An Appeal to Postmillennialists

An Appeal To Postmillennialists

WORKS OF WILLIAM BAXTER GODBEY

An Appeal To Postmillennialists

W. B. GODBEY

ISBN: 9781648171734

An appeal to postmillennialists

By W. B. Godbey

First Fruits Press, ©2023

Digital version at https://place.asburyseminary.edu/godbey/56/

First Fruits Press is a digital imprint of the Asbury Theological Seminary, B.L. Fisher Library. Asbury Theological Seminary is the legal owner of the material previously published by the Pentecostal Publishing Co. and reserves the right to release new editions of this material as well as new material produced by Asbury Theological Seminary. Its publications are available for noncommercial and educational uses, such as research, teaching and private study. First Fruits Press has licensed the digital version of this work under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 3 0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/

For all other uses, contact:

First Fruits Press

B.L. Fisher Library

Asbury Theological Seminary 204 N. Lexington Ave. Wilmore, KY 40390

http://place.asburyseminary.edu/firstfruits

Godbey, W. B. (William Baxter), 1833-1920. An appeal to postmillennialists [electronic resource]/ W.B. Godbey – Wilmore, Kentucky : First Fruits Press, ©2023.

1 online resource (61 p. : port.) : digital.

Reprint. Previously published: Nashville, TN : Pentecostal Mission Publishing Company, [190-?]

ISBN: 9781648171727 (paperback)

ISBN: 9781648171734 (uPDF)

ISBN: 9781648171741 (Mobi)

OCLC: 1366294688

1. Millennialism I. Title.

BT890.G62 2023eb

Cover design by Amanda Kessinger

w. B. GODBEY

An Appeal to Postmillennialists

INTRODUCTION

To my dearly beloved brethren of the Holiness movement entertaining the posttpillennial view of our Lord's second coming, I have but one apology for writing these appeals. This you will find in 2 Cor. 5:14, "For the di vine love of Christ constraineth us."

We have two Greek words translated love, agapee which means divine love and pkilia, human love. They are both affirmed of our glorious Christ, who is perfect God and perfect man. ,But in this passage it is affirmed of His divinity, as this agapee is really the divine nafore (1 John 4 ch.), and not indigenous in the human heart, but an exotic from heaven, dispensed by the Holy Ghost, (Rom. 5:5) "The di vine love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who has been given unto us."

While we unanimously appropriate and ring out our battle cry in all lands, "Holiness unto the Lord," we must all recognize the thrilling truth of His return to this earth, second only to this universal battle cry.

In these appeals I am simply doing for you the very thing I want you to do for me, i. e. correct my mistakes. "Let the righteous smite me; it will be as excellent oil poured upon my head." ... The more you hit me the more I love you if you only give me love licks. I so much rejoice because the Lord has so blessed my unworthy soul as to leave nothing but love for any human being.

Know ye not, brethren, that God has raised us up to preach the everlasting Gospel in all lands and get His bride ready for His speedy coming? 1 do believe and feel that we are living amid the eleventh hour call of the Gospel dispensation. The Bible Schools are springing up in all Gospel lands, like mushrooms in the night; educating and sending out thousands of Columbia's bright sons and daughters to preach the Gospel in all the earth. Oh, what a floodtide is pouring over the great oceans and inundating heathen lands! And all of this is but a beginning! Lift up your eyes and behold a hundred

thousand missionaries hastening away to proclaim the tidings to the lost millions of the antipodean world! While God has for them a crown of glory which will never fade away, His precious Word assures us that He has an equal reward for the faithful ones "who stay with the stuff" and perpetuate a basis of supply for those who go to the war.

While "Holiness to the Lord," is our theme semper et ubique, always and everywhere; yet the clear ring on the coming of the Lord is its God-ordained universal concomitant. It was so in the Apostolic Age. We must get back to New Testament times, so far as Scripture and experience are concerned.

A great holiness evangelist said to Bro. Pickett, "I am a postmillennialist." In reply to Bro. Pickett's request for his reason, he responded, "I have to be a postmillennialist in order to be a Methodist." When Bro. Pickett told me, it grieved mt::,becaus~ I had cougratulated myself that that brother, like myself, was saved from Methodism. I was born a Methodist-my father was a Methodist preacher, but when the Lord baptized me with the Holy Ghost and fire in 1868 1 He cremated the Methodist, along with the Free Mason, the Odd Fellow, the College President and the

6 APPEAL TO POSTMILLENNIALISTS

candidate for the Episcopacy. I did not keep their ashes, but left them in the how ling wilderness, darting off at horse race speed for the Jordan ford and crossing over, I shouted down the walls of Jericho, marched in Joshua's army, fought many battles, saw the thirty-one kings fall on the field of Bethhoron; the sun halting and standing over Gibeon and the moon over the valley of Ajalon. Thus triumphing all over South Canaan we made for the Great North, pushed the war till at the battle of Merom's waters we saw the combined forces of the northern armies, under the leadership of the King of Hazor, all go down in blood. Joshua is a Hebrew word, which means Jesus. Hence the force of this symbolic history of the sanctified soldier.

If I cannot be a Methodist preacher, as in the providence of God, I have preached in the Methodist church fifty-one years, and be as free as Gabriel to preach God's Word, fearlessly of men and devils, and shout the truth of full salvation to the ends of the earth, I will certainly let Methodism paddle its own canoe. If it is true, it does not need my support; if not true it shall not have it. I will remember that the disciplinary obligation administered to me by the conference when a

boy preacher positively specified that I was to "preach nothing but what I found in the Scriptures and could prove thereby." Under that solemn vow I never can preach the postmillennial view of the Lord's coming from the simple fact that it flatly and irreconcilably contradicts the very words of my blessed and glorious Lord.

Having no doubt but my beloved brethren who propagate that view are innocently mistaken, feeling as I do that vast damage to the work is calculated to supervene as the result of this view, I yield to the convictions of my conscience in the submission of these appeals in the sincerity of brotherly kindness and perfect lovel at the same time earnestly praying that God shall use these humble efforts for His glory if possible; and if not that He will fortify them against all harm to the cause of truth and holiness.

Oh, brethren, we must rise superior to all of our church creeds amid which we were born and reared and enjoy this glorious freedom from everything but God who, with His tripple leadership-His Spirit leading our spirit, His Word our intellect, and His providence our bodies-will never let us go wrong. We must watch all of the sidetracking, derail-

ing and ditching agencies brought into availability by men, devils and demons. We must be true to God and holiness, regardless of churchisms in all of their forms and phases and everything else. Truly our wonderful Omnipotent Christ does give us this glorious freedom, in that transcendent experience of entire sanctification, which radically empties us of sin and copiously fills us with the Holy Ghost.

The Holiness movement represents all denominations in Christendom. While the churches have their creeds, and ecclesiasticisms, which more or less differentiate them either from other, the elect among all believe in entire sanctification. Hence this is the great climacteric doctrine peculiar to all and to which all creeds and shibboleths must be subordinated.

Second only to this great doctrine, and inseparable from it, is our Lord's second coming. The Holiness people are like the Levites, who had no local inheritance, but were scattered in all Israel and appointed of God to bless all the people. Consequently we must rise superior to all of the peculiarities which locally, educationally and creedistically differentiate the people of God In all the earth.

We must constantly bear in mind our Nazaritish vows, which make us peculiar in our personal loyalty to God, utterly dead to all of the likes and dislikes incidental to the different tribes of Israel. God is using us as teachers in all the earth. Therefore we must be perfectly free from everything that would sectarianize, partisanize, nationalize or localize in any sense. We must be "all things to all men that we may save some."

This postmillennial view is purely creedistic and a1ien to the Scripture. The apostles and all of their contemporaries were constantly looking fot the Lord to appear. Dean Alford, the prince of critics, certifies that this perpetual outlook continued without a break the first three hundred years of the Christian era. Meanwhile entire sanctification was the climacteric concomitant of this perpetual outlook for His glorious return to th~ earth, martyr fires and roaring lions constantly serving to keep them humble and true.

The conversion of the Emperor Constantine, A. D. 321, followed by the sudden promotion of the Christians, hitherto so humble, despised and persecuted, from the lion's mouth and the burning stake to Cresar's palace, wielded a lamentably deteriorating

spiritual influence throughout the Christian churches, thus clandestinely opening the door for worldliness to come in; heathen temples everywhere being turned into Christian churches and Pagan priests into preachers, responsive to the Imperial edict. Among the detrimental results of this worldly ingress, the Ecumenical Council was convened at Nice in Bithynia, over which Constantine, the Emperor, presided, sitting in a golden chair, when they formulated the first human creed ever made, which is still used in the Roman Catholic church and became the the prolific mother of all the creeds in Christendom. This was a deplorable mistake.

The New Testament is the creed of Christendom, the only one which has any authority and deserves recognition. If the Holiness people do not get saved from all human creeds, free as angels to believe and preach nothing but the pure word of God, we will prove untrue to our calling.

This incoming flood of worldliness, superinducing the great Constantinian apostasy and disqualifying the Church to meet her glorious King, soon vitiated the constant expectancy which had prevailed from the day of His ascension and superinduced an acquiescence in

the conclusion that this second coming had been already fulfilled in the person of the Emperor Constantine, who had proved a sunburst on all Christendom, suddenly delivering them from the bloody persecutions which had been on them three hundred years and bring. ing them from the bottom to the top of society, actually putting them at the front of the world.

Following the fall of the Empire, A. D. 476, when the barbarians conquered the world, obliterating the lights of ancient civilization, the Dark Ages came on and continued a thousand years, Satan's millennium, during which profound ignorance and dark superstition prevailed in all the earth. The human creeds in the churches really emanated from the dark ages, the normal result of ignorance and superstition, superseded and domiuated by the human will in contradistinction to the sovereign will of the Almighty, which we have revealed in the Bible alone. As it is impossible to find a trace or a track of the postmillennial view in the Bible, it must be relegated to the creeds alone, from which we all ought to be saved.

While we are in deep sympathy with all the church people whose faith and conscience are

fettered by human creed, we to whom God has given the bright, clear light of entire sanctification, permitting us to walk in the cloudless day of full salvation, will grieve the Holy Sphit if we do not rise superior to human creeds and get to where we see Jesus and hearken to none but the divine voice.

We protest against the postmillennial view, because of its

DISHARMONY WITH THE TEACHING OF OUR SAVIOR RELATIVE TO HIS GLORIOUS KINGDOM. (Luke 19 ch).

You have only to read this parable of the nobleman going away to a far country to receive a kingdom and return, and you cannot fail to see, clearly and indisputably, that our Lord Himself is the nobleman, heaven the far country and the millennial theocracy the kingdom. He goes away, receives it, comes back and gives it to His servants. The postmillennalists tell us that we are to make a millennium here on the earth and give it to the Lord, when He comes. You see this view positively and irreconcilably contradicts the very words of our Savior, who in this parable promises the very opposite, i. e. that He is to

go away from this world, receive a kingdom, return and give it to us. Shall we not believe His plain and unmistakable affirmation?

The multitude to whom He delivered this parable were expecting to crown Him king at Jerusalem during the Passover which was to open one week from that day. Instead of entering upon His kingdom there as they fon:Uy expected, He went away to heaven and was ci:owned Mediatorial King. Shall we not expect Him to f ulfi.11His promise, come back on the throne of that kingdom and give it to us and reign forever? "But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess tht- kingdom forever, even for ever and ever." (Dan. 7:18).

There is no mistake as to the conclusion that this kingdom, which our Lord went to heaven to receive and promised to give to His servants on His return, is none other than the glorious millennial theocracy. Shall we not believe our loving Savior?

The postmillennial view that we are to make a millennium and give it to the Lord, is not only unsustained by a solitary syllable in God's word, but you see it fl.atly contradicts Jesus in this parable. We find it also contra-

diets the inspired history of all by-gone ages. It panders to human vanity, making us believe we are something when we are nothing. The Bible reveals that man has always been a failure. He failed in Eden, becoming a ruined wreck, he failed in the antediluvian ages, becoming so wickeci tbat God in His mercy had to destroy him from off the face of the earth, as his continuance would only have signified the population of hell with each solid generation. Hence it was a signal intervention of divine mercy to prevent this wholesale damnation. He failed in the postdiluvian world, winding up in Egyptian slavery. He failed in the Mosaic dispensation under the most favorable circumstances, getting so far from God that he didn't know his own Christ, but rejected and killed Him; thus superinducing the awful Jewish tribulation, A. D. 66-73, actually ultimating in the annihilation of the Jewish polity forever.

After all of these signal failures, shall we conclude that the Gentile dispensation shall be a success? In Revelation 16th chapter you see the whole world combined against God; in the I 7th chapter you see anti-Christ enthroned; in the 18th chapter, you see the worldly churchism utterly and hopelessly de-

mofo:bed; in the 19th chapter you see all the kings of the earth arrayed in battle against the King of Glory. They suffer signal defeat and all go down in blood. This is the great final conflict of Armageddon, in which all the kingdoms of this world are combined against God and all rush into hopeless and eternal ruin. Daniel 7th and 12th chapters record these same visions.

Therefore we find that the Gentile dispensation is no new departur~ ln the uniform trend of humanity from bad to worse. My postmillennial brethren charge me with pessimism. It is true I am a pessimist on sin. I have good company. Daniel, John, Paul, and Jesus, and I may add, every inspired writer without a single exception. God says, HThe heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked."

"Bro. Godbey, you discourage me." I am glad of it. I want you to see th~t the Bible is true which describes humanity as an old, unseaworthy, ruined bark, ready to founder; wbile Christ is the lifeboat, calling us all to forsake the old wreck, leap on board and ride away to glory.

The simple truth of the matter is, while God reveals man a failure, the Bible every-

where reveals God a glorious succe~s. Therefore, if you would ever amount to anything, utterly abandon humanity and sink away into God as quickly as possible. Shall we never learn this great primary truth, revealed in God's Word, that we are all failures? Till a preacher finds it out, he will never amount to a picaune; puffed up with egotism, the danger is he will go headlong to ruin. We are only successful as we realize our utter futility, sink away into God, forever losing sight of self. Superscribe this on your banner; "Man is a miserable failure, but God is a glorious success,'' therefore if you ever do any good, the sooner you get rid of man and sink into God, the better for you.

While I am a pessimist on sin, I am an optimist on grace. While the trend of the world, as ever hitherto, is only downward, sinward, Satanward and hellward; that of the Church, (not worldly ecclesiasticism, erroneously called a church, which is Satan's church); but God's ecclesia, i. e. His called out people who really constitute His Church, is upward, graceward, Godward and heavenward.

There never was a preceding age in which God's people understood the Bible so well as now. All finite beings are progressive.

While the world is progressing hellward, God's true people are making wonderful progress heaven ward. Never in all the ages were the saints so mighty in the Scriptures and so aggressive in the evangelization of the world as at this day. Oh> how we are actually girdling the goble with salvation and Holiness unto the Lord!

Yet the idea that all will receive the gospel is alien to the Scripture. Only the elect will receive it. Fortuaately for us, we know not the non-elect. If we did, we would have no heart to work for their salvation. Among the decisive omens of the Lord's near approach is the wonderful expedition with which the gospel is flying on apocalyptic wings to the ends of the earth, calling the elect in every land and clime, who are so appreciatively responding to the clarion notes of these trumpet calls, this day ringing around the world. I dictate these pages on the Mount of Blessings (Cincinnati, O.); meanwhile the Lord's people are in constant correspondence with China and Japan, directly under our feet, the most distant countries on the globe; yet books, papers, cablegrams and letters are constantly going and coming, as if they were at our door.

This problem of pessimism and optimism depends entirely upon what you are talking about for its significance. If you mean the world, sin and Satan's kingdom, I am a pessimist. If you mean the Church (God's Ecclesia) holiness a::id the kingdom of grace, I am an optimist.

DISHARMONY WITH OUR SAVIOR'S TEACHING. (Luke 18 ch).

Here we have the parable of the importunate widow pleading with the unjust judge, to avenge her of her adversary. In this parable the widow is the Church (God's Ecclesia), widowed ever since her Divine Spouse, leaving her alone on the earth, ascended into heaven f1om Mt. Olivet 1870 years ago, having promised her speedily to return. Here you see the true attitude of the Bride has always been that of constant expectation and importunate outlook for the return of her Lord. This is utterly incompatible with the Postmillennial view, which postpones His coming at least a thousand years.

In this parable the unjust judge symbolizes God the Father, only at the point of His absolute sovereign independency. See this old

judge who neither fears God nor regards man. His attitude is actually the most independent, in the range of human conception, thus vividly typifying the divine sovereignty. In this parable Sata!l is the adversary, everlastingly hounding this woman's children, throughout the whole earth, doing his utmost to wound and cripple and if possible kill them. History tells us two hundred millions of her children have sealed their faith with their blood. Oh. how this old earth has opened her mouth and drunk the blood of the martyrs!

"I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand! and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit." (Rev. 20). Here we see the answer to the prayer of the importunate widow, and you have nothing to do but to read on directly, and see tht! Lord descending on the throne of His millennial Kingdom. This is utterly incompatible with the postmillennial view which has us, by our good works and Christian enterprises, bring in the reign of righteousness, love and holiness. Here you see the Lord Himself does it suddenly, by arresting the devil, tak-

ing him out of the world and locking him up in hell, in order that His glorious millennial kingdom shall enter in.

This is corroborated by Daniel 2:44,45, "In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.

Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it break ih pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure." This is the climax of Nebuchadnezzar's wonderful dream, in which the chronological image stood before him with its golden head symbolizing the Chaldean monarchy; the si!ver breast and arms, the Medo-Persian; the brasen abdomen and thighs, the Grecian under Alexander the great; the great iron legs, the universal power of Rome; the feet, the division of that power between Rome and Constantinople, and the toes, the ten kingdoms into which the fallen Roman Empire was disintegrated and which stand this day.

Meanwhile the monarch sees a stone cut out of the mountain without hands smite the image on his feet and break them into smitherines till they become like the chaff of the summer threshing floor, which the wind drives away and it is seen no more. Here you see that the kingdom of our Lord, which is none other than the millennial theocracy, does not come by human enterprise; but by the intervention of Christ Himself. There is no room for cavil and confusion on the subject. Verily the Lord Himself comes and brings His Kingdom with Him-a divine intervention, clear and distinct.

We are evidently living in the toe stage of this chronological image. The golden head passed away with the Chaldean Rmpire; the silver breast and arms, with the Medo-Persian; the brazen abdomen and thighs, with the death of Alexander the great; the iron legs with the fall of the Roman Empire A. D. 476. Then followed the foot period, as Constantine had built up Constantinople and divided the Empire into the eastern and western hemispheres, dominated by Constantinople and Rome. After the fall of the Empire, the disintegration into the ten kingdoms of medireval Europe and Asia, i. e., England, France,

Spain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and others about ten, supervened, and superseded the old hemispherical divisions and have been growing in prominence and influence, and this day represent the survival of the chronological image.

The stone kingdom which is to demolish and supersede these toe kingdoms must be homogeneous with them in the fact that it supplants them and takes their place in all the earth. Therefore it is not identical with the kingdom of grace which our Lord brought with Him in His first Advent, and "comes not with observation" (Luke 17:20), but by the silent work of the Holy Ghost in the heart. This is the kingdom preached so heroically bv John the Baptist (Matt. 3:2) and Jesus Himself (Matt. 4:17), follower by all of His apostles and evangelists down to the present day.

Vividly contrastive with the kingdom of grace, which "comes not by observation" but by the silent work of the Spirit in the heart, is the kingdom here described by Daniel which will come with the greatest demonstration, "striking the image on the feet" and smashing it into smitherines, subduing and destroying all these kingdoms, till "they be-

come as the chaff of the summer threshing floor", that is, they evanesce forever, i. e., human rule on the earth eternally retreating before this kingdom which can be none but the glorious Millennial Theocracy, which our Lord will bring with Him, when He comes the second time and this will "fill the whole earth and stand forever!"

As we are now in the toe stage of the Gentile times, human rule, having begun with the head and passed through all of the different stages represented by the giant of prophecy which stood before the sleeping monarch, we certainly have every reason to be constantly looking for this stone to strike the image, utterly demolish it and fill the whole earth, glory to God, destined to abide forever. You see this is utterly irreconcilable with the postmillennial view, which brings the millennium by human enterprise. You see the egreg 4 ions mistake, and foe positive fact that the Lord will come and bring His own millennium. This stone is "cut out without hands." Therefore it is not man's work in any sense, but that of God alone. Good Lord deliver us from the idea that we have to make the millennium! We have been at it six thousand years, and oh what a botch! We tried it be-

fore the flood, and ruined everything. We tried it after the flood and wound up in hopeless slavery. We tried it in the Mosaic dispensation and got so awfully blind and wicked, that instead of receiving our Savior, we killed Him. So depend on it; it's the same old botch job. It is high time we would learn some sense, take hands off and give the Lord a chance. Our work is not to tinker with the old ship, already hopelessly unseaworthy and condemned by heaven's court of admiralty; but to jump into the life boat, taking everybody with us we possibly can; thus leaving the old bark to her destruction. As Satan reigns throughout the Gentile age, i. e., the entire period of human rule of these kings destined to go down before the King of kings, or His subordinates; therefore he is utterly removed out of the world (Rev. 20:1-3), indispensably antecedently to the inauguration of the Lord's kingom. In 2 Cor. 4:4, God calls him, "the god of this age"; not "this world" as in E. V. This world is to be redeemed, sanctified (2 Pet. 3 ch.) renovated (Rev. 21 ch.) and reannexed back to heaven, where it belonged, before the devil broke it loose in order to add it to hell. So he is only the god of the six dark days (one thousand years each, 2 Peter

3:8), intervening bet"'een the two glorious Sabbaths, Eden and the Millennuim.

The postmillennial view has us all working hard to make a millennium during Satan's reign, which is an utter impossibility, as he is infinitely our superior in power and wisdom. Therefore the millenium of the Lord cannot possibly come during his administration. You see in these Scriptures the positive and irreconcilable contradiction of the postmillennial view, which has the Lord postpone His coming till after the millennium. Only tead Rev. 20 ch. and you see the devil taken out and the millennium ushered in.

DISHARMONY WITH THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS RELATIVE TO THE STATE OF THE WORLD WHEN HE COMES

''But as the days of Noah, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as they were in the days before the flood eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day on which Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came and took them all way; so shall be the coming of the Son of man. Two men shall be in the field; the one is taken and the one is left. Two women shall be J;!:rinding at the mill; one is taken, and one is lP-ft." (Matt. 24:37-41).

He also illustrates His coming by the case of Lot escaping out of Sodom. The indisput-

able facts are simply that the antediluvians continued to become more and more wicked, till the very day Noah entered into the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. God said to Noah, "Thee only have I found righteous in this generation'' (Gen. 7:1). In the beginning Abel, succeeded by Seth and Enoch, were faithful prophets in their generation, in contradistinction to Cain, who became a leader on the line of Unitarian idolatry, worshipping the sun, moon and stars.

During the antediluvian ages the two religions, that of Jehovah and Baal, represented by Abel, Seth, Enoch and Noah on the one hand, and Cain with his succession on the other, remained separate, till quite late in the dispensation, when "the sons of God," i. e. the godly race, "saw the daughters of men," i. e. the idolatrous race "that they were fair and took to themselves wives." Then soon follows the record "that the world was filled with violence." Soon afterward we see Noah standing alone and preaching the judgruent warnings to a wicked world, who heedlessly went on from bad to worse, till the flood came and destroyed them all. The record is simply unmistakable, that they continued to progress in wickedness, getting worse and worse

to the end, when the flood came and destroyed them all.

Sodom and Gomorrah in the beautiful, fertile Vale of Siddim were among the first cities founded after the flood. They retrogressed into wickedness as the centuries rolled on, becoming worse and worse till God saw they would not repent, and sent on them the awful destruction of fire and brimstone. Among the teeming thousands inhabiting those cities at the time of their destruction, it is certain there were not ten righteous. The argument really favors the conclusion that Lot was the only righteous man in the city; perhaps we might include his wife and daughters. Hence the conclusion really patent from the inspired record, is that those cities rushed right on into more atrncious wickedness each revolving day, getting worse and worse, as the Savior says, till the very day Lot went out of Sodom. 0 how flatly contradictory these plain words cf Jesus, and how irrefutably demolishing the dogma that the world is getting better. The antediluvians progressed from bad to worse to the end. We see in case of Sodom and Gomorrah no change in the postdiluvians; but they go on the even tenor of their downward way to ruin.

The postmillennialists ascmme that the world will get better, progressing on till we actually, iu this way, bring in the glorious reign of righteousness. In the above Scriptures, the Lord positively tells us they are mistaken. On the contrary, the world will get worse, like the antediluvians and the Sodomities, to the end. This testimony of our Lord forever sweeps the postmillennial view from the field, confirming the testimony of Paul (2 Tim. 3-13) "Wicked men and seducers will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived."

Let us not be wise above what is written. Jesus and Paul settled this problem forever, irrefutably confirming the conclusion that the world is getting worse instead of better and will so continue to the end of the Gentile age; the only remedy being the coming of the Lord, which wm wind up the reign of Satan on the earth, arresting and incarcerating him "in hell.

When we speak of the world, we do not include God's people at all, who are the EcCLESIA, i. e. the called out, consisting only of those who have heard the call of the Holy Ghost, come out of the world and identified themselves with God. The Church [Ee-

clesia J is throughout the Bible antithetical to the world. They are the two opposite sides of the battlefield, the one fighting for God and holiness and the other for Satan and sin. This progression theory propagated by postmillennialists is so irreconcilably contradictory to the Bible as to lamentably trend to infidelity. It is not only practical infidelity because it contradicts the Word of God, but be.. cause it allies its votaries with the infidels of all ages and nations, who, by speech and pen, solidly apologize for all the wickedness of the world and claim that it is getting better. Such preaching from even Holiness pulpits is very damaging to spirituality and conducive to the health of old Adam, if he is alive, and to his resurrection, if he is dead. Ther{>fore it is a lamentable mistake. Instead of expecting the world to get better and even so good as nominally to bring in the reign of righteousness and holiness before the Lord comes, thus making a millennium for Him to come to, we are to constantly look out for Him to come to the world as it is, red with blood and black with crime, inundated with wickedness in its most appalling manifestations. He says He will come at midnight. Of course that statement is symbolic as Jt is

really midnight somewhere on the earth every moment of each revolving day. Hence it means the midnight of sin, when there is not one cheering ray, and the midnight of slumber, when it is universal and profound, holding the wicked world with its carnal churches in the iron embrace of King Somnus. "When the Son of man cometh shall he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8). The answer is in the negative, involving the conclusion that faith will be exceedingly scarce in all the earth, i. e., exceedingly few people looking for Him. Thus coming so suddenly and unexpected! y, He will take one man from the bed and leave another, and one woman from the mill and leave another.

This is the rapture which will precede the great tribulation which will take out of the world the incorrigible, thus purifying the earth for the oncoming millennium. Hence you see the truth is diametrically opposite to the postmillennial view. Instead of getting better till the millennium normally supervenes, our Savior, Paul and every inspired writer, unite in their positive affirmation that the world will go on, like t!ie antediluvians and Sodomites, getting worse and worse to the end. The flood came at the end

of the antediluvian dispensation, as a righteous retribution for their wickedness. The same is true in case of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is also awfully repeated in the Jewish Tribulation, winding up with the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation of the land.

In vain do the Gentiles congratulate themselves that they will escape similar righteous retribution. The prophecies administering these awful warnings are overwhelming. The antediluvians rejected the Father; the Jews the Son, and the Gentiles are even now with horrific expedition rejecting the Holy Ghost. The righteous retributions of the devouring deluge, sweeping the antediluviaus from the face of the earth; the sword, pestilence, and famine, supplemented by slavery and captivity, annihilating the Jewish nationality, roar out their thunder peals, warning the Gentile world this day to take heed and fly from coming doom.

Noah and his family entered the ark and rode secure above the stormy waters; and the Christians, pursmmt to the warning of Jesus, all made their escape f1001 the destruction of Jerusalem; so will the saints of the Bridehood all be delivered (Dan. 12:1,) "from the awful trouble coming upon the whole earth."

DISHARMONY WITH THE INCESSANT OUTLOOK COMMANDED BY OUR LORD

"Lookout, watch and pray for you know not when the time is. As a man going on a journey having left his house, and having given to his servants authority and to each one hia work and commanded the porter that he should watch. Watch therefore for you know not when the Lord of th~ house is coming, late or at midnight, or at the crowing of the cock, or in the morning: lest having come suddenly he may find you sleeping. What I say to you I say to all: Watch." (Mark 13:3537).

"WatcL therefore, because you do not know at what hour your Lord comes." (Matt. 24 :42),

Here in four verses by Mark we have our Lord's positive commandment to watch repeated five times over. Rhetoricians would pronounce it pleonastic in the superlative degree, and actually put their veto on it. Our Lord slashes rhetoric and grammar when they come in His way. Why does He pile up before us this pleonastic mountain, unequc.lled elsewhere in this inspired volume? It is to keep us all on tiptoe looking through the telescopes of faith and hope, night and day, watching for His glorious appearing. The Savior here specifies all the hours during which it is customary for people to be sound asleep. There is but one possible conclusion from these emphatic and repeated command-

ments, and that is that we are diligently and vigilantly to watch for Him all the time. "But ta~e heed to yourselves, lest your hearts may be burdened with luxury and drunkenness and worldly cares and that day may come upon you unawares. For like a lasso it will come upon all those who are sitting down upon the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, praying all the time that you may be counted worthy to escape from all these things which are about to take place and to stand before the Son of man." (Luke 21: 34-36).

Here our Lord in His importunate warnings to us all to be on the incessant outloc,k, auxiliary to this untiring vigilance, warns us against excess in eating, drinking and worldly cares, which pander to the physical and material being and conduce to impede spirituality. Man is a compound of matter and spirit, i. e. he is an angel and an animal. The former should be the sovereign and the latter the servitor. Therefore as Paul said that he strove to keep his body under, so it is pertinent upon all. Most people sedously damage their intellectual and spiritual interest by excessive eating, and drinking and unduly encumbering th~mselves with temporal cares. Judicious abstinence from these things

is indispensable to a high state of intellectual and spiritual culture. Oh how pertinent that holiness people heed these commandments so conspicuously and repeatedly given by our blessed Savior.

The English Version renders the 35th verse very deficiently, as if the coming of our Lord will be like a lasso falling on all the people throughout the whole world. The true teading find in my version; "For like a lasso that day will come on all those sitting down on the face of the whole world." This is only the attitude of the wicked nations and fallen churches, who are not looking for His appearing, whereas the saints of the Bridehood, are described (Luke 12 ch.) as standing with their loins girded and lights burning; thus ready at a moment's notification to start away to meet their Lord. So it is only the wicked world with its fallen churches we find reclining in the easy chair of carnal security. "Know this, that, if the lord had known at whq,t watch the thief cometh, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken into." (Matt. 24:43). Here you see a signal calamity· overtaking all the unwatchful. Oh what an inspiration does our Lord give to incessant vigilance!

"Therefore be ye ready: ht-cause you know not at what hour the Son of man is coming. Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom bis Lord hath appointed over his housebold, to give them their food in season." (Matt. 24:44 45). The answer to the question is simple and unequivocal. T·he faithful and wise servant who gives to the household their food in season is the very one whom the Holy Ghcst uses to dispense the rich and glorious experience of e11tiresanctification accompanied by that curric11lum of Bible teaching which keeps all wide-awake, incessantly watching for His appearing. HHappy is that servant, whom his Lord shall find so doing." Whom Jesus pronounces happ}', most asrnred .. ly is happy; because He never makes any mistakes. How strange that every human being does not aspire with all the power of spirit, soul and body to reach the attitude where Jesus pronounces the shibboleth, "happy." "Truly I say unto you, that He will appoint him over all of his possessions." This corroborates those glorious promises so prominent in the blessed Word, assuring us, that the saints will rule the earth as the subordinates of Christ, during the glorious millennial reign.

"But if that wicked servant may say in his heart; my Lord delayeth his coming, and may begin to smite his fellow servants and eat and drink with the drunken; the Lord of that 8ervant will come in a day in which he does not know and in an hour in which he does not apprehend, and will cut him off and will appoint his portion with hypocrites: and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matt. 24:48-51).

The man here described is none other than a prominent pastor, wielding a potent influence among his people. They submit to his tyrannical administration, burdening them with excessive assessments, vast• ly beyond what he needs and calculated to ruin his family~ leading them into worldliness. Yet his people bear with him through reverence for his sacred office, taking it for granted that he is a man of God.

But you see when the Lord comes, He takes him out of his pastorate and exposes his real character to the whole world, who are surprised to find that, after all, this great and influential preacher is a wolf in sheep's clothing; i. e. a hypocrite which simply means a counterfeit professor, as the Greek word means a dramedian on the stage, exhibiting to the people an assumed character, acting an

unreal part. You see the awful doom which overtakes this man, i. e. damnation.

Oh what a warning! Though this man is a preacher and represents a multitude of hightoned clergymen, looking for heaven, he is destined to drop into bell. He also represents millions walking in the rank of the laity. The salient allegation against this unfortunate man adduced by our Savior, is his proclamation "my Lord delayeth His coming."

So this is the gravest charge against him, constituting the culmination of the heresies which doubtless abounded in his ministry.

The condemnatory attitude of this habitual pulpit prociamation consisted in its irreconcilable antagonism to the uniform and unequivocal testimony of the Lord Himself, assuring all of His disciples with indefatigable assiduity aud even climaxing His ministry with this valedictory, "Lo, I come quickly," recip• rocated by the Church in unbroken and unequivocal unanimity; "Amen; even so come

Lorn Jesus.,,

We see in these deliverances of our Lord in His valedictory sermon on His second coming, which He preached on Mt. Olivet Wednesday afternoon before His crucifixion, recorded in Matt. 24-25 chs; Mark 13 and Luke

21 ch, a number of allegations for which this man is pronounced a "wicked and slothful servant," e. g. beating bis fellow-servants, i. e. oppressing them financially and otherwise, eating and drinking with the drunken, living luxuriantly :md wantonly. These are really grave and criminal charges, unapologizably condemnatory; but the gravest of all, illustrated by the prominence of the first place in the catalogue, is the cha:rge of saying; ''My Lord delayeth His coming."· The rationale of its condemnatory prominence consists in its down right and unapologizable contradiction of his Lord's positive, unequivocal and repeated affirmation.

While this allegation is pertinent against myriads in all lands prominent in the popular pulpits and reciprocated by their members with grateful complacency; as they well know that they are not prepared to meet Him, such is the appalling apostasy of the world- • ly churches that a preacher would quickly incur ecclesia~tical ostracism and decapitation if he should dare to lift up his voice like a trumpet "Behold He cometh." Therefore we are not writing these appeals to them as it is hardly probable they will ever read them. But I am frank to confess my deep concern,

intensified by the brotherly kindness which fills my heart, in behalf of my beloved comrades in this great Holiness movement now throwing its arms around the world, hugging the saints of all nations in its embrace, regardless of race, color, or nationality and shouting from pole to pole, the battle cry to the Lord. It grieves my heart to think that we are not a unit on this great truth of the Lord's coming and His kingdom; as the Bible is certainly a unit touching this concomitant proclamation along with the holiness battle cry ringing beneath every sky.

God in His word gives but one verdict, and that is that the Lord has gone away to receive a kingdom and return (Luke 19 ch). I am unwilling that any of 011rholiness brethren shall be found caught in the boomerang of condemnation for saying "My Lord delayeth His com,. ing." You see for yourselves that every postmillennialist in the whole world is caught in this boomerang along with that "wicked servant" who says, "My Lord delayeth His coming."

You see the preacher here described actually turns out to be a hypocrite and is cast into into hell. Brother, I would not keep company with them, lest I might finally be found

in the same condemnation. Certainly every postmillennialist does say "My Lord delayeth

His coming" a thousand years at least, from the simple fact that millennium, from mz1le a thousand and anus a year, simply means a thousand years. Therefore you cannot be a postmillennialist without falling under the condemnation of our blessed Savior for saying "My Lord delayeth His coming."

You frankly admit that Jesus commands us to look for Him all the time. If you do not see this clearly, I beg you read His valedictory sermon, from which we make these quotations, once more on your knees. I know you want to obey Him on earth as the angels in heaven. If this is not so, you are a long ways from sanctification and so much need an altar of prayer. You are bound to admit that Jesus commands us to look for Him all the time. You cannot read the New Testament without seeing these commandments more frequently reiterated than any others.

You are bound to admit that any doctrine whatever that disqualifies us to obey the Lord is false. There is not a sensible person in the world who cannot see the utter irreconcilability of the postmillennial view with a constant outlook for His appearing. The postmillen-

nialist believes the millennium has to come and make its thousand years run before our Lord returns to the earth. Therefore you see the utter impossibility for the postmillennialist to be looking for the Lord today, which you cannot deny to be the true attitude of every disciple as positively and repeatedly commanded by our Savior.

Is it possible a.ny person walking in the glorious light of entire sanctification will believe the doctrine which flatly contradicts Jesus and really disqualifies you to obey Him?

I would gfadly seal my faith \Vith my blood rather than disobey a solitary commandment of my Lord. As He commands me to look for Him all the time, which is impossible if I were a postmillennialist, therefore I would gladly lay down my life rather than to accept this error and preach it to others.

I have no trouble on the subject as I do not find a syllable in the Bible that even looks that way, but find both Testaments, without a solitary dissenting voice, on the other side. Of course the Lord will come before the millennium, because it is simply another name for His glorious kingdom which He will bring with Him, thus riding down from heaven on the throne of His millennial theo-

cracy (Rev. 19), which shall supersede all of the fallen kingdoms (Dan. 2:44), fill the whole earth and stand forever. I am perfectly assured there is not a glimpse of the postmillennial view in the Bible. Of course they find it in human creeds and tl:eologies. We should remember that these are all post-apostolical, dating since the fall of Rome, A. D. 476, when ancient civilization so rapidly evanesced and the Dark Ages, Satan's millennium, came on. The first creed was made A. D. 325, when the darkness of barbarism and superstition, fast conquering the world, began to eclipse the sun of ancient civilization which bad shown so brilliantly in the pal!}ly days of Greece and Rome. The long thousand years of Satan's millennium during the reign of ignorance and superstition proved the prolific hot-bed of human creeds and theologies, which even to this day encumber the orthodox denominations.

Holiness people are not church :fighters, but devil fighters. We have neither time nor ammunition to expend in a war on the churches. We are truly debtors to all that we may save some. We need all of our guns and ammunition in order to wage success£ull y, this exterminating war against sin and Satan. But

having all we possibly can do and all the Lord has given us to do, to prosecute this war, we must be utterly disencumbered of creeds and theologies, if we would fight successfully and in the good time coming receive a crown unlike that of the Olympic racer in the fact that it will never fade away (1 Peter 5:1.)

Postmillennialism is a mere theology, not only alien to Scripture, but as you see, positively irreconcilable with the plain preaching of Jesus. Therefore it must go into the waste-basket, with the humanisms of byegone ages. We should all pray night and day, not only that the Holiness people may be delivered from the fetters of creeds and theologies, but that we may not fail to declare the whole counsel of God (Actc:. 20:27), as we can only in that way be pure from the blood of all men.

As entire sanctification, which is the only available qualification for a place in the rapture of the saints, (Matt. 25:1-12) and constant outlook for our Lord's appearing, characterize the true attitude of all saints, therefore any teaching which does not measure up to the former and hold a tight grip on the latter is not only short of the Bible standard, but

eminently risky. It is our high calling, glorious privilege and imperative duty to labor night and day to secure to all of, our hearers, not only citizenship in the kingdom, but a place in the Bridehood. Therefore anything calculated to lower the standard of entire sanctification and the copious infilling and abiding of the Holy Ghost, or relax the constant outlook for our Lord's appearing, is inadequate to our high and glorious calling to get the Bride ready for the return of her royal Spouse.

As the postmillennial view not only relaxes the vigilance, but utterly disqualifies its te• cipient for this attitude of constant expectation, its preacher assumes an awful responsibility. While constant outlook for His appearing has really been the attitude of the saints in all by-gone ages and so enforced by the positive and repeated commandment of our Savior, now that the prohecies have been so fulfilled that we have the most cogent reasons to believe and even to know that our Lord must be very nigh, the preacher who dares to say, "My Lord delayeth His coming" (Matt. 24:49) assumes a re~ponsibility not only grave, but alarming in the extreme. Therefore, de:1rbrother, I would never again occupy

that attitude. You cannot feel obliged to preach anything but God's Nord, even though you may read it in a theological book. Jesus says His Word will judge us. When we stand before the Great White Throne, we will never hear of creeds and theologies. Hence the only question for us to consider is simply, Am I robed and ready?

As a Holiness preacher your responsibilities transcend those of any other man in the world. Our ranks are supplied from all the religions and nationalities of the earth. The Holy 1Ghost has called them out and broken them loose from their native moorings, and given us a new people, hungry for the truth as it is in Jesus, ready to receive the flaming ipse dixit of the Almighty as He thundered it from Sinai and Jesus preached it in Galilee. Oh what a glory shines down from heaven, irradiating the brow of the sanctified preacher, crying "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," and shouting "Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him.'J We have nothing to do but ring these proclamations night and day. They are inalienable either from other; like Siamese twins, they live and die together. Good Lord help us all to be true and give the

trumpet no uncertain sound. Anything whatever out of harmony with these cardinal truths, constant readiness and outlook, are unscriptural, grievous to the Holy Ghost and should be at once discarded, as our time is short, and we have no opportunities to waste. Let us be up and every man at his post. The Lord permits me to travel and preach throughout the United States. Consequently I enjoy a very extensive acquaintance with the Holiness people. I am very happy to say a very small per cent. of them entertain this postmillennial view of our Lord's coming. They, so far as I can learn, are under the influence of certain old clergymen in our ranks, who have never succeeded in dropping off the shackles of the dead ecclesiasticisms whence we came. Of course they wield an influence with the young preachers, which is all right. They deserve reverence and love for their works' sake; bqt remember Jesus is our only and infallible exemplar. We must eliminate everything that antagonizes His infallible teaching. Things whi~h we find in our theological books alien to the New Testament, we must be content to leave in the libraries, take the precious Word, go and preach it to the dying millions, rushing to ruin at race-horse speec!.

God, in His wonderful providence, has thrown open the door wide as the world. I verily believe it is the eleventh hour movement, when multitudes waiting all the day long are receiving the commission and going forth to preach the everlasting gospel. Truly Ethiopia is stretching forth her hands. The great Dark Continent, with her three hundred millions of heathens, now throws open the door from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, with her twenty thousand miles of coast, vociferously calling for the bread and water of life. Great old Asia, with her eight hundred millions from time immemorial dominated by idolatry and superstition, is sending out her piteous wails which burden every breeze that wafts the missionary ship across the ocean. In the days of John Wesley, Dr. Coke went to Ceylon a lonely pioneer. Now there are three great annual conferences in India. Adoniram Judson and his wife went alone to Burmah one hundred and fifty years ago, toiled all of their lives with but little encouragement. They sowed the seed, which sprang up and produced a great harvest, bringing on all of that dark land a glorious sunburst of Christian civilization.

The Jap-Russian war is a fulfillment of proph-

ecy. "And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet: for they are the spirits of demons working miracles which go forth to the kings of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. Behold I come as a thief: blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, that he may not walk about naked and they may see his shame. And he gathered them into the place called in Hebrew Harmageddon." (Rev. 16:13-16). In this prophecy Russia, with her carnal religion, verifies the beast, Japan with her old Paganism, the dragon, and Turkey, with her internal wars, Bulgaria, et cetera, the false prophet, as she is the only upholder of the Mohammedan power on the earth. So we have in this prophecy fallen carnal Christianity, Paganism and Mohammedanism, stirring up all the kings of the earth to the great and final conflict of Harmageddon (Rev. 19) where we see all of the kings in battle array against the King of kings, and you see they all go down in signal and final defe~.t, and their diadems, placed on the brow of the Omnipotent Conqueror. The time honored kingdoms of the earth are shaking as by

the throes of a mighty earthquake, tottering to their foundation, destined soon to topple and fall before the King of kings and Lord of lords, who has long waited on them to repent; but the day of their doom expedites when they must forever forfeit the thrones, which they have so long usurped, since the fall of the Theocracy, when Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem B. C. 587, and Gentile rule supervened, which, by the Lunar chronology, has expire1 plus twelve years, the Calendar, in thirty years, and the Solar in sixty-five years.

Daniel, 12th chapter, gives the Tribulation forty-five years, which belongs to the Gentile dispensation and will wind it up. Therefore the Lunar chronology shows the Tribulation overdue fifty-seven years; the Calendar gives it overdue fifteen years and the Solar, makes it due in twenty years. These stubborn facts appertaining to the latter day prophecies and their fulfilment, precipitate on us the conclusion that we are actually living in the time of the end and the rapture of the saints, which must precede the tribulation, (Daniel 12:1) is at hand. Let no one think we are appointing God a time. We are simply taking heed to His word,

which cannot fail. If the Jews had done this they would have escaped the awful calamities that came on them, temporal and spiritual. The sceptre had already departed from Judah which Jacob (Gen. 49:10) gave as a positive sign of the Lord's coming. Besides the sev• enty weeks of Daniel were running out on them. These, with other Messianic prophecies, should have opened their eyes to see their own Christ when He came, hailing their Shiloh and Redeemer, and enjoy the glorious honor of introducing Him to the whole world. Instead of this, they blindly rejected Him and plunged into hopeless ruin, temporal and eternal.

Wonderfully does history repeat itself as the ages roll on. The Gentile church is this day committing the awful blunders which ruined their predece~sors. As at that time all of the Christians were delivered from the destruction of Jerusalem, so in our day will all the saints of the Bridehood be rescued from these terrible troubles coming on the whole world and even now, adumbrated by the bel• ligerent state of the East.

Whereas constant expectancy has always been the mandatory normal attitude of the Church, it is pre-eminently so now as the Lord

is so very nigh. Therefore it is inexcusably pertinent that the Holiness people, who represent the Bride of Christ in all the earth in a special and pre-eminent sense, in the providence of God now dispersed in every nation under heaven, should give the trumpet no uncertain sound, but heroically and indefatigably preach radical sanctification, the copious infilling and abiding of the Holy Spirit, accompanied by the constant outlook for our Lord's glorious appearing. During the long roll of the Dark Ages, followed by the day dawn and foggy morning preceding the glorious brilliancy of the Son of Righteousness, rising on all the world with healing in his wings; thus lighting up the nations with the glorious effulgence of entire sanctification accompanied· by the proclamation of His near coming; there might be some apology for the postmil1ennial view, so congenial to unsanctified experiences, which really do not get people ready to meet their coming King. But if we preach entire sanctification heroically and lead the people into that glorious, triumphant experience, which really qualifies them for the rapture and keeps them always ready to fly up with a shout and meet the Lord in the air, how congenial and natural for us at the same time to instruct

them in reference to the glorious prophecies and promises appt:rtaining to His delectable coming and at the same time so inspiring to their hopes and invigorating to their experience.

So, my brethren, let Dark Age theologies float away with the mists of the morning and all hail the glorious "Son of Righteousness rising on the world with healing in His wings." With unbroken unanimity, appreciate this silver trumpet more than ever before and blow it with a fidelity and heroism, tha.t will never flicker an iota. God said to Ezekiel, "Son of man, I made thee a watchman to the whole house of Israel."

''If thou shall mistake one note of that trumpet to sound, I will hang upon these battlements the watchman on his round."

So be sure that you are clear of the blood of all men. In that case you must not only be sure that you preach the truth, and the whole truth; but be equally sure that you preach nothing but the truth. We have so much to do and so little time in which to do it, that we dare not waste a moment. The Lord demands it all.

Therefore let us leave the creeds and theol-

ogies, with the darker days of by-gone centuries when.ce they emanated, and content ourselves to preach the Word, fearless of men and devils; no fight with the churches, but the glorious message of the salvation full and free, accompanied by the shout, "Behold He cometh;" remembering our vows to be true to God, church or no church, and preach the Bible, with no time for anything else. As postmillennialism is only in theological books, which have no authority, and not a trace of it in the Bible, we have two reasons not to preach it; the one because it is not in our com... mission and we have no time for it; the other because it cannot be preached without serious damage to all of those who hear and believe it from the patent fact that it can have no effect, but to relax their outlook for the Lord, which we ought to do our utmost to invigorate and intensify.

That is like the doctrine and experience of entire sanctification, which Wesley said we should preach constantly, urgently and explicitly. These are the two oars of the boat, by which we row across times' stormy river and secure a safe landing on a bright golden shore of a glorious immortality. So be sure you never again say a word calculated to

weaken either the one or the other i. e. constant readiness to meet the Lord and vivid expectation of His glorious appearing.

"Now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling and to establish you blameless in the presence of His glory with rejoicing, to God our only Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power before every age even now and unto all the ages."

Amen. (Jude 24.)

WILLIAM BAXTER GODBEY (June 3, 1833September 12, 1920) was raised a Methodist in Pulaski County, Kentucky, who experienced his moment of conversion at a Baptist revival in November of 1849. Godbey became a licensed preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in the Kentucky Conference in 1853. After graduating from Georgetown College with a bachelor’s degree in 1859, he served as President of Harmonia College in Perryville, Kentucky while also preaching on the Perryville Circuit from 1859-1869. He married America Emma Durham (1839-1915) in 1860. (1873-1906) survived to adulthood. In December of began to preach holiness revivals.

From the 1860s through the 1880s, Godbey preached the doctrine of holiness throughout the South. He wrote over 200 books and pamphlets on topics of holiness theology and even taught for a while at God’s Bible School in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1878 he converted Alma Birdwell White, future founder and bishop of the Pillar of Fire Church. He eventually returned to the Kentucky Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church and was buried in Perryville, Kentucky.