MR. YATES’ TENTH SPEECH.
MODERATORS, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:

I am glad to come before you again upon this momentous theme: “Is the Foreign Mission work authorized in the Scripture, and blessed and owned of God?” I affirm with all my heart that it is, and believe I have given eleven unanswerable arguments in support of the affirmative of this proposition. I have shown, from the teaching of God’s Word, from the Churches and the great moral enterprises that have been born of the Foreign Mission spirit, and from the fruits of the Foreign Mission field, that this work is of God. My worthy opponent is trying to make capital by claiming that I did not answer his question Wednesday morning in regard to the work of the missionaries in the salvation of the heathen. His question was put in such a form as to make his meaning very indefinite. It appeared to mc that it might be interpreted to mean one of two things: First, Would the gospel have been carried to the heathen, and as successfully propagated among them, if the present system of Foreign Mission work had not come into existence? or, Second, Would as many of the heathen have been saved without the gospel as with it? I answered his question directly, according to both, of these interpretations. I answered him thus that my words might not be misconstrued, or my position misunderstood. The report will show that I answered his question directly, in the manner before named, and that the answer was the same in substance as the direct answer I am going to give him now. I have learned from his speech this morning, more definitely what his design was. If his design is to know whether my position is that there would be fewer heathen saved if the gospel was not sent to them, I say: Yes. Those people would not be saved unless the gospel was sent to them, and preached to them. They would not be saved without the Foreign Mission work, I answer this question from the Word. i Corinthians vi. 9: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” Here Paul speaks of their condition before he went to Corinth, and he says that was their condition. “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” Also in i Corinthians ii. 1-3. Now we will see how this was brought about. We see what was the ordained means of God in this matter: “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God”—he declared the testimony of God, he says—“for I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your, faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” Also i Corinthians i. 21: “For after that in the Wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” Now, if that was true in the days of the apostles; it certainly is true today. If that was true in the gospel work of the first century, it is equally true today in the Foreign Mission work. Paul says they were saved through his preaching. He declared that they were begotten through the gospel. He claims them as his children. In all his writings to this very church he represents the laborers for Christ as co-laborers with God. We are laborers together with him. Jesus says, “Go preach the gospel to every creature,” and “Lo, I am with YOU alway, even unto the end of the world.” Going, teaching and preaching, with loving confidence in God, with loyalty in carrying out that grand commission of the Head of the Church, in bearing the news of salvation to the lost and dying world, is Christ’s mission. This is our part in his service, and the results are his.
I will now go to Acts xxvi. 17, 18, and call the attention of my brother to that text: “Delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith which is in me.” I think you understand my position in this discussion—that the heathen are lost and perishing without the Word. I never have made the impression intentionally that any individual will be saved in the heathen world without character, or without living up to the best light he has, doing the things contained in the law, as spoken of in the second chapter of Romans.
My brother has asked what will become of them who do not know the gospel. I answer, that is with God. God tells us to go and preach and teach, and he will be with us; and he that believeth the gospel taught shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned. He tells us that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. I have asked Brother Potter to give a proof-text if he dare, in God’s Word, from Genesis to Revelation, that even remotely implies that God saves through, his Spirit, without truth as a means. I challenge him to point out but one such text, from the first chapter of Genesis to the last of Revelation. Now, he read a quotation to you here, and I asked him if he really meant, in that reading to us about the martyrs, that that occurred before the Reformation. He said part of it did. You know that my brother was leaving an impression that these martyrs were Baptists; that those who died the terrible deaths described here, of which he read to you from this old book, “Buck’s Theological Dictionary,” on page 439, were Baptists. But they were Lutherans and Presbyterians—Foreign Mission men—all of them, I might say, or nearly so; but that does not matter. He claims that, as these were Baptists, therefore they have the identity. How could they have it, only in their belief in Church succession? That is all. The Protestants were killed. What for? This man tells us. I will read a little from the same book, beginning before that which Brother Potter read, on page 438: “Numerous were the persecutions of different sects from Constantine’s time to the Reformation; but when the famous Martin Luther arose and opposed the errors and ambitions of the Church of Rome, and the sentiments of this good man began to spread”—that was the mission work, and in opposing the corruptions of Papal Rome it caused this terrible persecution—“the pope and his clergy joined all their forces to hinder their progress.” That was a mission spirit my brother; these martyrs are on our side. “A general council of clergy was called, the famous Council of Trent,” etc. I read this, although it does not properly belong to the discussion, to show you that if he means that those persecutions were against the Regular Baptists alone, he is mistaken—that is all. The Regular Baptists, as a denomination, had no existence at that time. I have no charge to bring against my good Baptist brethren. All this man says in this old dictionary is in favor of the very principles I am talking about this afternoon—that is, the mission principles. It advocates the cause of this blessed Christ, and the giving of the pure, unadulterated gospel to the world, making the light to shine on the hearts of men.
Now, I want to pay a little attention to Mr. Carpenter. I rather admire Mr. Carpenter. When my brother read from this Tract the other day I thought if the whole thing read that way, that man could not be a missionary man. But there is a part of it which Brother Potter did not read. He said he did not mean to pervert it. I do not say that he does intentionally, but he picks out the little selections from this tract of Mr. Carpenter to suit his purpose, and does not read their connection. Here is something in Mr. Carpenter’s “Great Commission” that pleases me: “The principle that God is no respecter of persons necessitates this view of the commission. His gospel is for one man as truly as another, for one nation as much as another. As the Word says, ‘God so loved the world,’ etc.; ‘Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world’; ‘the field is the world;” ‘ye are the light of the world;’ the gospel shall be preached in all the world’” My brother denies that the word “world” represents the perishing world. But all the authorities are against him. I proved this to him this morning from his favorite Commentary, Jameson, Fausset and Brown. “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.” “The field is the world.” Jesus says: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Brother Potter refers to Carpenter, speaking of the Golden Rule, and says he disagrees with him when he says that the Golden Rule, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,” applies preeminently to the preaching of the gospel in heathen lands. I am with Mr. Carpenter on that. We are reaping the blessings of Christianity in the nineteenth century. It gives us our precious homes, our grand society, our Churches with all their privileges, our tender ties in all their beautiful relations, all our sunlight in home and in government in every department of civilized life.
The gospel in the early centuries was carried by the missionaries from Rome up into the northern nations of Europe, and also into Gaul, and from Gaul into Britain. This resulted in the development of those grand men and women who came over the sea and settled in this country, and whose devotion to their principles caused the churches and school-houses to go up side ‘by side. It was the great indebtedness our Pilgrim Fathers felt to those who gave them the gospel that induced them to do so’ much in this respect for future generations and the world at large in their day. Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers were as bad as any of the idolaters in history. They offered human sacrifices. We are reaping the fruits of what the early missionaries sacrificed for them. Shall we be ungrateful? Shall we not say, “If I cannot go to carry the same good news to others, I will send the means to enable others to carry on the work?” There is one thing more I wish to notice in Brother Potter’s speech. It is what he said the missionaries teach when they claim that those who were scattered from Jerusalem by persecution, and went everywhere preaching the Word, did missionary work. The idea of those men not obeying the commission, he says, is a slander against the apostles. I say that the commission was given by a perfect being, the Lord Jesus. If the apostles were perfect, and comprehended the commission in its full import as embracing the Gentiles as well as the Jews, then why did the disciples of Christ, in the commencement of the gospel work, preach to the Jews only up to the time of the revival at Antioch? Why did Peter need that vision on the house-top at Joppa to induce him to go and preach the gospel to Cornelius, the Roman centurion? If he was without national prejudices, and ready cheerfully to obey the gospel commission in its full extent, why did evidence have to be given him, from both the human and divine side, that it was the Lord’s will for him to preach the gospel to this Gentile? The fact is, that this ‘incident, taken in connection with the strife between, Paul and Barnabas about John Mark accompanying them on their mission tour, and also Paul’s rebuke to Peter, when, on a certain occasion, the latter rather sided with the Christian Hebrews in pressing Jewish usages on the Gentile converts, and thereby trammeling their liberties, prove beyond doubt that the apostles, as men, were defective, and influenced by their national prejudices. They were comparatively slow in learning the beneficence and the universal extent of the gospel message.
We will now proceed to notice the objection my opponent finds to the identity of the Foreign Mission work of today with the gospel work of the New Testament. He refers to the statements of Mr. Carpenter concerning the missionary work performed by the disciples. They were scattered abroad by the persecution at Jerusalem, and went everywhere preaching the Word. He urges his objection on the ground that the doctrine taught in these statements, and indorsed by the leading advocates of missions, is that persecution sent forth these laborers to this mission work, and that this idea is in direct conflict with the teaching that the Lord sends forth his laborers in the work. We claim that the Lord sent them by overruling persecution to that end. Owing to the wonderful triumphs of the gospel in Jerusalem, the disciples had become so absorbed in the local work that they had lost sight of the general work for which they had been baptized by the Holy Ghost—“to witness unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” This was not from willful neglect on their part, but thoughtlessness, and, in part, ignorance in regard to that phase of the work. The formidable and concentrated effort of the whole body of believers drew the attention and aroused the animosity of Christ’s enemies in Jerusalem, and such was the persecution that it dispersed the disciples and forced them to flee; and as they were scattered through the land in every direction, their hearts being filled with the love of Christ for the salvation of souls, they went everywhere preaching the Word, and the Lord blessed their labors. Now, my opponent, in his interpretation of this providence of God in the propagation of the gospel, relinquishes the doctrine of the Bible and the doctrine he claims to believe, that “all things work together for good to them that love God.” The Old Testament tells us how Israel was carried away into captivity on account of their sins, and also how the Lord overruled it to the good of his people and the advancement of his cause. The difference between the dispersion of the principal disciples on this occasion and the captivity of Israel was this: Israel’s overthrow was caused by willful sin, while this trouble and dispersion came to the early Christians by reason of their imperfect comprehension of the great work entrusted to them, and because they were a little too much absorbed in the local to the neglect of the general work. As the word “mission” means to send, the labors of these fleeing disciples may be properly called mission work. Mission work means to preach and spread the gospel everywhere. So as they went in every direction, preaching and teaching the Word, they were missionaries in spreading and propagating the gospel. When Paul went beyond the seas to preach the gospel, that was not only mission work, but Foreign Mission work, for it was mission work performed in foreign lands. We do not claim that the name “Foreign Mission” can be found in the New Testament, but the principles of the Foreign Mission work are found there. This worthy opponent denies. He says these principles are not in the Bible. This is the issue between us.
I want to call your attention to some passages of Scripture to which I have already called the attention of my brother time and again. I want him to look at them and consider them. I asked him yesterday in regard to some passages of Scripture, and I want to call his attention to them again. Ezek. iii. i8, 19:
“When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life: the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.” That, my friends, is the principle of God’s divine government. Here is the responsibility on both sides pictured to you. Here is a statement of the responsibility which rests upon God’s servants and the results which will come to the finally impenitent. Then I gave him Prov. i. 24—31. I have heard nothing from this. There are also John i. 29; John iii. 14—17; and John iii. 18, 19.
Now, I have answered his question, and I have shown that the apostle called for fruits as an evidence of faith. He says that he wants to see the fruit. My brother wants to see the fruit. He wants to see the real apple. Now, look at the identity I have shown. I want to repeat that, in the first place. I took the position that there is a perfect identity in every essential feature between the Foreign Mission work and the gospel work as recorded in the New Testament. I showed the first feature of this identity to be in the object and end to be subserved. I quoted Acts xxvi. 17, 18 to prove this. In connection with the treat commission, I showed that the principle of Foreign Missions and the spirit that actuates the missionaries are the same as the principles and spirit of the first disciples. I gave passage of Scripture after passage to prove it. I went on to show that the motive-power was the same. It was compassionate love—love for Jesus and humanity. I showed that the love of Christ constrained those men in the work, and that we are restricted to God’s word—to the teaching and command of Jesus in carrying out this commission. I showed the call and preparation of the missionary workers and of the first gospel workers were the same. I showed that in every single instance where a missionary worker has proved to be a success in the foreign field, the call has been brought about by prayer. In prayer it was made known; and in some cases even the very fields were designated through prayer. To prove this, I referred to Duff and others. I referred to the birth of this last great dispensation of the Foreign Mission work, showing how it was brought about by prayer; how the Warwick Association in 1791 set apart a week in each month for prayer, and how the bugle-note of Jonathan Edwards sounded over the seas, calling for a universal concert of prayer by the Church to bring down God’s blessing upon the heathen lands and on the Church. I showed how Carey was sent forth and went to India, and I told you of his work and the results. I have given case after case, and Brother Potter has never noticed them. I showed how they prayed at Pentecost, and that the very same spirit of prayer that guided and energized the gospel work guided and energized the Foreign Mission work. I showed that the laborers in the two cases were sent forth in the same way; the Church prayed over them and sent them forth under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Is not the Church called the temple of the Spirit? I showed that those men in the foreign field were sent, after the hands of the Church, through its representatives, were laid upon them, sent out to represent the Church, just as the missionaries of the New Testament were sent out. Did I not show that? Have I not appealed to the fruits of the work, showing that the great transformation of character in those heathen lands is an evidence that the Foreign Mission work is God?
Now, suppose I had admitted all that my brother says and claims about election. Suppose I admit it for the sake of the argument. Would that touch the question under consideration? There are many of the Protestant denominations which believe just as strongly in the special call as he does, and yet this belief inspires them to labor in the Foreign Mission work, and leave the results in God’s hands. You see, even if I were to admit his doctrine of election—that would not affect the case. It does not matter whether God does it all, or man is a co-operator in the work. The question is; is mission work authorized in the Bible? By the activity of the primitive Church the gospel was carried into Corinth, and into Ephesus, and Philippi, and Thessalonica, and all these regions. Now, if that was the movement of the Spirit of the living God, why should it be changed? I will ask if it is not as necessary today to go and preach the gospel to every creature as it was then?
I this morning showed that the great spiritual prosperity with which the Churches engaged in the Foreign Mission work are blessed proves that God owns and blesses this work. When I referred to my Baptist brethren, my brother seemed to think that I was misrepresenting them. I want to quote now from Peel’s Popular Educator, a good work on the statistics of the different religious denominations; and these statistics are taken from the census of the United States of 1880: “Anti-mission Baptists, 40,000.” I got the other statistics I gave on the subject from the Baptist Missionary Magazine. Now, I only brought this up for the sake of the argument, to show that where Churches do not possess the Foreign Mission spirit, it limits them in their usefulness, and decreases their vital power and growth. The book I quoted from this morning, in regard to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, gave the statistics for 1869. We number now about 125,000, but we have been existing as a distinct denomination for only about seventy-five years. But this brother’s Church, he says, has been existing since the days of the apostles, and has 40,000. Now, my friends, I want you to look at the matter. We claim that in the seventy-five years we have not done our whole duty. It is true that we, as a Church, attempted to plant a mission in Africa just before our recent war. The war came on before our mission was firmly established, and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church being mostly in the South, the work had to be relinquished. When, through the working of Divine Providence, in 1872, the way was seen to be open for the propagation of the gospel in Japan, the attention of our Church was turned in that direction. In 1877 we planted our present mission in the city of Osaka, the population of which is about 370,000. Although our mission is young, the work is meeting with marked success. Four missionaries have been sent out by the Mission Board of the General Assembly—viz., the Rev. A. D. Hail and the Rev. J. B. Hail, and their wives. The Woman’s Missionary Board of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church has also sent out four ladies to labor as missionaries in Japan. Our Woman’s Missionary Board was organized in Dr. Darby’s church, Evansville, Ind., in May, 1880. They sent out their first two missionaries in September 1881.
As I have intimated, these missionaries have already been instrumental in leading many souls to Christ. We have established in Japan an Orphanage and a Training-School, as well as a church. The ladies of the Woman’s Missionary Society have succeeded in raising sufficient funds to purchase the grounds and erect the building for the Orphanage and Training School. I am informed that the building is in process of erection. The continual call of our missionaries over there is for more laborers to aid in the work. The demands for gospel instruction are greater than they can meet. They are continually thronged with starving souls, hungering for the salvation revealed by the loving Christ. Mrs. Drennan, the lady who is at the head of our Training School, says: “One of the most interesting features of our school now is the fine spiritual feeling and growth in grace among the girls. Every one of our girls over ten years old, except one of that age who came in a short time since, has been happily converted.” Our two male missionaries, the Rev. A. D. Hail, and his brother, the Rev. J. B. Hail, make regular preaching and teaching tours to inland districts. On nearly every trip, converts from heathenism to Christ, from sin to holiness, anxiously await their coming, to be examined upon their religious experience, in view of being received into the communion of the Church.
Miss Orr, the first missionary accepted by the Woman’s Board, makes many missionary tours alone into the interior for scores of miles. The Lord is opening to her many doors of usefulness in this work. Many educated men of the Japanese, among them officers of the government, come to inquire of her about the religion of the Bible. Buddhist priests are seeking the Christian religion for their children, because they think it teaches a purer morality. Miss Julia Leavitt, of Bloomfield, Ind., one of the first two missionaries sent out by our Woman’s Mission Board, is having excellent success in teaching the gospel to the Japanese women in their homes, and also in our chapel in the city of Osaka. In a letter to the Secretary of the Woman’s Board of Missions, after describing her efforts, by the help of the Lord, to get the gospel truths into the heart of an inquiring, earnest, educated Japanese lady, and her joy at beholding the change wrought in the woman’s soul by the Spirit of God, as reflected in her countenance, she says: “Now, my dear friends, it is for some one to answer the questions of inquiring minds like these, and to awake in those still dead in sin a thirst for the truth, that we ask again and again, Is there no one coming to help us? We need workers filled with the Spirit, and ready to follow humbly the Master, who loved not his own life. O may the Lord call such as he will, and send them to this harvest field.” This Miss Leavitt is an only child of a widowed mother. One year after this young lady went to Japan, while in the train on my way to Synod, I had a very satisfactory conversation with the mother concerning the history of Miss Leavitt’s Christian experience, and her call to the foreign field. She said her daughter professed to find peace in Jesus when quite a child, and that she had lived a consistent Christian life up to the time of her departure, and that she had received a good, fair, common-school education, and had started out to teach school, seeking to help support he; widowed mother. Her mother said she noticed her daughter had been thoughtful for several weeks, and seemed to be growing in devotion. She did not ask her the cause, but at last the daughter said: “Mother, I have noticed in the papers the call which is ringing over the sea from the Sunrise Empire. They say they want more workers, and I am thinking about going.” And she answered: “Daughter, put off that matter. Weigh it and pray over it. How will I get along without you? What would your poor, widowed, mother do?” She said: “If the Lord is in it, it will be all right.” That is true. I believe that doctrine with all my heart. What was the result? That girl prayed, and consulted over the matter both with her friends and her Lord, and became deeply convinced that it was her duty to go. At Evansville, in 1881, she and her associate, Miss Orr, had the hands of ordination placed upon their heads by Dr. Bell, the president of the General Assembly’s Board of Missions, as the representative of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. That was an hour long to be remembered, on account of the outpouring of God’s Spirit. Prayers went up from many hearts for them, and for God’s blessing on their efforts in the work. As the Christian friends of that great congregation took them by the hand to bid them farewell they heard uttered many times, “May God bless you!” from many earnest and tender hearts. This girl writes back thus to her mother: “Mother, I cannot be lonely, though you are nearer to me than you have ever been. I love Indiana, but I love the Japanese, and delight to tell the love of Jesus to these people. My hands are full, my heart is full.”
Now, my friends, we see in the case of this young lady a clear demonstration of the call of God to the work of the foreign field, and she is only a sample of the rest of our earnest workers there, and of all missionary laborers who have consulted the Lord, in regard to their work on the foreign field, through the Holy Spirit by prayer. Thank the Lord for so wonderfully guiding and blessing our missionary laborers in propagating the gospel among the Japanese, in connection with the numerous missionaries of the different Christian denominations. My worthy opponent, in his attempt to show that Foreign Missions are a failure, spoke disparagingly of the mission work in Japan. My brother made light of 9,971 converts in Japan, yet he knows that the missionaries were not permitted to preach publicly until 1872. That is a good work. In 1878 there were 60,000 professed converts in the heathen lands brought in to Jesus. Did I say “brought in”? I will say “drawn.” I will use Brother Potter’s word; that is good—drawn by the blessed Spirit of God, through the Word, to Jesus, and saved from their sins, washed and cleansed in the blood of the Lamb. As to the success of the Foreign Mission work, I will quote from the pen of the Rev. William M. Taylor, the editor of the Christian at Work. A more competent, earnest witness could not be adduced, or one whose opinion has more weight. In the Christian at Work, in November, 1878, he says:
“Notwithstanding the splendid achievements of missions, the poor skeptic, with closed eyes and shut ears against the truth, still propounds his silly inquiry as to what valuable results have been accomplished. But in the clear light of today, scattered abroad ‘by lightning presses, his foolish sneer and silly insinuation have no longer power to disquiet timid minds or mislead any. The world, as well as the Church, has learned to estimate the self-sacrifice and labors of the missionary at something like their true value. Take but a single item:
Since the beginning of modern missions the Bible has been translated into two hundred and fourteen languages, spoken by 850,000,000 of human beings, and distributed at the rate of nearly twelve every minute. All this has been done by missionaries. Nearly fifty of the languages referred to never had a written form until the missionaries created it; and through these written forms access may now be had to all the learning of the world. As against an increase of eight and a half per cent in Hindoo population, and five per cent. in Mohammedan, the present increase of the Christian population throughout the world equals sixty-six per cent.
There has never been a time in the history of missions when they were in such a prosperous condition as now. The Church has reason to rejoice as she looks out over her great mission fields. The good seed sown in the past is everywhere ripening into precious fruit. The labors and sufferings of missionaries during the past century, aided by the prayers of God’s people everywhere, laid the foundation for the grand work now going on, and which is so full of glorious promise for the future. Not only are the tribes of India renouncing idolatry and uniting themselves with us; not only is Japan rapidly embracing the truths of Christianity, almost realizing the ‘birth of a nation in a day;’ but the fields of mission work everywhere are being stimulated through these triumphs to more vigorous zeal and enlarged liberality in their own home mission fields.”


MR. POTTER’S TENTH SPEECH.
MODERATORS, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:

I am truly glad Brother Darby put in an appearance, for it seems that he has considerable influence over Brother Yates. I do not have much. He has answered the question. Now we understand what the issue is. I do not like to see a debater cowardly about his position. Brother Yates admitted this morning he was afraid of it, and that I had a catch in it. Now he tells us that by the labors of these Foreign Mission workers souls are saved in heaven that would not have been saved without them. Now we understand it. This is what he means. That is what mission operations are for. Now the people understand it, and so do I. I objected very materially to not knowing what the missionary labors were for when we had to discuss it. We have it now. Now, as Brother Yates says there will be souls saved by their labor that would not have been saved without it, let him prove it. I have nothing to say. It is his place to prove it. Now he has something to do, and we can go on debating. Until he proves that they are the means and instruments of converting, regenerating, and eternally saving souls that would not have been saved without them, his proposition falls. Now we have something to do. Now you understand the position. When I read the challenge when it first came out, I did not intend to pay any attention to it myself, but Brother Hume thought it ought to he met, and we felt like it was made at us, because we said it was of man, and not of God. We thought Brother Yates felt he could defend it, and for the sake of truth, he says, and in honor of the blessed Saviour, he made the challenge. Now, Brother Yates, prove it. Prove your proposition. The best authority he can bring is Scripture. There is not a man in the house but would be satisfied with one text that says so. And we will all join the missionaries when he introduces the text. The text must say, or imply, that here is a soul saved that would not have been saved had it not been for Foreign Missions. That is what it must say. Now, we might have had this all over with by this time if Brother Darby had been here. However, he claims he has introduced a few. I will notice some of them. He says I never do notice his proof-texts. 1 Cor. VI. 9-12:
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” 
Now, we do not have to go to heathen lands to find all these kinds of people; remember that. Now, of course the Bible is plain. We know the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. None of us doubt that. Now let us see: “And such were some of you.” Brother Yates stops, and says “when?” Why, before I came to preach to you. I want to know his authority, for the Apostle Paul never said any such thing. Brother Yates’ interpretation of that is, that they were unclean, unrighteous, unfit for the kingdom of God, prior to Paul’s visit to them, and his visit was the means of their change. I want him to prove it. It is his own text. That is his own language. Let us see what the text does say, then. No person here claims that the unrighteous shall be saved. There are idolaters in this country, where the gospel is, as well as where it is not. Covetousness is idolatry, the Bible says. I do not want to hit any Church-member here, or any denomination. But I am afraid we need not go outside the Church to find them—the covetous. Let us see what the text says, now: “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, hut ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” Now, Paul says nothing about preaching being the cause of that in his text, not a word. “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” Now, if that text proves Foreign Missions, and those souls that have been saved there that would not have been without them, what might not one prove by the Bible? For, to prove any thing by a witness, the witness must say something about the question to be proved. Now, if that is the best you have—and I presume it is among the best—it is easily met. Again, i Cor. 21: “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” I will read a little farther. We want to know what the context is: “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.” Remember, we preach Christ to them, and it is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, “but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Now, if the preaching is a calling, I want Brother Yates to explain it to us, as this is in connection with his own text. The difference between the Jews and the Greeks, Paul says, is that to some it is a stumbling block and to some it is foolishness. Now, if all are called, if they are all called alike, there must be a distinct call there. Every person must see from the reading of the text that there is a call there distinct from, and in addition to, the proclamation of the gospel, because the gospel is preached to all alike. If they do not all receive it, it is not the power of God to them alike. Some of them were called, and unto them was the gospel the power of God. Now, so far as calling was concerned, this call was necessary to qualify all the people to be benefited by this gospel when it is preached. My judgment is that salvation, as spoken of in that text has, no allusion to the salvation from eternal death. And to prove that, I refer to the following—Philippians ii. 12,13: “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling: for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Now, there is a salvation for the saints to work out. Saints, if they are really saints, never apostatize and sink down to perdition. If they are regenerated and saved, heaven is theirs. Yet there is a salvation for us to work out, and if Brother Yates can tell what that salvation is, he has the salvation right here in his own text. He then turns to Acts xxvi. 17, 18: “Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” I want to notice this text just a minute in connection with Paul as a missionary. On yesterday evening Paul was introduced here by Mr. Dobbins, author of “Error’s Chains,” a missionary, and a missionary of the modern type. Now, I have already noticed the modern missionary on the first day of this discussion, and told what kind of a missionary Paul was, and that he began on a small scale, that he had no Christian constituency to receive him where he went. He had no wealthy missionary organization at his back to support him; that all he had was the Lord’s commission and the guidance of the Spirit. And Brother Yates has had a great deal to say about my remarking that he took a missionary trip to Arabia. Now, let us notice that text. Galatians i. 15— 17: “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.” He went to Arabia. What for? Now, from the text itself, without any other text, what is the inference? God had called him to preach among the heathen. What is the conclusion? What does every person gather from that text from the apostle’s own language in that text, without the assistance of any other? What could have been his object in going to Arabia? Brother Yates noticed some Commentaries to prove that he went to meditate. The Lord did not call him to meditate. The Lord called him to preach, and without any hesitancy he went to Arabia, and returned to Damascus. What is the inference there only that he went there to preach? The Lord sent him. Another word on the subject of Paul: Brother Yates said the missionaries, many of them, believed as earnestly in God’s call to the work of the ministry as my brethren or I do. I have never questioned that at all. He has accused me of calling them self-deceived or hypocrites. Is it possible a man cannot be in error, and honest? If that is so, how am I to understand the case of Brother Yates and myself? How are we all to understand Brother Yates in this case? I attribute no dishonesty to men unless their works and affairs expose their dishonesty. I believe there are good men among the missionaries. Brother Yates himself says he believes there are good Christians among the Catholics, but he does not think they are right. I believe there are too, and I believe there are many that do not belong to any Christian denomination; and I believe there are many that will be saved among the heathen that the missionaries never saw, and never will in this world, That is what I believe. I do not question any man’s honesty. Now, on the text, “To open their eyes, and to turn them from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” (Acts xxvi. 18). Let us notice that a moment, and admit even Brother Yates’ interpretation of that text, that the apostle himself was sent by the Lord to open their blinded eyes, in the sense of regenerating, and in the sense of quickening them into divine life, in the sense of turning them from the power of darkness unto God. Admit that, and it fails to prove that this was absolutely necessary to their regeneration. Admit the whole thing, and it fails to prove that this was absolutely essential to the remission of their sins.
Now, I will tell you, I objected to this theory a day or two ago, on this ground, and I introduce the argument now in connection with my answer to this text.
I objected to it on the ground that it pretended to be going about teaching people to know the Lord. I quoted from the Minutes of the Philadelphia Association a Circular Letter of 1806, giving their principles on the rise of modern mission work. They said: “And they shall teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, until all shall know the Lord.” Now the Bible says they shall not; and that is the difference between the missionaries and God’s Word. The missionaries say they shall, and God’s Word says they shall not. I say, then, the argument has not been answered; that there was not a syllable in God’s Word, anywhere in the New Testament, to any man, from Jesus Christ nor any of his apostles; authorizing men to go about teaching sinners to know the Lord; not one word. Now I challenge any man to find it. Brother Yates said I got up and said there was no authority to teach them about the Lord. I said no such thing. There may be many things in which we are required to teach, and it is our duty to teach. 
The people are getting to understand me, whether Brother Yates does or not. There is just one particular thing I deny man’s ability to do, and that is to teach men to know the Lord. There is just one particular thing I deny man’s ability to teach, and that is to know the Lord. There is just one lesson that he is unable to teach his fellow man, and that is to know the Lord. Now, I want the people to understand the thing that neither brother Yates nor any other man can do—none of them can do it. The reason I say that is, there is no authority for any such work. God’s ministers are not clothed with any such authority. The Saviour said, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,” but he did not say, teach them to know the Lord. He said, Go preach the gospel to every creature,” but he did not tell them to teach men to know the Lord. Aquila and Priscilla taught the way of the Lord more perfectly. They taught the way of the Lord, but did not teach Apollos to know the Lord. He already knew him, and they could only teach him the way of the Lord more perfectly. That is what teaching is for. That is all the way man, as a teacher, can teach his fellow man. Man must, in the first place, have the capacity to learn, and in order that he can receive instruction to know the Lord more perfectly, he must be qualified for that. And how that is done I will quote from Hebrews viii. 8—11, where the Apostle Paul quotes the Prophet Jeremiah xxxi. 31 “For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” That is the way it is done; and the missionaries say they shall teach. That is the difference. Now, if Brother Yates introduces this text as one of his proof-texts, to show the necessity of the ministry to teach a man to know the Lord, and the absolute necessity of such an agency as that, I deny his interpretation of it. The gospel is the power of God to them that are called, both Jews and Greeks. Until we hear from him further about the meaning of that text, and what he intends it for, we shall leave it for the present.
Now, I want to call your attention to just one thing more concerning those martyrs. He says he loves Carpenter. I do not love him very well, but I am going to use him. Brother Yates said (and of course we know it is true, because he said so, though he did not offer to prove it; he asks us to take his word; Brother Yates is pretty well known here, and I would hate to dispute his word, but he may as well say his proposition is true, in the same way) “The people I read about this morning were the product of the missionary labors, and were Lutherans, Presbyterians, and not Baptists.” I said this morning it did not matter what they were. I said there were a variety of denominations among them. I do not claim they were all Baptists. But he does claim they were Lutherans and Presbyterians. What was Wycliffe, what was John Huss, what was Jerome, what was Rogers, and Hooper, and Ridley, and Latimer, and Philpot, who were burned in England, at Smithfield? What were they? Lutherans and Presbyterians? Mr. Yates says the product of missionism. I will tell you why I introduce this history. I was talking about the martyrs during those forty or fifty generations that Mr. Carpenter speaks of. Now Brother Yates wants to tell us that these were the fruits of missionism, and were Lutherans and Presbyterians. Let us see from the reading itself. I will begin a little further back in the article I read this morning from Buck’s Theological Dictionary: “Persecutions of Christians by those of the same name. Numerous were the persecutions of different sects, from Constantine to the Reformation, and when the famous Martin Luther rose, and opposed the errors and ambition of the Church of Rome, and the sentiments of this good man began to spread, the pope and clergy joined all their forces to hinder their progress. A general council of the clergy was called. This was the famous Council of Trent, which was held for nearly eighteen successive years, for the purpose of establishing Popery in greater splendor, and preventing the Reformation. The authors of the Reformation were anathematized, excommunicated, and the life of Luther was often in danger, though at last he died on a bed of peace.” This was after the beginning of Luther’s labors. Luther must have been quite a preacher just before his reformation, or before it was effected, to have had over a hundred thousand converts in France, and some in Holland, and those Low Countries. I ask the question on the ground that. Mr. Carpenter has said that the Church slept for nearly fifteen hundred years. Under whose ministry were all those martyrs gathered up? Under whose ministry was it done? Was it under the ministry of Luther and Calvin, the very ones I mentioned this morning? Now, I want to notice Mr. Carpenter a little further. Brother Yates does not tell you I read Carpenter wrong, but he says I left out spine. Of course I did not undertake to read through the whole book. Did he tell you I read any thing that was not there? Did he tell you I left a part of a sentence out, or skipped a word where I did read? No, sir. Well, then, if I did not, have I done him any injustice—if I finished every sentence, but let him say his full piece on the topic on which I quoted him? Let us see if I did him any injustice. Now, let us see what was the example of the Apostolic Church. I say it is a slander upon the apostles, the way this man talks. And Brother Yates says he admires him. Brother Yates, what do you admire? He says: “The set time for an aggressive movement, which should only cease when the universal conquest was fully accomplished. The apostles must have understood that their field of labor was coextensive with the world. Still the Church at Jerusalem dallied. A thousand days elapsed instead of ten.” This man says, at the farthest, they were not to remain at Jerusalem but a few days, and if the commission was given at a certain time, ten days was their time to stay there. He says, instead of ten days, a thousand days elapsed. That is the charge he makes upon the apostles of Jesus Christ. Brother Yates admires him. “They might have lingered on until they died ingloriously, had not God sent the besom of persecution to sweep them forth into the wide world, which was perishing for lack of the knowledge which they alone could give.” What made them go forth? Was it the missionary spirit? Was it their love for the heathen, according to that? Was it their love for perishing souls, according to that? Brother Yates himself says that is what makes missionaries work. What does Mr. Carpenter say makes them work? He says persecution makes them work; that “if it had not opened their eyes, they might have lingered on at Jerusalem until, they died ingloriously, had not God sent the besom of persecution to sweep them forth into the wide world, which was perishing for lack of the knowledge which they alone could give.” That is a modern, missionary talking about the apostles.