Measures should see well to it that they be not themselves chargeable with the very sin which they are too prone to charge upon such as withstand their views. It is surely not a case in which men can be justified in taking up a judgment lightly and with little or no reflection. Mighty interests are concerned in the question whether such means should be employed in the service of God’s sanctuary or not. A great responsibility is involved in urging the system upon a congregation, or in trying to give it currency and authority in a religious community. If it should be found after all to be not the wisdom and power of God unto salvation, but the fruitful source of error and confusion in religion, an occasion of reproach to the gospel and of ruin to the souls of men, it would be a heavy account surely to answer for any part taken in its favor.
It is truly strange how one-sided the patrons of this system show themselves, as a general thing, in their views and feelings with regard to the point now presented. They affect an extraordinary interest in the cause of revivals, and seem to have a pious dread of sinning against it in any way. But the danger of doing so is all, to their view, in one direction. The idea of opposing the work of God is terrible. Whatever claims to be His work, then, must be respected and reverenced. No matter what irregularities are attached to it, so long as it stands before us in the holy garb of a revival, it is counted unsafe to call it to account. The maxim Prove all things117 must be discarded, as well as the caution Believe not every spirit.118 No room must be allowed to criticism where the object proposed is to rescue souls from hell. To stand upon points of order in such a case is to clog the chariot wheels of salvation. Meanwhile the disastrous consequences of false excitement, in the name of religion, are entirely overlooked. No account is made comparatively of the danger of bringing both the truth and power of God into discredit by countenancing pretentions to the name of a revival where the thing itself is not present. The danger itself is by no means imaginary. Spurious excitements are natural and common. Gross irregularity and extravagance, carried often to the point of downright profanity, are actually at work in connection with such excitements on all sides. The whole interest of revivals is endangered by the assumption impudently put forward that these revolting excesses belong to the system. False and ruinous views of religion are widely disseminated. Thousands of souls are deceived into a false hope. Vast obstructions are thrown in the way of true godliness. But of all this no account is made by those who are so sensitively jealous of danger on the other side. The only alternative they seem to see is Action or No action. But the difference between right action and wrong action, one would think, is fully as important, to say the least, as the difference between action and no action.
We are told however that the term “New Measures” is vague, covering in the view of some more than it covers in the view of others; so that there is danger of encouraging prejudice and opposition against the best things as well as the worst in venturing to criticize and censure the general system. In the German community in particular it is well known that great confusion prevails with regard to the subject in this view. With many all active efforts in favor of serious evangelical piety are branded with the reproach of new measures. Protracted meetings, prayer meetings, the doctrine of the new birth, special efforts for the salvation of sinners, revivals in the true and proper sense, tract societies, missionary societies, and benevolent operations, generally, all are regarded with suspicion, or it may be actually opposed as belonging to the same system of extravagance that includes the Anxious Bench and its natural connections. To oppose the latter, then, we are told is virtually to oppose the former. People will not distinguish. By exposing the nakedness of the Anxious Bench, we must expect to strengthen the hands of those who cry out against all active religion. Better to be silent than to incur so heavy a responsibility. Especially at this juncture should we observe such sacred caution, it is intimated, when the German Churches are waking from the sleep of years and passing the crisis of a great spiritual revolution whose consequences no one can measure.
Most certainly in such circumstances caution does become us all. We should tremble to touch the ark of God with unhallowed hand. It were only to be wished that this might be seriously laid to heart by the champions of the Anxious Bench themselves, as well as by others.
It has been already stated that the Anxious Bench is made the direct object of regard in this tract rather than New Measures in general for the very purpose of cutting off occasion, as much as may be from those who seek occasion, for confounding in this way things that are entirely distinct. The particular is made to stand for the general in the way of specimen or type, so as to exclude all that is not of the same complexion and spirit. If any choose notwithstanding to take the idea of New Measures in a wider sense, they have a right to please themselves in so doing if they see proper; but they can have no right surely to obtrude their own arbitrary view on the present discussion. There is a broad difference between New Measures in the one sense, and the New Measures in the other sense. It is overbearing impudence to pretend that a protracted meeting or a meeting for social prayer is of the same character with the anxious bench, or the various devices for theatrical effect with which this is so frequently linked. Such meetings lie in the very conception of Christian worship and are as old as the Church. The assertion sometimes heard that the idea of protracted meetings now so familiar and so generally approved is one of recent origin for which we are indebted to the system of New Measures, serves only to expose the ignorance of those by whom it is made. It is no less an abuse of terms as well as of common sense to include in this system tract societies, the cause of missions, and the benevolent agencies in general, by which the Church is endeavoring to diffuse the knowledge of the truth throughout the world. All these things are natural, direct utterances of the spirit of Christianity itself, and have no affinity whatever with the order of action represented by the Anxious Bench. The same thing may be said of revivals. They are as old as the gospel itself. Special effusions of the Spirit the Church has a right to expect in every age, in proportion as she is found faithful to God’s covenant; and where such effusions take place, an extraordinary use of the ordinary means of grace will appear, as a matter of course. But still a revival is one thing, and a Phrygian dance another; even though the Phrygian dance should be baptized into Christian Montanism.119 Life implies action, but all action is not life. It is sheer impudence to say that new measures and revival measures are the same thing.
And there is good reason to believe that the confusion, which is said to prevail with regard to the whole subject, is much less in fact than is sometimes represented. As a general thing, people know very well that there is no affinity or connection between the system represented by the Anxious Bench and such evangelical interests as have now been mentioned. Even in those sections where it has been found convenient to stretch the idea of New Measures over this hallowed territory, there is a better knowledge of the true state of the case probably than is often supposed.120
But allowing the confusion to be as complete among the German Churches as it is represented, shall no effort be made to correct it and put things in their proper light? Admit that the best practices and most important interests are in the eyes of many identified with the system of New Measures in the proper sense, so that to assault the latter is considered an assault at the same time upon the former; still, is that a reason for sparing and sheltering the system under its own bad form? Is there no help for the German Churches in this predicament? Must they have revivals in the way of the Anxious Bench, or no revivals at all? Must it be with them Finneyism,
