IT has been a question of serious doubt with some of the most excellent on earth, whether the protracted meeting is compatible with the genius of the Christian Institution, and whether more evil does not attend it than good. But from the day we engaged in the service of our Redeemer, to this hour, we have had no doubt of the propriety of protracted efforts for the conversion of men. It is true, these efforts may be made in such a manner; such policies and appliances may be employed and a resort may be made to such means of excitement, as would be wholly unjustifiable. But this may be done on any other occasion, as well as at the protracted meeting, and the fault is not in the protracted effort, but in the means employed.
All efforts made to excite men without enlightening them; to rouse the feelings without informing the judgment; to produce action without the knowledge how to act, are wholly unscriptural, and equally at war with the best interests of mankind. To hold a protracted meeting, while talented orators shall picture to men, in the most startling manner, the sinfulness of sin, the lost condition of man, the awfulness of death, the ineffable bliss of heaven, and the unutterable horrors of hell, without giving any adequate instructions how to obtain deliverance from sin, or the dangers of punishment, and an ultimate admission into the felicities of the eternal state of the blessed, we all admit to be as irrational as unscriptural. Indeed, we can not conceive anything more incompatible with all enlightenment and all revelation, than to awaken the human soul to a sense of its danger, without affording a knowledge of the means of escape. That such, however, is the case in thousands of the revival movements of our times, no intelligent person can deny. Who has not seen the penitent, when the invitation has been extended, come, inquiring, “What must I do to be saved?” and not a man on the ground who could answer the question. Who has not heard the preacher invite, persuade and entreat the sinner to come to the Lord, assuring him that he who seeks shall find—he who comes shall in no wise be cast out—that if any man knocks at the door, the Lord will open to him, and, when persons, induced through such invitation, come seeking the way, not a man present could point it out? We have all witnessed occasions of this kind. Nay, more, we have known such seekers to come, time after time, seeking, honestly and devoutly seeking, but still not finding! Yes, this is not the worst. We have heard the preacher advise them to join the church, that probably the Lord would bless them, that persons had been known to “get religion” after joining the church, etc., etc., and we have known them to take this advice, join the church, and remain for years, seeking all the time, and still failing to find! Every community can testify the same.
Now it is not strange that men should become sceptics, under the influence of such a system as this. It is a failure. It makes false promises, and men try them and find them to be false. Such a system promises, that they who seek shall find, and hundreds, even thousands, have sought—have done, and have done honestly, all the preachers pointed out for them to do, and have failed to find. They know positively that the system is a failure, for they have tried it, and found it to be such. It is precisely what we might expect, that persons trying such a system, seeking and striving honestly for years and not finding, should be brought to doubt that there is any truth or reality in the whole concern; and we have no doubt, that such unenlightened excitement will be chargeable with a large amount of the unbelief, so rapidly increasing in our times.
But if the preachers on all such occasions, were enlightened, so that when any sinner is awakened, becomes penitent, and desirous to know what he should do to be saved, and he could and would tell him forthwith what God required him to do, in the unequivocal language of the New Testament, who can fail to see that the results would be entirely different? This, we affirm, may and should be the case in every instance, and we hesitate not to say, in the most unequivocal language, that such is the case under the preaching of enlightened men. We go even further, and declare with all possible emphasis, that God never authorized any man to preach who could not, on any occasion, point out to the believing, inquiring penitent, what he should do to be saved, or what he should do to enter into the kingdom of God. We have it recorded from the Lord’s own lips, and from the lips of his inspired apostles, what they directed inquirers or seekers to do, to obtain pardon and admission into Christ’s kingdom, and any preacher who can not or can, but has not the honor to do it, give their holy and infallible directions to the dying sinner, seeking his way to God, was never called, sent nor authorized by God to preach the gospel, and should not be regarded as such.
It is also of the highest importance that we employ gospel means for the awakening sinners and arousing them from their slumbers. Some preachers have contracted the habit of making an immense variety of appeals to affecting occurrences—describing sympathetic scenes, simply for the purpose of producing feeling in the audience. Great injury may be done in this way, by arousing human sympathy, moving the soul and causing men to act, who do not love the Lord and have not had the first serious thought of consecrating their lives to his holy service. We say not this, because we fear too much excitement, too much feeling, or too much interest, but because the excitement is not of the right kind. The work is of no value unless it be the Lord’s work.—It is not his work unless done by his acknowledged and approved instrumentalities. The gospel is his power for salvation. The excitement produced in a community by preaching Christ—the work produced in the heart by preaching the gospel, is the Lord’s work. It is a divine cause, producing a divine effect. But if the cause be merely human, the effect can be no more than human.
We want the protracted meeting then, to deliver an unbroken series of gospel discourses to the people—that we may be enabled to call off their attention from the ordinary cares of life, and more especially from their sins, and place our glorious Lord and Redeemer before their minds—induce them to consider him, in all his gracious condescension, his life filled up with acts of kindness, goodness and humanity, his prayers, agonies and tears, his wonderful death, his descent to the grave, his victorious conquest over death and his triumphant and glorious ascension into heaven and coronation, as the King of kings and Lord of lords—that he is now exalted to the heavens—to the throne of the universe, to grant repentance and remission of sins, and that there is no other name given under heaven, nor among men whereby ye can be saved.
When a full exhibition of Christ—of the gospel, is made to men, in a series of discourses, and their hearts are moved, their souls filled with love and gratitude to him whom they discover to be their only Benefactor, their Lord, their Savior and only Redeemer, then we meet them with his own infallible directions, as they fell from his own lips and the lips of his holy apostles, and we never find it fail to give peace to the soul, and if carried out to give the utmost assurance in after life and death of acceptance with God and an eternal reward. Go on, then, brethren, with the protracted meetings, and preach the word of the everlasting God to sinners as long as a man can be found who will bear it, and then be careful to take care of the young converts and keep them in the work of the Lord.