It may seem rather strange that after the preceding chapters we should take such a caption as the above, but we believe there is a demand for MANLY men and WOMANLY women. We have no more use for the effeminate man than we have for masculine women. The Amazons of Africa have always to us appeared out of place, and we still think so, though the suffragettes of today declare they are willing to enroll at the country's call. The man in the pulpit should be so God-centered he will lose sight of himself. I have heard men preach and all the time thought of and saw the men, they were self-centered, with an air of "I am doing this"; the message was in the background. I think it was Rowland Hill who saw an auctioneer selling off a picture. He was behind it, expatiating upon the merits of the picture. The picture was in full view, but he was out of sight. "That," said Hill, "is the way I want to preach, so Christ only will be seen." Let the man be lost in the message. It is not the spoon that nourishes the invalid, but what the spoon carries. It is not the preacher that blesses the hearer, but the message that the preacher brings. A preacher must be a positive man; that is, must have a positive religious experience Roberts says, "Ministers who are lacking in religious experience not only cannot build up others in a faith and holiness which they do not possess, but they will be likely to bring down to their own level those under their care who have a deeper experience than themselves, or, falling in this, to persecute and oppose them. Godless ministers are the real cause of the decline in the Church of spirituality. The purest light shining through a colored medium becomes colored. Worldly, timesaving preachers promote a worldly religion. They may multiply converts, but their converts mold the Church more than the Church molds them."
A positive religious experience will produce positive preaching. The compromising preacher may have more joiners, but the positive preacher will get more people to Christ. Ever since Constantine took the Church up into a high mountain and showed it the kingdoms of the world, seducing it from allegiance to its lawful Head, the Church has had the favor of the State, but has lost its power. What Almighty God put asunder man should never join together. It is high time for a divorce, and positive preaching by a positive man with a positive religious experience, will aid much in bringing it about.
The preacher should have a standard such as a positive religious experience will give, and this standard he will preach, and he should examine himself to see if he abides in the faith. Bishop Hedding said in an address to the Conference, "'Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith,' is an admonition necessary for ministers as well as for people. Men are liable to be deceived in regard to their own conversion, and to satisfy themselves with a work of the imagination instead of the work of the Spirit. Let us therefore compare our experiences with the Word of God and satisfy ourselves that we are really born of the Spirit." "We are in danger of being deceived in another way. Having been really born of God, we may backslide in heart, lose the spirit we received from Heaven, and yet retain the form, the morals, and the profession of Christianity, and still persuade ourselves we are as pious as when in the first love. Let us look into this matter and see whether we are indeed as near to Christ as when we were first made partakers of His love. We ought to be nearer. We should be growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Unless we examine ourselves frequently, we will be in great danger of lowering the standard below that of the Bible. We say the standard of the Bible, for the Church is way below the standard, and the positive preacher is needed because he must combat the present state of the Church, and in so doing he will surely arouse the carnal and unsaved. President Finney says, "Until we put away from the minds of men the common error that the current Christianity of the Church is the true Christianity, we can make but little progress in converting the world. For, in the first place, we cannot save the Church itself from the bondage to the world in this life, nor from the direct doom of the hypocrite in the next. For this religion of the mass of nominal professors does not answer the descriptions given of true piety in the Word of God." Mark you, this is from a man of God, a positive preacher, who held meetings extensively all over the country and was acquainted with the most spiritual of the churches, and since his time there has been a great decline in piety. Finney holds most emphatically that the Church standard is low. Will it not require, then, a positive man to face such a condition? Mr. Finney was not alone in this view of the Church. Bishop Foster, of the M. E. Church, said in a public address, and we give it just as reported: "Just now four out of five with their names on the Church roll are doing nothing -- almost absolutely nothing. Four out of five contribute but little to the treasury of the Church benevolences, and four out of five do nothing in the line of personal work for Christ. They go to church perhaps once on each Sabbath, if the weather is not inauspicious, and when the next Sunday comes, and the conditions are the same, they go again, and so on through the weeks and months and years, and God's blessed cause is not made one whit stronger in membership or influence for their living." Bishop Peck confirms these statements, and says, "There is a general impression that many members are not useful, not holy in life, not worthy representatives of practical Christianity, really a burden and not a help to the Church. But the extent of the sad fact is not seen, that the cold, worldly or indifferent in our midst are really a large majority, and that the Church it compelled to bear the reproach of a vast multitude of sinful men. Nor is the peril of these brethren fully appreciated. It comes to be considered so much a matter of course that the evil is looked upon as irremediable, and the few to go on to bear the burdens, and do the work which belongs to the many, and charity becomes indifference. Discipline is rare and finally impossible. Let me say distinctly, but with tender concern, that this represents a fact so large as to explain, to a great extent, our failure in Church reforms and Christian power, and calls for the most rousing, pathetic, and persistent appeals from the pulpit and press." With these facts, substantiated by spiritual men in the Church everywhere, is there not a crying demand for positive men, with positive experiences, preaching persistently the whole Gospel, crying unto ZION, 'awake and sin not'?"
Some time ago, a leading divine in one of our large denominations said, "You know very well half of the members in the churches are not converted." Will anything less than positive preaching, backed by the Holy Ghost, ever produce a better condition, or lead to a better state of affairs? It is incumbent upon the man in the pulpit "to cry aloud and spare not"; to lift up his voice like a trumpet and show the professed Church of God its transgressions and the house of Jacob its sins. The Church today is dying because of the weak pabulum it receives from the invalids in the pulpit, and rugged Christian characters under such ministration are surely impossible.
A positive man with a positive knowledge of the power of the Gospel in his own life will "speak as one having authority," and sure of his position. "He is God's man sent to preach to God's other men," bearing the message he was ordained from before the foundation of the world to deliver, and having this assurance, how can he do anything else but give it, without any qualification, but, on the contrary, rejoicing in being honored of God to speak for Him, to the dying and unsaved all around him? The gnashing of teeth, black looks, unkind criticisms, will not affect him. Praying at him will not stir him. He is so yoked up with God and centered in Him, he prances in his soul, whenever he has the privilege of preaching the Gospel, of carrying the King's message. He says "Amen!" to all the will of God and wins souls that they may be stars in the crown of Jesus his Master and Lord. Such men are needed and will be a success everywhere. Like their Master, they "cannot be hid"; they will not have to seek places, places will seek them. They will have a holy independence that God will bless, for it is founded upon a conscious dependence upon Him. May the tribe of positive, manly men, Christ-men, increase, and may the day hasten when we will be rid of the namby-pamby mugwumps [mugwump n. US = a great man; a boss, a person who holds aloof, esp. from party politics. -- Oxford Dict.] who adorn (???) the profession for the bread and butter that comes with it, and, dealing "in milk and mildness," neither please God nor offend the devil. Amen!
