This entire 21-part study appears on the FaithSaves.net website in a study entitled “Hannah Whitall Smith: Higher Life Writer, Speaker on Sanctification, Developer of the Keswick Theology, Quaker Quietist and Universalist Heretic.” Click here to read the entire study.
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“Hannah W. Smith chronicled Dr. Foster’s communication of his views to herself and another lady as follows:”
to read the section that was in the blog post below.
5 comments:
Are you sure you aren't documenting some current belief and practice? Feels like a "Christian" attempt at the practices from the heathen temples of Artemis and such in the ancient world. I'm thinking there are those that would or will gladly rediscover and promote this religious experience and, in this day and age, not have to be so covert about it. Anyway. Yuck. Glad there are only 2 more parts, and I've only actually read the last 2 or 3.
Lessons learned:
"an inward voice seemed to say"
rather than the Bible FIRST giving us our doctrine and weighing those inward voices against that rather than vice versa.
"Immediately, he said, he began to receive them with thankfulness,"
again, experience and "truth" from self being the source of doctrine
"She overawed these friends by the tremendous force of her own convictions, and in many cases obtained . . . control over them, so that they were not surprised or shocked at anything she did or said, but accepted it all as from God"
our gullibility, our lack of questioning and proving things, our hero-worship rather than God-worship, the numbing of our conscience...
"[which made] ordinary religious life very humdrum and uninteresting"
forsaking that "simplicity of the Gospel"...common failing in the church...leading to nowhere good...
"And the result was most disastrous in destroying her moral nature, and launching her into a course of impurity from which in the beginning she would have shrunk with horror."
Her logic, from her already excused sin, being turned into illogic and pathetic hilarity. As if the PRACTICE, in conflict with clear scripture, wasn't already a choice to destroy the moral nature and impurity. Why is this reminding me of our current religious scene...and where it has led...what once shocked us, we now laugh at or ho hum at, or even celebrate...and participation is next.
Here's the whole problem in a paragraph:
"[W]e had such absolute confidence in the holiness of this saint of God, as he seemed to us, that we were afraid our horror at what he had told us must be because we were too carnally minded, as he had said, to be able to see the deep spiritual purity of it all, and we felt that we dared not reject it without further prayer and consideration."
And finally, think of all the other clear scriptures they had to defy to make their own "proof texts" work.
Deja vous, and deja vous.
Dear Doulos,
Thanks for the comment. I agree that it is really gross, and that there are lessons about gullability, etc.. Also, Mr. and Mrs. Pearsall Smith founded the Keswick theology, which is extremely influential in Baptist fundamentalism and in other circles of Christendom, and advocates of the Higher Life system really ought to know what their founders believed. Also, Pentecostal historians have traced their "tongues" speech and Spirit baptism doctrine to Mrs. Smith, so Pentecostals ought to know about her also, especially as the Keswick movement prepared the way for Pentecostalism.
1 of 2 "Also, Mr. and Mrs. Pearsall Smith founded the Keswick theology, which is extremely influential in Baptist fundamentalism & in other circles of Christendom, and advocates of the Higher Life system really ought to know what their founders believed." ---Really? Perhaps in Evangelical Fundamentalism....but hardly of the Baptist stream save that polluted & corrupted, no longer separated to God & from that world catholicity Reformed & Roman! This is simply another outworking of the Great Whore idolatry of Goddess-Godman Babylonianism, & the Gentile churches were solemnly warned not to boast over the failure & idolatry of Israel as though superior & immune to it themselves in Romans 11. Though the impure spirit sought & succeeded to make inroads in portions of baptistic tradition as in all apostasizing Christendom of which the Baptist stream was never fully joined to or absorbed into, the separate Bible Baptists were aware of the strange spirit & impurity of it, & some bravely & faithfully warred against it, along with sacramentalism & nicolaitanism lending itself to hero worship, persecution & bondage to traditional Old World tyranny as James Beller has well documented. The traps of 1 Cor 1-4, Colossians 2, 2 Cor 11 & Rev 17& 18 are hardly populated solely by 'baptists'! ------ Long ages and evolutionism sprang of this same spirit & urge of fleshly gain, self-trust & experience unresisted (2 Peter 2, James 4 etc), and the Enlightenment Rationalistic idolatry & antinomianism was received to various degrees by the intelligentsia of Harvard & Princeton early on, as well as at Brown (infiltrated & influenced at a later date --as McCoy noted to his shock & chagrin by their evolutionary naturalism-influenced treatment of his native American preacher boys). Be honest & don't play games rewriting history.
2 of 3 ... Both the fundamentalists Hodge & B.B. Warfield caved to the deconstructing, demoralizing impure spiritual influence in evolutionary philosophy, & even rewrote the doctrine of biblical preservation & inerrancy to fit with it. Both Theodore Roosevelt & Woodrow Wilson's connection to this stream is well-known, as is Presbyterianism's elitist & tyrannical tendencies turned to sexual, racist & commercial exploitation justified by their common ground with elitist evolutionary euthanasia promotors such as Sanger & her powerful elite backers driven by the same 2 Peter 2, & Revelation 17&18 spirit. Secular historians may interpret the times & the reasons for them wrongly, having willingly swallowed evolution as their excuse & justification for sin hook, line & sinker -----their vain vomit & wallows 'dream' of 2 Peter 2&3 'hope' of mockers -----but they are often more honest about the actual events of history than many Reformed & nicolaitan higher critical 'Christian heritage' types seeking to 'cover' for heroes & traditions having nothing to do with Christ or the faith once delivered, though naming both ----- & who speak out of both sides of their mouths with just as much ease, & with far less excuse having knowledge of the scriptures & the historical faith.
3 of 3 ----------Consider the refusal of 'Scientific Creation Ministries' to honestly discuss Erasmus Darwin's influence on his grandson's supposedly 'new' idea: his affinity for erotic poetry & Enlightenment philosophy rooted in kabala and pagan sorcery, influencing his 'skepticism' and 'Zoonomia', his 'Hellfire Club' & scientific society connections. Consider the refusal to honestly address these issues as they relate to the Bible revision issue & Rome, and consider the stubborn insistence to include Unitarians & other cultists as part of our 'great Christian heritage' without distinguishing their doctrinal characteristics & departures from biblical faith, while naming adherents of these cults in the list of supposed 'Christian' heroes without disclosing their Unitarianism, cultism or their published & stated goals for infiltrating Evangelical unions for missions & Bible translation work, relating to science etc! ---- not to mention leaving the Jesuits non-distinguished & camouflaged! I recommend Jason Cooley's recent sermon at sermonaudio.com on 'The Bible and Birth Control' for starters on some straight-shooting history pertinent to Keswick & the connected & consequential issues bringing righteous judgment to America today ----there are others there just as pertinent. These are things from which few, if any of us---are absolutely free of having wholly or partially swallowed, been influenced by or participated in before & as God has brought us to our senses & to Himself, calling & drawing us out of the world, sanctifying us by the grace of the word & the Holy Ghost insofar as we yield ourselves to His good will as opposed to His strange work. It is a time for humility. A time for self-examination & sober reflection. A time for repentance & return: for weeping, wailing & mourning; for sackcloth & ashes--- for crying out to God for forgiveness & revival ----not a time for pride & puffing, for blame and Luke 16 justifying of self before men. I'm just another fallible human being, but on the authority of scripture, I can assure you that God is not impressed by self-serving, blame-shifting dialectics, & that judgment does not sleep. Psalm 2. Isaiah 8. Ezekiel 22 & 44. James 4. The spirit of drunkenness & impurity, & the blood of the saints is found in her & it is time for God's people to come out that they do not further share in her plagues, or her ultimate destruction. Revelation 17 & 18.
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