Free Churches Advocated

“The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all.” — Proverbs xxii., 2.

NO one class ia a community is independent of the other classes. That is not a healthful condition of society in which men stand aloof from each other. That is a better state when people, moving in different circles, at some time come upon a common platform. What is true in the world is true in the Church: “the rich and the poor ought to meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all.” I do not think that the Church of Christ has kept pace with the enterprise of the world. Some years ago, it took a long time to make a nail. The blacksmith would take the bar of iron, thrust it into the hot coals, move the bellows, bring the iron out on the anvil, smite it, cleave it, round it, fashion it into nails. It was a long and tedious process; but now the iron is put into a machine, and in a moment hundreds of nails are showered upon the floor of the manufactory. Once it required some time to thresh wheat from the straw. The farmer would take the sheaf of wheat, tear off the straw that bound it, scatter it on the floor of the barn, and then the slow flail would pound the wheat out of the straw; now the horses start, and the machine rumbles, and a sheaf of wheat is threshed instantly.

In olden times that was considered a wonderful printing-press which could make two hundred and fifty impressions in an hour; now, by our modern steam printing-press, thousands and tens of thousands are made in the same length of time. The Post-office was formerly a slow affiiir. Once in two weeks the mail would go from London to Edinburgh, and at about the same distance of time go from New York to Boston; but now, half a dozen times a day, you must look out or you will be run over by the wagons that come down Nassau Street with whole tons of United States mails, seven hundred millions of letters and papers having passed through the public post-offices of this country in one year.

So there has been an advance in jurisprudence. In 1846 the constitution of our State was changed, improvements were made in the criminal code, in the civil code — law that would do very well in 1777, not doing at all in 1873. Now, I ask if the Church of God has kept pace with worldly enterprise? with the post-office? with modern railroad transportation? with the arts? with the sciences? with optics? with geology? with astronomy? “Oh,” you say, “there is no new principle in religion to be developed.” Well, I respond, there is no new principle in science to be developed. They are only the old principles that have come to light and demonstration. There was just as much electricity in the clouds before Benjamin Franklin played kite with the thunder-storms as there has been since. The law of gravitation did not wait for Newton to come. There was just as much power in steam before Fulton discovered it as since. The carboniferous and Jurassic strata of the earth did not wait to take their position until Hugh Miller planted his crow-bar. So, in matters of religion, if a man comes, and says, “I have now discovered an entirely new principle in religion;” I say, “I have no faith in what you are going to say. I have but one standard, and that is the Bible.” But if he says, “I have an old Bible principle that I wish to evolve and demonstrate,” then, with all the possible attention of my soul, I say, “Hear! hear!” I propose to-night to argue on behalf of a Free Church. There are a great many who do not quite understand the pUms and policies of such a church. In the first place, I believe in such a church because it seems to me to be the Scriptural idea. The apostle James says: “If there come into your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor. Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?” In other words, the apostle James draws a picture. It is a meeting of Christian people; the usher stands at the door; two people come to the door and ask for seats. The usher looks at the one man, examines him from head to foot, sees that his garments are dictated by the recent fashion, and says, “Come here, sir, I’ll give you an excellent seat;” takes him far up in front, gives him a seat, and says, “I hope you will be very comfortable.” Then the usher goes back, sees the other man, scrutinizes him very thoroughly, and says, “Poor coat, worn shoes, old hat. I think you will find a very good place to stand in that corner.” Now, the lightnings of that passage strike such an usher; in other words, you have no right to arrange a man’s position in the house of God according to his financial qualifications. Do you suppose that the seats in the tabernacle of olden time, the temple, and the synagogue, were ever rented by worshipers? Oh no; you tell me those were miraculous times. You say in our times churches are such expensive institutions. We want all this costly machinery. Let me tell you no church of the day costs half so much as did the old temple, and yet that temple in olden times was supported by voluntary contributions. When the farmer brought his harvest in, he said, “These sheaves are for the Lord.” When the flocks were drawn up, he said, ‘’These lambs are for God.” When the birds were caught, he said, “These pigeons, and these doves, are for sacrifice.” The temple, the tabernacle, all supported by voluntary contributions. But you say men were more generous in those times. No, no; the world has been advancing all the time; there has never been so much generosity on earth as now.

Do you suppose it would have been possible for the Christian and Sanitary commissions that we had during the last war to have prospered in those ancient times? No, they could not have been supported two thousand, one thousand, or five hundred years ago. They are projected in this Christian age. Now, I say, if in those dark times, and in that wicked city of Jerusalem, the temple could be supported by voluntary contributions, can we not in this Christian age, and in the full blaze of the Gospel light, and when the doctrine of Christian beneficence is so much inculcated, support a plain church? The fact is, that the modes of constructing church finances have chilled the voluntary principle, and dammed back the charities of the world; when, if we had gone back to the old Bible plan in all our churches, there would have been larger benevolence and a more extensive support of the institutions of religion. So that I come back now with more emphasis than ever, to say, “If there come into your assembly a man with a gold ring and goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man with vile raiment, and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him. Sit thou here in a good place, and say to the poor. Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool, are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?” Oh, how different it would be in all our churches if, instead of having them supported by a few men, we could have the great masses of the people bring their mites into the Lord’s treasury.

I argue, farther, in behalf of a Free Church, because I think it is the only practical common -sense mode for city evangelization. The Church has tried scores of ways. We have gone out with tracts, and with our Bibles and religious books, among the people in the destitute parts of the city. Some have refused to take them. Some have burned them up. Some have read them and tried to reform; but as long as we leave them down amidst the evil influences by which they are surrounded, and do not bring them into some Christian church — if you reform them fifty times, fifty times they will be unreformed. In other words, here is a man down by the marshes with chills and fever. The physician comes and gives him quinine, and stops the chills; but just as long as that man continues to live down by the swamps, he will be subjected to the same ailment. Bring him out on the hill-top, where the atmosphere is clear, if you want him to be permanently restored. Now, I say of those people who live in the slums of city destitution, as long as you leave them there they will fall into their old sins; but if you bring them into the healthy atmosphere of a Christian church, then you may hope for their permanent reformation. If you can say to them, “There is a free church, there is a free Bible, there is a free cross, and yonder is a free heaven,” they will accept the invitation and come with you.

Mark this, my friends, that when you save the cities, you save the world. When Pekin comes to Christ, all China will come. When Paris surrenders to God, all France will surrender. When London prays, England will pray with her. When New York bows at the feet of Christ, the United States will bow with her. Save the cities, and you save the world.

I knew this city of Brooklyn eighteen years ago. Since then there have been great efforts made for the evangelization of the city, and yet you know as well as I that there is more sin in the city to-day, more Sabbath-breaking, and a vaster population who come not under any kind of religious influence. Where is Brooklyn to-day? In the churches? No! Where is New York to-day? In the churches? No! No! No! It is the exception when people go to church. A vast majority of the masses are traveling on down toward death, unassisted because uninvited. Now, if a surgeon goes into a hospital, and there are three hundred patients, and he cures twenty of them and the other two hundred and eighty die, I call that unsuccessful treatment. If the Church of God has saved some, when I compare the few that have been redeemed with the vast multitude that have perished, I say it has been a comparative failure; and if the old plan of conducting the Church of Christ has failed, let us start the ship on another tack and try another plan. In other words, come back to the Gospel theory, and throw wide open the doors of our church and tell the people to come in, without regard to their past history or their present financial or moral condition.

Again, I argue in behalf of a Free Church, because there are three or four classes of2:)eople that loill especially he touched by it. Among them will be men who were once very influential in the churches, but who lost their property, and consequently can not meet the pew-rents. I am not speaking of imaginary cases. I have seen scores of that kind of cases in the city of Brooklyn. In 1837, or in 1857, or 1867, they lost their property. They used to sit near the pulpit. The next year they went farther back in the church. The next year farther back, and farther back as their finances entirely failed them, until at last they sat back by the door; and when the treasurer went down the aisle, he tapped the man’s shoulder and said, “If you don’t pay up, you will have to vacate this seat.” What became of that man? He went out from the house of God. What becomes of the great multitude who once were influential in the Church of God, who, having lost their property, can not meet the pew-rents in the churches? They have gone — some to infidelity — some into lives of dissipation — God only knows where they have gone! Will men of any self-respect go to church under such a state of circumstances? I tell you, nay. If it were my case, I would stay at home and gather my children about me, and read to them of Christ and a free heaven, out of which a man is never pitched because he can not pay his pew-rent! At the very time a man most needs the consolation of religion — when his earthly fortunes have failed — at the very time that he needs most to be told about treasures that never fail, in banks that never break — the Church of God turns its back upon that man, and the work of breaking down that the Wall Street gamblers began, the Church of God finishes. It seems as if Christ, in the infinity of his foreknowledge, could not think of a Church pretending to love him that would unanimously bar out the destitute. He said, “The poor ye have always with you.” He made it not merely as a statement, but as a prophecy and a promise; and yet it does really seem as if, in this respect, the Lord God had been thwarted.

There is another class of persons to whom a Free Church will appeal, and that is the middle classes. And let me say they are the suffering ones in religious things. The wealthy may purchase religious advantages anywhere; the positively beggared may feel so humiliated, they will be willing to go into a mission chapel: but the middle classes have not money enough to buy positions in the wealthy churches, and they are too proud to go gamon the beggared. So they stay at home. When I say the middle classes, I mean those whose income just about meets their outgo; and you will immediately see that is the condition of nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand in this city and in every city. The fact is, God does not trust us with money — I mean the majority of us. Your son is at school. You do not give him a large amount of money at the start. You say to the teacher, ‘’Send in the bills.” When the bills come in, you pay for the tuition, you pay for clothing, you pay for traveling expenses. ISTow God treats us very much in that way. He clothes us, pays our traveling expenses, shelters us, but never trusts us with a large amount of money. Hence the middle classes are in the majority — those men in a community are in the majority who, when they have met the butcher’s bill, and the grocer’s bill, and the gas bill, and the clothing bill, and paid their house-rent, have nothing left. The wife says to her husband, “My dear, I think we ought to go to church somewhere. Why don’t we take a pew in Dr. Well-to-do’s church?” “Oh,” he says, “we can’t aiford it. I have more now to pay than I can pay. We can’t go there. We’ve got to deny ourselves a little longer. We’ll get a little religion perhaps at home. We’ll occasionally read the Bible, and once in a while go to a funeral, and that won’t cost us any thing; and we will pick up a little religion here and there; and after a while we may have good luck, and we will then rent a pew, and go to heaven respectably.” Many a husband and wife have consulted with each other upon matters of church economy, and before taking a pew, the husband said to the wife, “Now, you know that our income only meets our outgo. AVhat are you willing to deny yourself? Will you have this old carpet another year? Will you wear that set of furs another winter? Will you consent to have no more dresses this season? “ISTo,” she says. “Then,” he says, “we can’t afford religion, and we can’t afford the church.” And so they stay at home. My friends, open the doors of a free church, where men may meet together without invidious comparisons, and they will pour in like the tides of the sea. We have been barring out this class of men from the house of God, and barring them out from the very gate of heaven.

The fact is, that the Church has become a sort of spiritual insurance company; and the mail comes to get a policy, and you take him into a private room and sound the lungs, and listen to the beating of the heart, and then practically — not literally, but practically — you ask him if he is sound on the dollar question, and if he has been afflicted with any thing like bankruptcy, and if there has been any thing like financial sickness in the family; and if it is all right, you charge him a great premium, and tell him to be very careful and pay it promptly, for if the policy should run out, that very night he might die, and so lose all the advantages of all the pew-rent he had ever paid; and where his soul would go to would be very uncertain.

There is another class of people to whom a Free Church will appeal, and that is the rich. I am yet to find an intelligent and rich Christian man who does not believe in such an institution. He may doubt the financial success of it; but I am yet to find one such who does not believe in the principle of it. In other words, our moneyed men do not like to see the principles of Wall Street applied to the Church of God. When I say a rich man, I mean a man who has riches — not a man who has gained a little money and who is very anxious lest he can not sufficiently display it — but I mean a man who has a fortune, who masters it, and who has not allowed his fortune to master him. When you shall throw open the churches of the living God as free churches, then I want to tell you that the gold, and the silver, and the myrrh, and the frankincense will come down to the feet of Jesus. I am not merely theorizing. We demonstrated it in the old Tabernacle. There were the poor there. Then we had the middle classes — men who toiled; some with hand, and some with brain — for brain-work is poorly paid in this country. We had many of that class, and they had a hard struggle. Then we had more rich men than we ever had in the old city church — more than we ever expected — men who said, “I will pay for the Gospel not only for myself and my family, but there is a man in that pew who can not afford to pay any thing; I will pay for him. There is another man; I will pay for him. And instead of sending my money to foreign lands, where I have no doubt it does good, I will preach the Gospel to all those in the same church who can not afford to purchase religious advantages.” So it was practically demonstrated; and we shall, God willing, on a larger scale demonstrate it in the new Tabernacle. And if you shall be afraid to come to such a place lest you be socially contaminated, I hope yolx will stay away, lest you contaminate us!

I am in favor of a Free Church, further, because all the Providential indications so far as we are concerned, are in that direction. It has been the all-absorbing principle in my soul ever since I entered the ministry. It was the thing that brought me to this city. I had a comfortable home in Philadelphia, but this was a Gospel principle I thought I would like to see tried. I came here, and it so happened that all the people who gathered around me were of the same opinion, and so we have been unanimous. “We were unanimous in the style of the new church, and about the architecture of the second. We were unanimous about having it free. When we were burned down we were unanimous about reconstruction, and the principle we developed in the old church we will try to develop in the new. Where the old Tabernacle stopped when it burned down, the new Tabernacle will begin when it rises up.

Again, I am in favor of the Free Church, because it appeals to men of the world as no other kind of church does. A prominent minister of New York said to me a week or two ago, “There are no people who come into our churches here in New York but Christian people. Somehow, we do not get hold of the world.” I said, “The majority of those who come into my religious services are of the world, and I think it must be that the free Christian principle is attracting them. In other words, men of the world can not understand the limitations and the exclusiveness of the house of God. They say, ‘If you are brothers and sisters, why do not the rich and poor meet together? the Lord is the Maker of them all.’” “Oh,” you say, “those men of the world do not do their duty.” I know they do not do their duty; but if this world is to be brought to Christ — if Bibles are to be printed, if churches are to be built, if Christian institutions are to be supported — I ask you are not the dollars of the man of the world worth as much as the dollars of the man of the church? Besides that, we expect these men of the world en masse to march after a while into the kingdom of Christ. Having seen the frank, sympathetic men of the world around me as my companions, I expect they will be my companions when they and I have crossed the flood into the great eternity. I have lived with them in this city, and I expect they will be my neighbors in the better city. I know all their trials and temptations; I know all their business perplexities; I know all their hardships; and I want to stand before them a few years, and tell them of that Christ who will be their security in every financial strait and their bondsman in every crisis, and who, when the nations are in a panic and the world ablaze, will declare everlasting dividends of light, and joy, and triumph to all those who have invested their affections in him.

Men and brethren, brothers and sisters in Christ, are you ready for such a work? That which three years ago I talked to you as a mere theory has become a matter of practical demonstration. The night before the old Tabernacle was burned down, the trustees of my church met together, reviewed the finances, looked at the income, looked at the outgo, and decided that the income exceeded the outgo, proving a free church practicable. That being demonstrated, it was enough for that church. We will take that principle, and develop it on a larger scale. God will this year let you strike a blow that will ring through eternal ages. The grandeur of the work to which you have put your hand no language can describe, no imagination can conceive, no plummet sound, no ladder scale. If you shall, in the strength of God, as I think you will, rise up to this work of giving a free Gospel to the masses of Brooklyn and the masses of this country, it will take eternal ages for you to count up the rewards of your faithfulness. If some may scoff at you, let them scoff; remembering that they scoffed at Nehemiah, and at Daniel, and at Christ, and pronounced them fools. Remember, besides, that there are tens of thousands of good people in this land, and in Britain, who are prajang for our success as a Church. Above all, remember that we are under the benediction of Him in whose word we trust and in whose strength we go forward. The mountains may depart, the seas may burn, the stars may scatter, the heavens may double up like parchment, the sun may burn down in the socket, and all the worlds fly in the Judgment-day like thistle-down in a tempest; but God will back out of his promises, and betray his discipleship, and break his oath — never I never!