The Burning of the Brooklyn Tabernacle: Anniversary Discourse

“He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” — Matthew iii., 11.

MEN had better listen when God speaks in wave, or wind, or storm, or earthquake, or conflagration. God spoke to Job out of the hurricane; to Lisbon, out of the earthquake; to both continents by the burning of the Austria in mid-ocean, the driving against Mars Head of the Atlantic the awful going down of the Ville du Havre; while he spoke to our own congregation last December, through the burning of the Brooklyn Tabernacle. God’s most vehement utterances are in flames of fire. The most tremendous lesson he ever gave to New York was in the conflagration of 1835; to Chicago, in the conflagration of 1871; to Boston, in the conflagration of 1872; to our own congregation, in the fiery downfall of our beloved place of worship.

The day was full of merciless frost. Things cracked with the cold. Man and beast felt it was a day to have warm shelter. The bell had rung for religious service, and the families of our congregation had started for the accustomed place of worship, some with thanksgivings that they must needs offer, some with sorrows that they must needs have healed, all of them with souls that needed more preparation for the judgmentday. A

830 THE BUliXING OF THE BROOKLYN TABERNACLE.

black flag of smoke against the sky, and the rush of the hose-carriages made us ask, “Where is it? what ward? Horrible to be turned out of house and home on such a day as this 1” Some one says, “It is in the direction of the Tabernacle. Ay, it is the church!” and there is a rush past the streets crying, “Fire! fire!” And instead of sitting down in placid worship that day, our congregation, joined by other congregations on the streets, stood in the presence of God before the altar of a burning church. Many wrung their hands and thought of the sacred scenes in which there they had mingled — the baptisms, the weddings, the burials, the communion-days, the scenes of revival, the deliverances, and the victories. All efforts at extinguishment seemed to fail. The great organ, as the flames roared through its pipes, played its own reauiem, and the walls came down with a crash that made the earth tremble. Some saw in that nothing but unmitigated disaster, while others of us heard the voice of God as from heaven, sounding through the crackling thunder of that awful day, saying, “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire!” The Lord has fulfilled the prophecy. That wdiich threatened to be entire extinguishment has really been an unmistakable benediction.

Through many self-denials, and through kindness and practical help on all sides, our building hastens toward completion. Through a panic that has staggered the land, and made some of the noblest enterprises come to a dead halt, the work has gone gradually but surely on, and we shall soon have a house to dedicate to the Lord, a house marvelous for capacity, and for beauty, and for strength, in which men and women for many generatloiis will assemble to worship God. Added to that, while we were in the wilderness, the Lord has descended mightily in a pentecostal blessing, and a great multitude have cried out after God, and there has been a rush foi the cross, and a wailing over sin, and a jubilant shout over pardon such as you and I have never before heard. “Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever!” Out of darkness he brings light. Out of trouble he brings assurance. Out of defeat he brings victory. Out of smoking, crackling, roaring, devastating calamity, “he baptizes us with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.”

I propose this morning, so far as God may help me, to draw out the analogy between these two baptisms — the baptism of last December and the baptism of this December.

First, I remark they were both sudden. We all felt that whatever else might go down, that Tabernacle never could. We thought it fire-proof When on that cold December day that building was in flames, there was on every countenance in the street amazement. Sudden as sudden could be! So has it been with the other baptism — the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The spiritual fire broke out here on Sabbath night, and, while hundreds were rising and asking for prayers, there was a look of amazement on the faces of the people, and some aged Christians wondered what it all meant. The first baptism — suddenly. The next baptism — suddenly. So nearly always does the Spirit come. So it came when Jonathan Edwards preached in Northampton, and John Livingstone in Scotland, and William Tennant preached in Monmouthj and Dr. Finlay preached in Baskinridge, and JSTettleton, and Daniel Baker, and Truman Osborne, and Mr. Earle, and Edward Payson HanQinond preached everywhere. Almost always the blessing came suddenly. It has been especially so in our midst. In a night family altars have been reared in houses where before there was no prayer; infidels persuaded of the truth of Christianity in five minutes; children going at three o’clock to the Sabbath-schools unsaved coming home Christians at five o’clock; men coming into these services to make merry with the anxiety of those who were seeking after God, themselves at the close rising for prayer; and many of the old passages of Scripture that seemed to lie dormant in the hearts of God’s people have flashed up with unwonted and overwhelming power.

Whitefield was once preaching on Blackheath, and a man and his wife coming from market saw the crowd and went up to hear. Whitefield was saying something about what happened eighteen hundred years ago, and the man said to his wife, “Come, Mary, we will not stop any longer. He is talking about something that took place more than eighteen hundred years ago. What’s that to us?” But they were fascinated. They could not get away. The truth of God came to their hearts. When they were home, they took down the Bible and said, “Is it possible that these old truths have been here so long and we have not known it?” Ah! it was in the flash of God’s Spirit on Blackheath that they were saved — the Spirit coming mightily, and suddenly, and overwhelmingly upon them. So it was that God’s Spirit came to Andrew Fuller, and James Hervey, and the Earl of Eochester, and Bishop Latimer — suddenly. So it came to multitudes in this assemblage, both the baptism of fire and the baptism of the Holy Ghost. A father was enraged whose child was interested in religious things many years ago, because she would go to the place of worship. He forbade her going; but she slipped out when he was not watching. He said, “There now, she has gone to the meeting;” and he went to the meeting. She was kneeling at the altar. He put his arms around her with indignation to carry her out, when she cried, ‘’ Father, you are too late; I have found Jesus 1” And so there have been those among us who would like to have kept Christ out of their families, but they came not soon enough to succeed. It is too late, father; your child has already found Jesus.

But I remark again, the analogy between these two baptisms — the baptism of fire and the baptism of the Holy Ghost — is in the fact that they were both irresistible. IN’otwithstanding all our boasted machinery and organization for putting out fires, the efforts that were made did not repulse the flames last December one single instant. Having begun, they kept on more and more triumphantly, clapping their hands over the destroyed building. There was a great sound of fire-trumpets and brave men walking on hot walls; but the flames were balked not an instant. So it has been with the Holy Spirit moving through the hearts of this people. Why, there have been aged men who for forty or fifty years resisted the truth who have surrendered! There have been men here who have sworn that the religion of Jesus Christ should never come into their households; they and their children kneel now at the same altar. We have all felt it. Formalists trying to put out the spiritual fire have only had their trouble for their pains. It has gone on.

It is going on now, conquering pride, and worldliness, and sin; and I pray it may keep on until it has swept everything before it, and there shall be in every household an altar, and in every heart a throne for the blessed Jesus. Go on, great baptism of the Holy Ghost as with fire!

In the days of revival in England, when John Wesley was preaching, everywhere scoffers would mimic his preaching, and one man thought it was very smart to gather an audience, and stand up with a Bible, and take John Wesley’s favorite text, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish;” and he preached — he, the scoffer — to an audience of scoffers, until the truth rebounded on his own heart and he cried for mercy, and the truth overwhelmed the hearts of his hearers, and they cried for mercy, and instead of being an audience of mockers it became an audience of seekers. Oh! this is the power of God, this is the wisdom of God unto salvation. Both baptisms — the one of fire and the one of the Holy Ghost — irresistible.

I remark again, that I find the analogy in the fact that both baptisms were consuming. Did you ever see any more thorough work than was done by that fire last December? The strongest beams turned to ashes. The iron cracked, curled up, and was destroyed. The work of the flames consummate. So it has been with the Holy Ghost :, it has been a consuming fire amidst the sins and the habits of those who despise God. How many have had their transgressions utterly consumed! Some who were victims of bad habits have had their chains broken off. Down at the club-room and down at the saloon, they wonder why these people do not come any more. Ah! instead of the laughter of fools, which is like the crackling of thorns under a pot, they have come to that religion which is joy here and hosanna forever; and after a man has set down once at the Lord’s banquet, he has no more patience with the swine’s diet. When the revival, two years ago, swept through the OAiy of Lawrence, at the West, it was stated to be a fact that the gin saloons lost fifty per cent, of their business. So may it always be — the Spirit of God consuming the dissipations of men! That Spirit has gone through the hearts and lives of many who sit before me, like fire through stubble. They have been swept by the purifying flames. Both baptisms have been consuming.

Again, I find an analogy in the two baptisms, because they both loere melting. If you examined the bars and bolts, and plumbing work of the Tabernacle after it went down, you know it was a melting process. The things that seemed to have no relation to each other adjoined — flowed together. So it has been with the Spirit of God, melting down all asperities and unbrotherliness. Heart has flowed out toward heart. It has been a melting process. If there is any thing that our city churches need, it is melting. There are a thousand icicles hanging to the eaves of our city churches where there are two icicles hanging to the eaves of the country churches. We are so afraid we will get acquainted with somebody that will not do us honor! The great want of the Church to-day is a thaw — a thaw. Oh, that the Lord God would rise up and melt down the freezing conventionalities of his Church! I think that that fire of last December and this spiritual fire of this December have melted us until we flow together in Christian sympathy, and harmony, and love, and that we can now join hands in one great family circle as a church, and sing as we never sang before:

“Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,
Our comforts and our cares.

“The glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way,
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.”

But I have, on this anniversary of the burning of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, to say that we have not, as a church, yet entered upon the mission for which God has baptized us — first with fire, and now with the Holy Ghost. We need to put forth on a more earnest mission than we have ever entered upon. God evidently does not intend us for smooth work. He has rocked us in a very rough cradle. Ofttimes has this church been assaulted in various ways, and if there are any who expect to have a smooth time and an easy pathway, they had better wake up from the delusion and get out of this church. If God baptized us with fire, it is because he means to fit us for hot and tremendous work. If you are afraid of fixtigue, and afraid of persecution, and afraid of opposition, you had better not train in this battalion, for I have no quiet encampment to offer you by still waters; but rather to tell you of a forced march, hard fighting, and a bayonet charge. I believe God means us to go forth and proclaim an earnest, uncompromising, out and out, straightforward, revolutionary, old-fashioned Gospel, that believes in repentance and regeneration, in glory and in perdition. But, my friends, in order to enter upon that work we want still more vigorous baptism of the Holy Ghost. We want that Spirit to come down in all our families with his arousing, melting, illuminating, saving presence; and I believe that then the influences which we have already had in the way of a blessing will be only as a spark compared with the great conflagration of religious enthusiasm and zeal we shall feel here.

But, my friends, when is this work to begin? If you, as a private Christian, and I, as a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, have some work to do, when shall we begin it? Kow, and here. Oh, men and women of the world! do you not feel to-day the baptism of the Holy Ghost? Is there not something in the passing of the seasons, something in this last Sabbath of the year, something in the tramp of your pulses, something in the solemn surroundings of this morning, something in the wave of influence that comes in upon your soul, to make you realize that this may be your last chance for heaven? Miss it now, and you miss it forever. Do you not see how swiftly your Sabbaths are going? Do you not see how the years of your life are rushing into a great eternity? The year 1873 has already landed thousands and tens of thousands of souls beyond the reach of all mercy. The book with twelve chapters made up of the twelve months is about finished by the recording angel, and he has his hands on the lids of that book, about to close it for the last reckoning. Oh, my hearer! if you turn your back upon your best interests, if your final opportunity for redemption disappear, if the rushing wing that passes us is the wing of the retreating spirit, if this be the moment of awful calamity — the downfall of an immortal soul — then you will see a conflagration compared with which that of last December was child’s play. It will be when the Lord shall be revealed from heaven with flaming fire, to take vengeance upon those who know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ! From that conflagration of last December we shall recover; but the soul that goes down into that final conflagration shall never recuperate. That fire in December last continued only three or four hours, and on the following day even the smoke ceased to curl up in the frosty air; but that soul that rejects Christ shall go into a fire that shall never be quenched, “and the smoke of its torment ascendeth up forever and forever.” May God Almighty through Jesus Christ keep us out of that! Whatever misfortune and disaster may come upon us in this world, let it come; but God forbid that any of us should lose heaven! We can not afford to lose our soul. Save that, we have saved every thing. Lose that, we have lost every thing. Instead of the baptism that consumes, oh that we might this morning, penitently, believingly, prayerfully, joyfully receive the baptism that saves! I suppose that some of you know there were persons who stood in the presence of that burning church last December who for the first time sought after God. They said then to themselves; indeed they arose in the prayer-meetings afterward, and said it: “When I stood in the presence of that building, I was reminded as never before that there was nothing fire-proof, that there was nothing on earth certain, and there and then, in the presence of that devastation and ruin, I resolved that I would be the Lord’s, and I have kept my promise. I have given my heart to Jesus.” Oh! if that was the result in some souls on that cold Sabbath day, now, when this morning I rehearse the scene, shall it not be, under God’s Spirit, the means of bringing some of you to Christ? You have tried this world. You have been drinking out of the fountains of its pleasure. You have tried in January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and now nearly to the close of December, and tell me frankly, oh man of the world! is there any thing this side Christ and heaven that can give solace, and peace, and contentment to your immortal nature? No; you know there is nothing. You have tried the world, and it has failed you. It is a cheating world. It is a lying world. It is a dying world. Oh, seek after God to-day, and be at peace with him I

340 THE bhiohtest of bats.