lieve in inflamed and weak nerves, you call it neuralgia; we call it a deception." P. 391. Compare other inventions in this line, for instance about salted fish, p. 384, about catarrh, fever, rheumatism, etc. being illusion, pp. 385, 395, 416, 81, 392. See II. Kings, 13 : 14, "Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died." But why did Mrs. Eddy go to the dentist? And why did she, as Rev. Charles A. Crane, of Boston, testifies, for a few years take medicine for a bodily ailment?

CHAPTER XV.

Why should a Lutheran not join any of the Non-Sectarian Combines such as the Y. M. C. A. and Secret Orders?

Introductory remarks. One of the outgrowths of the various Reformed churches is the craze to unite into religious organizations on non-essentials, regardless of the very essentials. Thus there is the American S. S. Union and the International S. S. Association, which control most of the Sectarian Sunday Schools of the country. Accordingly, these unions, so as not to offend, must exclude essential parts of the Word of God, in fact the very fundamentals. Besides these there is the Y. M. C. A. and its equivalent, the Y. W. C. A., the Society of Christian Endeavor, the Epworth League, the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, Knights of King Arthur, Junior Christian Endeavor, etc. It is immaterial to all these societies, to what faith their members belong. The members find full satisfaction of their church instinct, and are of the opinion that they fulfill all their Christian duties simply by applying a religious coat of varnish, by joining these societies. The same must be said of all secret orders. The employing of a chaplain, prayers, the reading of Holy Writ, funerals, and other services, give them the stamp of religious organizations. This is the principal reason why the Lutheran Church has always antagonized lodges or secret societies. Other reasons will be named in succession. All these combines are indifferent as to just what is the truth.

A Lutheran should beware of these, since indifferentism

1. Is rooted in unbelief. In particular, two sins are committed:

a. These religious enthusiasts confuse the Scriptures with our knowledge. The Bible is infallible, and it is nothing but the truth that we gather from it. But our

knowledge, and even that which we gather from Holy Writ, is fragmentary, in part, I. Cor. 13:9. As far as we have gathered from the Scriptures, it is the truth, and no illusion, much the same as that is no illusion whatever we see of the countless stars, although we neither see them all nor in their full splendor. But whatever we draw from our own reasoning or imagination without being corrected by the Word of God, may be illusion. Confusing the clear statements of Holy Writ with our ability to know, is wrong; and the promoting of such confusion is just as wrong as circulating counterfeit money.

b. They do not subordinate their reason under the Word of God. See Ch. 1-3. If any one is convinced that the Bible is the infallible Word of the All-wise, the Almighty, Merciful and Good God, then it does matter to Him whether the Word of God is misrepresented or not, indeed, a thousand times more so than if his own. utterances were misrepresented. To whom, however, it does not matter whether or not Holy Writ in all points is infallible, neither will it be of any consequence to him just what Scriptural doctrine is in the one point or the other. It is easy, then, for such a one to reject what seems unreasonable. And the very heart of Scriptural doctrine, JUSTIFICATION, appears the most unreasonable of all. In all Sectarian Churches alike one will receive the impression that one is a good and holy and righteous person. In the Lutheran Church one will soon discover that one's sanctification is not nearly that what it ought to be, and that one very sorely needs the grace of God and the remission of sins, and also actually gets it. Sectarians refuse to believe that they are utterly lost and condemned creatures, which cannot by their own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ or come to Him. They refuse to admit that man by nature is spiritually blind, dead, and an enemy of God. Not realizing their own wretchedness, not seeing the yawning abyss of everlasting torment, they do not take much stock in that God justifies the ungodly, they even smile at the utter necessity of the Son of God shedding His blood and suffering the damnation of the wicked in hell. For this reason we

are not at all surprised to find that Sectarians co-operate, and that at the same time they let doctrine be doctrine. They unite in the points in which they had been one in spirit before; their whole Christianity is justification by works, or, to use Dowie's words, doing right, doing right, DOING RIGHT.

2. Indifferentism battles against Holy Writ, and against the statements of faith in the Lutheran and the Old Christian Church.

a. Let us hear the testimony of the Scriptures.

Eph. 2:8-9, "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." (If one does not care whether or not he has the correct notion concerning Christ's person, neither will he care whether or not God is actually satisfied with the atonement of Christ, nor does he care whether or not he has the proper means of grace. If one is indifferent as to what constitutes the Church, he is also indifferent as to belonging to the very number of those entering heaven. And if one is indifferent about his own wretchedness, he will also think little of the grace of God.)

Matth. 28: 20, "To observe all things." (No choice left to us as to what we should teach.)

Matth. 5: 18-19, "One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass." (We should not change or falsify God's Word.)

John 8:31. The discipleship and eternal life is conditioned by the remaining in the Word of Christ. See Ch. IV.,

2.

Irenaeus: "The apostles as well as their disciples went so far in their precaution that they refused even to mingle in a conversation with those that would craftily seek to pervert the truth by their inventions."

Luther at one time expresses his horror over a case of open communion, and then adds: "Whoever has such ministers, or looks forward to them, let him be warned of them as of the very devil." (Kansas District, 1898, p. 52.)

3. Indifferentism always destroys in its effects and consequences.

a. It renders the foundation of all faith, Holy Writ, unsafe and uncertain. Ps. 11: 3, "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

b. It obscures the way to salvation. John 5:39, "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me.' The more the Sectarians lose sight of the righteousness of Christ, the more they will choose a righteousness of their own.

c. It makes the believers uncertain of their state of grace. The assurance of faith rests entirely upon the say-so of the Lord, Ps. 119:105, "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."

d. Indifferentism is the prolific parent of all heresies, Matth. 13:25, "While men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way."

e. Indifferentism leads either to unbelief or to the papacy. Medicine containing poison will kill, if taken in too large quantities or taken continually. The don't-care religion is a hunting for adventures. It is leaving the solid shore on a frail boat without a rudder, then an aimless drifting upon the ocean of human opinion, until it is hopelessly caught in the whirlpool of the Roman Catholic Church. See Ch. X. Compare the words of Cardinal Gibbons at the end of Ch. III.

We have mentioned our chief reason against Secret Orders. No less a person than Rev. R. A. Torrey, the evangelist (not a Lutheran), mentions as many as five reasons against them, and also says there are more. "Freemasons," he writes Dec. 29, 1910,

1. "Place a ban on the name of Christ. They do not want him as their Lord."

2. He has no time for the lodge. In becoming a good lodgemember he would become a faithless churchmember.