Life and Labors of D.S. Warner

By A. L. Byers

Preface

A quarter century has elapsed since the passing of D. S. Warner from the scenes of his earthly activity, and full forty years have gone since the beginning of the great reform of which his labors constituted so large a part. While there are many still living whose personal knowledge of him and his ministry will suffice to them for an encouraging testimony of Christian attainment and of God’s marvelous use of human instrumentality when permitted to have His way, the time has come when the absence of any published account of this remarkable man begins to be felt. The rising generation and the generations that follow should have access to a study of such an example of Christian devotion and usefulness, as well as of God’s faithfulness to one who will fully trust Him. When it was announced that a biography was contemplated, the proposition at once met with hearty approval and encouragement.

That due to the lapse of years there should be some difficulty in securing the necessary data with reference to his early life is of course consequential. His brothers and sisters are all deceased. A nephew and a niece and some of his earlier acquaintances were interviewed, and correspondence was had with other relatives and acquaintances. The most valuable acquisition, however, was the use of his diaries, kindly granted by his son, D. Sidney Warner, now living in Canton, Ohio. These diaries do not cover all of his early ministerial career, but the quotations from them will reveal the Christian character of the man as well as show considerable of his itinerancy and of the facts of his life.

As to the source of information respecting the latter period of his ministry, when his work took the character of a reform, recourse has been had to the files of the periodicals he edited and also to the personal recollections of some who were pioneers with him in the movement. Of these may be mentioned as giving particular information Mrs. Allie R. (Fisher) Allen, Lansing, Michigan; William N. Smith, North Star, Michigan; David Leininger, Akron, Indiana; Mr. and Mrs. J. N. Howard, Nappanee, Indiana; Mrs. Anna J. Slagle, Bucyrus, Ohio; Mr. and Mrs. B. E. Warren, Springfield, Ohio; and Mrs. Frankie Warner, Anderson, Indiana.

It was my privilege to have a personal acquaintance with D. S. Warner and to be more or less closely associated with him during the last five years of his life. To one who never knew him personally no printed account can afford an adequate conception of what it was to come in contact with this wonderful ambassador of God, whose presence wrought conviction in the unregenerate, and inspired confidence and courage in the hearts of believers. The divine manifestations in his preaching, his prayers, and his ministrations cannot be told. Many very striking instances of physical healing which we have not space to speak of attended his ministry; but that these pages may reveal, if in no other light than the historical, that here is an example of true consecration, devotion, courage, diligence, humility, faith, patience, kindness, self-denial, and the Christian graces generally, that is worthy of being followed, is the earnest hope of

The Author,

Andrew L. Byers, 1921

Introduction

The life and labors of D. S. Warner are so closely associated with a religious movement that any attempt at his biography becomes in part necessarily a history of that movement. I have therefore chosen the term Birth of a Reformation as a part of the title of this book. Brother Warner (to use an appellation in keeping with the idea of universal Christian brotherhood) was doubtless chosen of God as an instrument for accomplishing a particular work. What that work was, why it may be called a reformation, and why, in particular, it may be considered the last reformation, a few words of explanation by way of introduction are offered the inquiring reader.

It will be necessary to take a brief glance over the Christian era and review some of the important events and conditions. We note the characteristics of the church in the days of the apostles, which, by reason of its recent founding and organization by the Holy Spirit, is naturally regarded as exemplary and ideal. It had no creed but the Scriptures and no governance but that administered by the Holy Spirit, who “set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him” (I Corinthians 12:18)—apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists, pastors, etc. Thus subject to the Spirit, the early church was flexible, capable of expansion and of walking in all the truth and of adjusting itself to all conditions. It was in very essence the church, the whole, and not a section or part. The apostles and early believers did not restrict themselves and become a Jewish Christian sect or any other kind of sect. Peter’s way of thinking would have thus limited him, for as a Jew he declined any particular interest in Gentile converts; but the Lord through a vision changed his mind and advanced his understanding to include the universality of the Christian kingdom. The Holy Spirit in the heart was necessary, of course, to the successful government of the church by the Spirit, otherwise he could not have been understood. There were no dividing lines, for it was the will of the Lord particularly that there be “one fold, and one shepherd.” (John 10:16) Jesus had prayed in behalf of the disciples “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” (John 17:21) These conditions of being subject to the word and Spirit, of leaving an open door through which greater light and truth might enter as was necessary, and of possessing the love and unity of spirit that cemented the believers together and carried them through all their persecution, constituted the ideal and normal status of God’s church on earth as he gave it beginning, of which it was ordained that there should be but one, only one, as long as the world should endure. “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.” (Ephesians 4:4)

Spiritual Decline

It was possible, of course, for the church to decline from her state of purity and thereby to forfeit her standing as the church. So long as her conflict with paganism lasted and the various forms of persecution tended to bring into exercise those principles and qualities which distinguished her from the world, she practically kept her first estate. When, however, the tide turned, persecutions ceased, and Christianity came into favor, and to be made the state religion of the Roman Empire, there were presented conditions favorable to every form of spiritual decline. Christians, instead of being longer persecuted, were protected, and to profess Christianity became popular and easy. The divine features of the church, by which she had been known for more than two hundred years, were lost. Every form of corruption came in. Human rule supplanted the divine, Holy Spirit rule almost universally, both in the East and the West. The bishop of Rome, in particular, rose in prominence until he was made supreme head—pope—of the Holy Roman church. The reader of church history knows of the long eclipse of Christianity that followed, of the darkness and ignorance that reigned, and gave to that period the name Dark Ages. The true church, impossible of representation by such a colossal counterfeit as then appeared in her place and became in turn a persecuting power, could continue only in fragmentary form, in obscure places in the wilderness of the Roman Empire. She could not be manifest in her evangelizing capacity, but was persecuted. Millions of God’s people, who refused allegiance to this false system of Christianity, were slain as heretics during this period. Thus, in the historical foreground we see, not the pure woman representing the church of God, but we see an apostate woman seated “upon a scarlet coloured beast,” (Revelation 17:3) the Roman state.

“And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” (Revelation 17:4-6)

The Word and the Spirit, the two divine authorities, were set aside. In the place of the former were the traditions of the Roman Church, and for the latter was substituted human rule and authority. These two divine witnesses prophesied in sackcloth during those long centuries, until such time as they should again function in their proper sphere in the church—I say until such time: for we are not to assume that in the design of God this state of affairs should always continue. True Christianity was not to perish from the earth. The book of Daniel prophesies of the papacy, “And he shall speak great words against the Most High, arid shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” (Daniel 7:25) (See the time-periods of the various epochs of the Christian era in our chapter A Prophetic Time.) For this vast agency of unrighteousness the time should come when the cup of iniquity should be full and the judgments of God should be executed and his people delivered. When Christ comes, his bride will have made herself ready, which implies that God’s people will have been gathered out of spiritual captivity and brought again to Zion. Light and truth and the Holy Spirit rule will have been restored as at the beginning.

Reformations

Now the rise out of apostasy was expressed by a series of reformations, not by gradual ascent corresponding to the decline. The “mystery of iniquity,” (II Thessalonians 2:7) which crystallized in the blasphemous “man of sin,” (II Thessalonians 2:3) had already begun to “work” in Paul’s day, and the drift into spiritual darkness on the part of the professing church was without specific opposition. But, on the other hand, to break away from conditions apostate always means war with infernal powers. The wrong is endured until a rising sentiment of protest breaks out with stern denunciation. God raises up instruments for this purpose. John Wyclif, in the fourteenth century, denounced the errors of the so-called church and the conduct of the monks, and also had sufficient light to see the papacy as the “man of sin” foretold by the apostle Paul. His reform efforts, however, centered mostly in the translation of the Bible into English, which work, in spite of the attempt by Rome to destroy it, God graciously caused to be preserved.

John Huss, a little later, took Wyclif’s attitude against the corruptions of the church and was burned at the stake as a heretic. His martyrdom furnished the occasion for him to utter this prophecy: “You are now going to burn a goose [Huss meaning “goose” in the Bohemian language], but in one hundred years there will arise a swan whom you can neither roast nor boil.” True to this prophecy, in one hundred years came the intrepid Luther, under whose leadership history records the great reformation of the sixteenth century. Church and state were at this time united, which gave this reformation a political prominence, as it resulted in the change to Protestantism of two strong nations, Germany and England. What the sixteenth century reformation accomplished spiritually was, among other things, the bringing to light of the Scriptural doctrine of justification by faith in Christ instead of by priestly absolution.

It could not have been expected that all the Scriptural truths and principles should at any time or by any one reformer be recovered from the rubbish under which they had been buried for a thousand years. There have been numerous reforms, bringing out various truths that had been obscured by the apostasy. Thus Truth in her progress upward to the Scriptural level has arisen only by successive steps, God having to use human instrumentalities that were limited by the prevailing tendencies and beliefs of the times. Each reformer naturally dealt with conditions that were most conspicuous from his viewpoint, and was exercised in questions of truth that applied only to such conditions. His reform work was not final in character, inasmuch as it left some errors still uncorrected. Hence the progress upward was by a succession of reforms, each, as a general thing, springing from a higher level of truth and spiritual attainment than those preceding. With the great decline into apostasy now in the past, the church of God was disposed to rise out of confusion, her destiny being the attainment of her original standing, when it could be said that her sun should “no more go down.” (Isaiah 60:20)

Human Rule Instead of Divine

The apostasy of the church, as one writer has expressed it, came by “ecclesiastical ambition and degeneracy.” The human element got in the way where there should have been only the divine. There is necessarily the human element in the work of God, for Christian work is God and man working together; but in the true relation man is God’s instrumentality and is altogether in subjection to the divine Head, who rules over all. When the human element supplants, gets in the way of, or acts in the place of, the divine, we have a fundamental error that always results in apostasy. This human ecclesiasticism, always more or less intolerant, reached its autocratic perfection in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and constituted the “man of sin…?Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.” (II Thessalonians 2:3-4)

The spirit of human government in church affairs has shown itself in, or has followed in the wake of, every reform movement of the past. The Spirit of God worked in the movement to accomplish good, but was always checked by this baleful element. Luther meant well but was himself dogmatic and intolerant. He held to many doctrines of Catholicism whose wrongs he could not see. He did not make proper allowance that others besides himself might be right, or at least have some truth. Neither did he or his associates or followers leave the way open for God to lead into more truth, much less the whole truth. Thus the reformation of the Sixteenth Century, while it recovered from the debris of apostasy the doctrine of justification by faith, became the occasion for Protestant sects, human-ruled institutions, and these were succeeded by other sects. Some of these have been as intolerant, inflexible, and as unlike early Christianity as the Roman Catholic Church itself.

Church government, as humanized in the sects, has taken forms other than the hierarchic. We have the episcopal, or rule by bishops; the presbyterian, or rule by presbyters; the congregational, or rule by the local brotherhood. Our object here is not to discuss which of these forms most nearly resembles or is most different from the Scriptural, but merely to show that man rule has manifested itself in various ways.

Characteristics of the True Church

The true church of God, comprising all Christians, has in her normal state under her divine head certain essential characteristics which make her exclusively the church, the whole and not a part. These might be expressed as follows:

1. Possession of divine spiritual life. If the church does not possess this she is not Christ’s body and therefore not the church. She must know the Spirit of God.

2. Disposition to obey all Scripture and to let the Spirit have His way and rule. This constitutes her safety in matters of doctrine and government.

3. An attitude receptive to any further truth and light. This safeguards against dogmatism and a spirit of infallibility and intolerance, against interpreting Christianity in the light of traditions and old ideas.

4. Acknowledgment of good wherever found and the placing of no barrier that would exclude any who might be Christians. This makes salvation, a holy life, and a Christian spirit the only test of fellowship, and disapproves all human standards of church membership and fellowship.

We repeat that these constitute the Scriptural standard of the church and characterize her in her unity and integrity. It is by lacking in one or more of these essentials that a sect is a sect. In the rise of the church out of apostasy, any reformation that does not develop to the full the essentials that characterize the church in her wholeness and completeness must necessarily fall short of being the final reformation and must leave a cause for further reformation. This is the explanation of the existence of the so-called Christian sects, viewing them in the most charitable light. The Wesleys and their early associates sought for deeper personal spirituality as well as better spiritual association than was afforded in the state church of England. They brought to light and gave particular prominence to the doctrine of sanctification by faith and the witness of the Holy Spirit. Their work was a reform; but as in that day the question of division among Christians was not prominent, nor was the question of the one true church understood or appreciated, their work took definite form in a body humanly organized and called Methodist. The Campbells had considerable light on the unity of the church, and proposed the Scriptures alone as a basis on which all Christians could unite. But they blindly shut themselves in on a point of doctrine by associating entrance into the kingdom or church with the act of immersion in such manner as to make a wall between them and other Christians who should give evidence of having received salvation and therefore church membership, otherwise than through baptism. Thus they made themselves a sect. John Winebrenner had the correct idea of the church as comprising all the saved, and his work was on an un-sectarian basis. Lacking, however, in the quality of letting the Spirit of God rule, eldership organizations were soon set up, man rule came in, and they also became a sect. Inflexible as to doctrine, they closed the door of progress on themselves, rejected the truth on holiness, and became one of the most narrow of sects, though bearing the Scriptural name, Church of God.

A Final Reformation

It must follow, and the assumption is already established, that a reformation which takes in full the characteristics defining the church in her wholeness must thereby reach the New Testament standard and therefore be the last, or final, reformation. No reformation can make good such claim if it does not proceed on whole-church lines or principles. If a reform does progress on those universal principles, we need look no farther for, nor await future years to reveal, the final reformation resulting in the restoration of all things to the Scriptural ideal.

The errors of the religious world are, and have been, the failure to so preach salvation truth that people may obtain and enjoy full deliverance from sin; failure to conform to the divine standard on all lines; the human ecclesiastical system, which hinders Holy Spirit organization and government; and separation of God’s people into parties, thus making true church relation impossible. A movement that comprehends a correction of all these, and meets the Scriptural standard, must therefore fill the measure of reform.

Reader, it is claimed for the movement represented in the teaching and labors of D. S. Warner, that it possesses these elements of finality, that by it God is bringing His people “out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day” (Ezekiel 34:12) of Protestant sectism, and is restoring Zion as at first. It is not assumed that Brother Warner was right on every point of doctrine or in every application of a Scriptural text, but that the movement, in addition to being based on correct Scriptural principles otherwise, possesses that flexibility and spirit of progress by which it adjusts itself as God gives light.

1. It teaches the Scriptural process of salvation, by which people may obtain a real deliverance from sin and have the Holy Spirit as a witness to their salvation.

2. The truth only, and obedience thereto, is its motto; and it recognizes the rule of the Holy Spirit in tile organization and government of the church.

3. It does not assume to possess all the truth, but stands committed thereto, holding an open door to the entrance of any further light and truth.

4. The spirit of the movement is to acknowledge good wherever found and to regard no door into the church other than salvation and no test of fellowship other than true Christianity possessed within the heart.

Thus its basis is as narrow as the New Testament on the one hand, and as broad as the New Testament on the other. May it ever go forward on this line in the spread of the truth to all the world.

Another View of Sects

In order to get a clearer understanding of the reformation which took definite form in the work of D. S. Warner, as well as why he denounced the sectarian spirit in such scathing terms, let us take further notice of the evil of sect institutions.

In the first place, sects are confusing in that, while necessarily bad as factions, they are associated more or less with good. Many of them in their origin followed reform movements which apparently had divine sanction and were progressive in Christianity, and many of them have upheld truth which when preached was productive of good and brought salvation results. But here it should be noted, that whatever of salvation work has been accomplished has been directly by the Spirit of God in individuals, quite apart from any sectarian agency. It must be said, too, that whatever has resulted from Christian endeavor or influence and expenditure of means, whether in home or foreign lands, would have been in greater degree had the church back of these efforts been one spiritual whole instead of many sectarian divisions. So, when we come to apply analysis to this question of sects, we find that they are in no sense good. That they are called churches is but the part of confusion, for in the popular mind and in actual practice it tends to identify sects with the divine church, whereas in Scripture church always means something other than sects. Bodies that are differentiated by the isms of men are not, and never can be, Scripturally churches, for except in the local geographical sense the church takes no plural form. There is a distinction between the true people of God as constituting the divine church and the human institutions called churches that have divided them and placed them in unnatural and unscriptural relations. The true church of God, by virtue of comprising all the saved and therefore being a unit, places sects in comparison only as false churches. A commentator truthfully remarks, “False Christendom divided into very many sects is truly Babylon, that is, confusion” (Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown’s Commentary). Thus sects, because they are a hindrance to proper Christian activity and because they present a spectacle of religious confusion, professing to be churches when they can only be false, are bad.

This is no disparagement of the many noble men and women of God who have been connected with sects and have gone on to their heavenly reward, whose accomplished good was from the divine source and not from the sectarian. They may have honestly loved their sect, but in this they were honestly misplacing their love. It was the religious association with their fellow Christians that they loved, and this, had they only known it, was not enhanced but rather hindered by the sectarian distinction. They will not find these distinctions in heaven. If they really loved the sect, they had to leave that love behind, for it could not be included with such Christian excellence as entitled them to heaven. Thus our good parents and grandparents and the long line of reformers and Christian worthies receive their heavenly reward quite independent of the sectarian institutions that divided them here.

Evil of Sects in Positive Light

We have shown why sects are bad in rather a negative light, as being confusion and therefore a hindrance to proper Christian representation in the world. They are evil in a more positive sense, and it was because of this that God prompted Brother Warner and others in the reform to utter such sharp judgment against them. Any body of Christian people that arises and fails to qualify on all principles that mark the church of God as a whole, that proceeds to human organization and rule instead of recognizing only Holy Spirit organization and government, at once limits itself and becomes thereby a sect, a false representation of the church. As a false church, it is soon a corrupt institution in which human pride and every element contrary to God may exist and become active. The human will, intended for the rule of our bodies and things terrestrial, things which belong to man’s province, becomes sadly out of place when exercised in any sphere or capacity that belongs to God. In such sphere it becomes a rival of God, a monster evil of great proportions, a distinctive satanic spirit, always opposing the true work of God.

Beastly Character in Prophecy

This man rule in a province to which God alone has rightful claim—for, indeed, it exercises the prerogative of God when it presumes to direct God’s work and people—has characterized all Protestant sectism, just as it did Roman Catholicism, only in milder aspect. Man rule is represented in prophetic symbols by beastly character, whether it applies to political or ecclesiastical government. Thus in the 7th chapter of Daniel we have the symbols of four great beasts, representing in their respective order four universal kingdoms, as follows: Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. These were temporal powers that ruled the world. When a mere temporal power is indicated the prophetic symbol used is a dumb beast. If a beast or any part of such symbol is represented as speaking or exercising human propensities, then the thing indicated is also an ecclesiastical power. Thus the fourth beast in Daniel 7, which represents the Roman Empire, exercises first as a dumb animal; but directly a particular horn appears among the horns of this beast, and is given eyes to see and a mouth to speak great things, which indicates ecclesiastical exercise, so that we have here Rome first as a heathen power, and then as a so-called Christian power speaking great things, making war against the saints, etc.

In Revelation 13 we find this same Roman power represented by a beast to whom was given “a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies,” and power “to make war with the saints and to overcome them.” These anthropomorphic qualities given to a beast indicate man rule in ecclesiastical matters, a thing which is at once blasphemy in God’s sight, utterly obnoxious and foreign to Him.

Protestantism in Revelation

Beginning with the 11th verse of Revelations 13, directly after the prophecy of the Roman Catholic hierarchic power, we have the spectacle of a second beast, having two horns like a lamb, but speaking as a dragon. The fact that he speaks gives him the quality of ecclesiastical rule. In this beast we have man rule in the form of Protestantism. He has a lamb-like aspect instead of the vicious, threatening character of Rome in the days of her power; but he has the voice of a dragon, which betrays his diabolical spirit. He exercises as much power in the world as Roman Catholicism did before him. He deceives by doing “great wonders,” (Revelation 13:13) displaying spiritual manifestations. He causes people to worship the first beast (Catholicism) by copying its standards and doing reverence to a human ecclesiastical system; and an image to the first beast is made whenever a sect is organized. He causes the image to “speak” (Revelation 13:15) (exercise man rule) and to persecute those who, instead of bowing to the sect image, are disposed to exercise in their spiritual freedom and give allegiance alone to God.

Thus we see so-called Protestantism as a particular form of beast religion, a distinctive spirit that animates and dominates the sectarian system. The beast element is the man rule. We are not speaking merely of human instrumentality, which God certainly uses in His church when the will is wholly submitted to Him and susceptible to His Spirit, but of that exercise and dominance in ecclesiastical matters which, as apart from God, is distinctly human. Such prevails more or less as a system in all sects, gives occasion for jealousy, pride, and emulation, wants to be let alone, and opposes any reform that threatens it. This is the element which naturally becomes disturbed at the preaching of the truth that exposes it, and which became a persecuting power against Brother Warner and all who executed the divine judgment against false religion. In this deceptive form of evil covering almost four hundred years Satan has had his seat. When the present reformation shall have resulted in bringing God’s people out of sectarian divisions and placing them on the whole-church basis, Satan, driven to some new project, will muster the Gog and Magog forces in a last conflict against the saints, which shall end with the utter destruction of those forces by the judgment fires (Revelation 20:7-9).

We have, then, Protestantism represented in two aspects: 1. As a period during which truth by a succession of reform movements has to a considerable extent been recovered from apostasy and restored to God’s people. 2. As a system of false religion, a form of spiritual Babylon that is pervaded by a satanic spirit that deceives the world and opposes any effort to restore the church of God to her Scriptural unity, since such effort naturally threatens the ecclesiastical element lying at the base of organized sectarianism.

A Dispensation of God

We apprehend, then, that wondrous times have come upon us. Great ecclesiastical systems are crumbling and are being left destitute as God’s people make their escape. This movement proceeds with no show of prominence in the world. It causes no political disturbance, but works only in the province of genuine Christianity, silently, effectively, as the leaven in the meal. It is altogether a spiritual movement and its discernment can therefore only be spiritual. It may appear outwardly as only one religious body among many; for it is only when judged by the spiritual standard of God’s word that its character is seen. It is a call to those who are willing to be led of God.

The dispensations of God are in their beginning often insignificant and despised in man’s eyes. God chooses “things which are not, to bring to nought things that are.” (I Corinthians 1:28) The fact that Brother Warner’s work was done in comparative obscurity counts for nothing against its being the work of God. It is quality that counts. Brother Warner had the right spiritual quality, the secret of which was letting God have His way. His entire abandonment to God in a complete consecration, together with his adaptable temperament and gifts, made him suitable for God’s use in this great work, and God chose him. The time was at hand. Others, contemporary with him and leaders in the holiness movement, saw the evils of sects and deplored them, but when it came to renouncing their sectarian affiliations and coming out of the spiritual Babylon in obedience to God’s call, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues,” (Revelation 18:4) they drew back. This point of leaving the sects, abiding in Christ alone and allowing God to reestablish His church on its first basis, was the real test. They longed for the time when God’s people should all be one, but chose to believe that the time was not yet. And so they have been believing for forty years, and are today in the greater confusion. They lacked the spiritual equipment. One of Brother Warner’s special endowments was that of considerable light on the prophecies. He saw that the sectarian denominations were of the true spiritual Babylon in which God’s people were being held captive. He also had in the Spirit the prospective vision of the pure church unruled by man. His contemporary leaders who opposed him were too blind spiritually to have such a vision; or, if they had it, were disobedient to it.

But there were those, the humble ones, who were willing to let God have His way. At the sound of the trumpet, which God was giving through Brother Warner, thousands have rallied to the standard of truth, and through them the truth has been and is being vindicated. If God’s design was carried out, all Christians will be led out of sects, all justified believers will be led into sanctification, the church will be perfectly organized and governed by the Holy Spirit, the whole truth will be preached uncompromisingly, full salvation will be held out to the world, and all will be led to cooperate and do their part. This is the full measure of Christianity today, and is God’s design with His people. Here is true Christian unity. Such unity can come only by absolute abandonment to God, for He must be the one-making agent. Men may attempt a unity through some Interchurch World Movement or other plan, but no plan can represent the true Scriptural unity unless God does the work Himself. He must have the full right of way in human hearts.

Brother Warner’s mission was strictly that of a reformer. It was his part to venture boldly with the truth God had given him, with a willingness to run the gauntlet of persecutions that were sure to greet him on the right and left. His severe denunciation of all things sectarian was consistent with his pioneer position. There first had to be an awakening, a breaking up of old conditions, particularly of the recognition (into which the minds of people generally had settled) of the sects as being the church of God. His work was the initial, or birth, stage of the reform.

Following the initial stage has come the constructive, which comprehends the reformation in the local sense, the sense in which the Christian life and true ideal of the church must be exemplified in the community as something more than theory, something that will appeal as being better than what is represented in the sects. The constructive stage calls not so much for continual denunciation of sects as for manifesting those essential principles that characterize the church in her unity and entirety. The responsibility is to make good the claim, and this means much. Any tendency to establish traditions, or to regard a past course as giving direction in all respects for the future, or to become self-centered and manifest a “we are it” spirit and bar the door of progress against the entrance of further light and truth, or in any way to refuse fellowship with any others who may be Christians, would itself be sectarian, altogether unlike the true reformation, which, if it be final, must necessarily be a restoration and possess universal characteristics.

For proper representation everything depends upon the understanding of, and the attitude toward, this great movement. For any body of people to hold that the reformation is entrusted to them, or that they have become the standard for the world, is a self-centered attitude, vastly different from that which regards the reformation as something prophetically due, as having come independent of man, and as being greater than the people who have been favored with its light, and that it is their part to conform to it in principle, doctrine, and everything. The great movement is in the world, and any attempt to “corner” it or to limit it to a particular body of people could only result in making that body a sect, or faction, while the movement itself would proceed independently.

The true spirit of the reformation will be, however, with those who measure to its standard, whether they be few or many, and God will manifest Himself accordingly. Satan has tried to becloud and defeat the movement by counterfeit factions—bodies of people who profess to be on the reformation line, but who misrepresent the truth by denying some part of it, as, for instance, the doctrine of entire sanctification in this life, or of the Christian ordinances, or who misrepresent it by advancing erroneous doctrine, such as the continuation of the Old Testmental law and Sabbath, or the speaking in tongues as a necessary evidence of having received the Holy Ghost. Many are the counterfeit movements today. One must ignore every influence of man and then rely on the witness of both the Word and the Spirit in order to be guided aright.

Brother Warner was a remarkable example of a man possessing the Christian spirit and the Christian graces wonderfully developed. While he could rebuke evil and deceptive influences in the strongest terms, he was one of the meekest and kindest of men. Christ-like, he loved all men, even his persecutors. As a husband, father, Christian brother, and friend, his love and respect were genuine and reached to the very soul. And yet the responsibility of his calling as a Christian and as a minister of God’s truth as it applied to his time, he held more dear than all else, and to it he was wholly devoted. Not with any object of exalting the man, but to illustrate what God can accomplish in and through one who is so devoted, we introduce him to our readers.

Ancestry and Early Life

Among those who fought in the second war against Great Britain was one Adam Warner, who was born in Virginia, and whose father was Christofel Warner. In this period of our national history a great tide of emigration from the Atlantic States was spreading itself over what is now the Middle West. Adam Warner seemed to catch the spirit of the times, and accordingly, in 1815, he set out with his family for the new country beyond the Alleghanies. He settled in Stark County, Ohio, where, about the year 1845, he died, at ninety-three years of age (a history of Williams County, Ohio, says ninety-eight, and that he had a sister who lived to the advanced age of one hundred and three). It is probable that before moving west Adam Warner lived for a while in Frederick County, Maryland, for there is where his son David was born, June 6, 1803.

David Warner, after moving to Stark County, was married, in 1823, to Leah Dierdorf, who was born in York County, Pennsylvania, February 6, 1805. In 1830 he moved to Wayne County, Ohio, and a little later to Portage County, then back to Wayne County in 1836, to a place then called Bristol, where he kept a tavern for eight years. Of the parentage of David and Leah Warner, at their humble abode at Bristol, on June 25, 1842, amid the environment of tavern life, was born Daniel S. Warner, destined to be one of the principal instruments in God’s hands to produce a shaking in the ranks of spiritual Israel, and to lead the hosts of the Lord back to Zion from their wanderings in the wilderness of denominationalism.

The children of David and Leah, in order, were as follows: Adam, Lewis, Joseph, John, Daniel, and Samantha. John died at the age of twenty, leaving but the five children. All are now deceased. A granddaughter says that the family was Pennsylvania German. Evidently the mother was. The father, as already noted, was a Virginian.

It was the misfortune of Daniel S. to be frail, sickly, and to a great extent unappreciated, from his very birth. His lungs were weak and he was denied that stock of vitality with which every child has the right to begin life. Intoxicants were freely used in those days, and David Warner had fallen an easy prey to intemperance. If the affliction of this infant may not be ascribed to paternal indiscretion, possibly inebriety, it is not because such instances were uncommon. Into how many homes has the demon of strong drink entered to bring sorrow to the wife and mother and to curse the unborn with the blight of its baneful effects! In this case, at any rate, the father was rough, and inconsiderate of his offspring. While he exercised toward his family a degree of temporal care, it seemed that the very frailty of this child, which should have awakened compassion, met only his frown and disfavor. In later years Daniel, in reflecting on the circumstances attending his birth and childhood, wrote the following lines, which are a part of his poem on Innocence:

Conceived in sin, to sorrow born,
Unwelcome here on earth,
The shadows of a life forlorn
Filing gloomy o’er my birth.

A mother’s heart oppressed with grief,
A father’s wicked spleen,
Who cursed my faint and gasping breath,
Combine to paint the scene.

But life held on its tender thread,
Days unexpected grew
To weeks, and still he lived—
Why, Heaven only knew.

He lived, though life was bitter gain,
His youth a flood of tears,
His body doomed to cruel pain,
His mind to nervous fears.

In contrast with this paternal attitude, however, was the constancy of a truehearted mother. Blessed with this and endowed with indelible memories of a mother’s devotion, what child growing up to cope with life’s obstacles may not, after all, hold a chance of succeeding, however handicapped otherwise? If ever any planting bears fruit in the human breast, or becomes a latent force tending to guide one steadily through life’s dangerous rapids, it is that of a mother’s love. Especially is this true of the love of a Christian mother, coupled with her prayers.

Mrs. Warner was an excellent woman. Her patient and gentle bearing under disturbing conditions, her disposition to make the best of disappointment and discouragement, left an impress, not only upon the family, but upon the neighborhood. Her kindness is referred to in two other stanzas of the poem “Innocence”:

If angels blessed his thorny path,
It may be said in truth,
But two e’er showed their smiling face
In all his suffering youth.

One was his mother, ever kind,
A blessed providence;
The other, pure and lovely friend,
Was angel Innocence.

It has been true generally that great men have first had great mothers. But what is a mother’s greatness, after all, but simple, unalloyed, Christian motherliness?

I should have become an atheist but for one recollection, and that was the memory of the time when my departed mother used to take my little hand in hers and cause me on my knees to say, “Our Father which art in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2)

—John Randolph

“All I am, all I hope to be, I owe to my angel mother—blessings on her memory! I remember my mother’s prayers. They have always followed me. They clung to me all my life.”

—Abraham Lincoln

If my mother could rise in the dead of the night and pray for my recovery from sickness, my life must be worth something. I then and there resolved to prove myself worthy of my mother’s prayers.

—James Garfield

It is to my mother that I owe everything. If I am Thy child, O my God, it is because Thou gavest me such a mother. If I prefer the truth to all things, it is the fruit of my mother’s teachings. If I did not perish long ago in sin and misery, it is because of the long and faithful years which she pleaded for me. What comparison is there between the honor I paid her and her slavery for me?

—St. Augustine

One more tribute. In his book Bible Proofs of the Second Work of Grace, published in 1880, Daniel S. Warner places the following dedicatory note: “To the sacred memory of my sainted mother, whose tender affections were the only solace in my suffering childhood, and whose never-failing love, and whose pure and innocent life were the only stars that shone in the darkness of my youth, this volume is respectfully dedicated by the author.”

From Wayne County, David Warner brought his family, in 1843, to a farm of 140 acres near New Washington, Crawford County, Ohio. The house, built partly of logs, stood three-fourths of a mile southwest of the village. It was here that Daniel spent his childhood. Of this period he writes:

It seemed the special pleasure of
Another certain one
To quite demolish everything
He set his heart upon;

To chafe his spirit, and extort
The flow of bitter tears
Out of a soft and pensive heart,
Through all his tender years.

He never knew that “Father” was
A sweet, endearing name;
Its very mention was a dread,
His life’s most deadly bane.

The demon of intemp’rance there
Infused the wrath of hell,
And most upon this sickly head
The storm of fury fell.

Like chickens when the mother bird
Gives signal of a foe,
The little peeps are quickly hushed,
All chicks are lying low,

So, when returning from the town,
The dreaded steps we heard,
All ran and quickly settled down,
And not a lip was stirred.

Oh, horrors of the liquor fiend!
We’ve seen thy hell on earth;
Thy serpent coils around us twined,
The moment of our birth.

O Rum! Thy red, infernal flame—
I witness to the truth—
Filled all my mother’s cup with pain,
And swallowed up my youth.

The Warner family, though clever, straightforward, and strictly honest, were but a simple rural folk and not inclined to religion. That such a bright spiritual light as was afterward exhibited in Daniel could come from such a family is one of the puzzling questions of blood relation. Was it that in the family blood there was latent quality which in his case only was near enough to the surface to he called into action and developed by higher influence? Or should it be said that he represents a variation in the strain, such as is sometimes seen in biological observation? If the latter, the mystery remains; for why do such things occur? Aside from natural phenomena, we believe that Brother Warner was a “chosen vessel” unto the Lord. He possessed such a combination of qualities as made him capable of high development in the divine graces. He was a Christian whom perhaps none other ever lived who was more reverent, spiritual, and devoted; and God had a special work for him.

In his boyhood Daniel early displayed a gift of entertainment and of public speaking. The school in his district was ungraded. On occasions of entertainment, such as the last day of school, after the younger children had spoken their “pieces” and the program began to grow monotonous, a call would be made for Dan Warner. Then he would take the floor and soon would have them convulsing with merriment. Mischievousness and clownishness were traits. The trouble he sometimes caused the teacher was frequently such that the latter could not locate it nor determine just who was to blame. When he would be stood on the floor he would soon have others with him. On one occasion he did something for which he was sentenced to a scourging. When he appeared at school the next morning he was prepared for this contingency by having on two or three coats. He was, however, bright in his studies and in a general way sociable and well liked.

The community in which he lived was strongly democratic in politics. His father, a staunch Democrat, actually had a degree of pride in his boy when the latter would make stump speeches during a campaign. It was natural for Dan to mount a store box on the street or anywhere and address a crowd on the issues of the day. In later years, however, when he became a minister and his oratorical abilities were directed in the channel of preaching the gospel, his father was not pleased.

Among the sports in which he indulged was coon hunting. On finding a coon tree at night he and his companion would cover themselves with a coon robe and lie under the tree until morning. He got to be rather wild, and took particular delight in the dance, but never indulged in the lowest forms of sin.

These are but brevities of his boyhood career. It is difficult to prepare an account of this part of his life that would be to any considerable degree full. One accident, by which he was maimed for life, should here be noted. He attempted to remove a bunch of grass that had clogged the sickle of a mowing-machine. As he was in this act the team started and the ends of two of his fingers, the middle ones of the left hand, were suddenly clipped off. Fortunately the loss of these members did not hinder him in writing, nor was it a disfigurement usually noticed in his preaching.

There was one more move for the David Warner family, and this was to Williams County, Ohio, the northwest corner of the State, where, in Bridgewater Township, about four miles north of the town of Montpelier, farm life was resumed. Here the parents spent the rest of their lives. The removal to this place was made in 1863, during the Civil War. Joseph Warner was drafted for the army. Being a man of a family, he desired to arrange for a substitute. For this Daniel offered himself, and accordingly became a private in Company C, 195th Regiment, Ohio Infantry. Little is known of his army experience. It is said that he found favor with the captain and was made his clerk, or secretary. At the close of his term he was honorably discharged.

While living in Williams County, the occupation of teaching school appealed to him, and for several terms he was an instructor of the young in matters of common-school education. He was now in his early twenties. But here we shall close this chapter, and introduce him in our next in a different aspect.

Conversion, College, and Calling

It is natural that the question of religion should present itself to a young man or woman when approaching maturity. It is then that life is full of prospects, when one plans and builds for the future. It is then that opinions are formed, and there is an inclination to reach some kind of decision, for the time being at least, regarding every issue. One reaches this parting of the ways and the question comes, “Which road shall I take?” The answer, so far as religion is concerned, depends to some extent on what one has observed in those who make a profession, though it is true that the influence of the Holy Spirit alone—that monitor who makes his appeal to the inner consciousness—sometimes decides the question.

The community at New Washington, where the Warner family lived, was strongly Catholic and Lutheran. There was too much whisky and tobacco and too little of genuine Christianity for a convincing testimony in favor of the latter. As for Dan Warner, he thought to decide the question of religion by trying to be an infidel. But of course he had not considered that God might speak to him and convince him against his will. He naturally possessed a tender conscience, a capacity to exalt righteousness and a susceptibility to right spiritual influence.

And so we find him on reaching the age of maturity trying to believe there was nothing in Christianity; but at this his success was poor. There were certain persons within his field of acquaintance whose Christian piety made its impression. Then again, there was the influence of song. He had a good voice and found enjoyment in engaging in song with the young people. On a Sunday afternoon, at a neighbor’s, where a number were gathered and were singing gospel hymns, he became greatly affected. God spoke to his conscience. His conviction was so strong as to cause him for several months to lose his love for the dance and to reflect seriously on his course of life. It was his turning point so far as infidelity was concerned.1

[1]:

[The use of tobacco was very common among the professors in his community. It is related that he received an impression of the evil of this habit when on attendance at a prayer meeting he saw one of those present attempt to take a chew secretly, by hiding his face behind a chair.]

But after a few months, when the conviction had worn away somewhat, he began to renew his attendance at dances, and apparently to be more reckless than ever regarding his spiritual well being. His heart, however, was yet tender from the wound made by the spirit of conviction. One night during a severe illness of his sister he attended a dance. After he had returned home at two o’clock in the morning, his mother went to his room and expostulated with her boy regarding his sinful career. Here again is where a mother’s part played effectively. As she reasoned with him on his wrong conduct, his going to a dance while his sister—his only sister—lay at the point of death, and his offence against a just God, before whom he must one day stand in judgment, the depths of his heart were broken up and he fell on his knees and called for mercy.

From that time he was deeply convicted, though to his companions he gave no evidence of a changed life, as he had not received the new birth. With some young friends he began to attend a protracted meeting in a schoolhouse not far from his home. The meeting was one of power, and sinners were made to reflect on the question of their souls’ salvation. On their way home one night his companions were expressing their opinions as to religion, what it was, etc. One of them, addressing Dan, said, “What do you think it is?” He replied, “I am going to find out.” Knowing him to be prankish the others supposed he meant to play some trick, and as they separated, wondered to themselves what Dan could have up his sleeve. Not until he had gone forward to the altar the next evening and they had seen him rise a changed young man with the peace of God in his countenance did they take his words and actions seriously.

The date of this, his conversion, was February 1865. He refers to the event some years later as follows: “Passed once more the old schoolhouse where I gave my heart to God (February, 1865). Thank God for that step! Oh, how glad I am it was ever my lot to become a Christian!”

Another item of interest relating to this time was his engagement to Frances Stocking, reference to which in his diary for June 11, 1874, the reader will find further on.

One quality that was manifest in Brother Warner’s early religious life as well as throughout his entire career was earnestness. He was sincere and intense in his devotion and his Christian work. We shall find as we read the notes from his diary that his words breathe a spirit of love and devotion, evincing a deep spirituality. When he yielded to God, he meant it as the decision of his very soul, and his conversion was for him an actual change for time and eternity. Old things were passed away. New propositions and prospects arose to occupy his thoughts.

What ideals and plans were his immediately after his conversion we do not know. It was not long, however, until he decided that a more advanced education was needful. Nothing will give a young person nobler ambitions and greater desire to rise to all that is good and associated with usefulness than Christianity. On the 5th of September of the same year of his conversion he started to school at Oberlin College and enrolled for an English preparatory course. The details of his study at Oberlin and just how long he remained have not been learned. An old memorandum of his accounts indicates that he attended there only two months at first, and then taught school through the winter at Corunna, Indiana, returning to Oberlin in the spring, and that he started again with the new school year in September, 1866. It is known, however, that his excellency of character shone while he was at school and was the subject of remark.

He did not attend college as long as he had expected to; for it was while he was there that he began to feel God’s hand upon him for the ministry. When he saw how long it would take to complete his college work and the need of laboring in the Lord’s harvest while it was day, he felt impressed that God wanted him to cut short his college course and to prepare at once for the ministry. He accordingly went home, arranged for a room in his father’s house, and spent one season there in applying himself to prayer, Bible study, and those other things which he believed were directly necessary to his ministerial preparation.

Preparation for the ministry is more successful when, along with it, there can be more or less of actual practice. We can believe that Brother Warner was spiritual enough to keep in touch with God and to discern the divine leading in the important matter to which he had committed himself. At any rate, in connection with his work of preparation he began to engage in ministering the gospel. He preached his first sermon on Easter night, 1867, in a Methodist Episcopal protracted meeting in the Cogswell Schoolhouse, not far from where he lived. The text was Acts 3:18—“But those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.”

Church of God (Winebrennerian)

At the time of his first effort in the ministry, which occurred more than two years after his conversion, Brother Warner had not as yet given his name to any religious society. To join a sectarian denomination is never by divine prompting, but is urged from human source. A young convert possessing the spirit of Christ is naturally at home in the Lord and with Christians anywhere. It is foreign to that spirit for one to limit oneself by subscribing to any particular creed of men. Accordingly, our young brother was only “acting natural” when he manifested no particular anxiety to “join the church.” Representatives of the denominations in his neighborhood proposed to him and presented their articles of faith. The fact that he referred the great question to the Scriptures and could see no authority for joining anything not recognized in the Scriptures shows that he was already poor material for sectarian construction, at least so far as the common arguments for sects go.

There was one society, however, by which he was persuaded. The followers of John Winebrenner called themselves the Church of God. As they professed to hold to no creed but the Bible, repudiated sectarianism, baptized by immersion, and observed as an ordinance the washing of feet in conjunction with the Lord’s Supper, all of which seemed good to him, and especially as they had the exact New Testament name for the true church, he was constrained to unite with that body. The mark of fellowship which differentiated them from other Christians and constituted them a sect was not apparent to him, and so, even during the many years of his earlier ministerial career, he identified this body with the true church. He said in later years that he had more liberty as a minister before he took that step than he had during the years he belonged to the denomination, which after all was but a sect.

The Church of God, spelled with a capital C, and more fully denominated “General Eldership of the Churches of God in North America,” was founded by John Winebrenner in 1830. Winebrenner had been baptized and confirmed in the German Reformed Church (now the Reformed Church in the United States), and was given the pastorate at Harrisburg. He was a good man and the work of the ministry became the uppermost desire of his heart. He sought to raise the standard of true piety. His earnest preaching resulted in a revival in which he opposed theaters, dancing, gambling, lotteries, and racing. Revivals of religion were new experiences in the churches of that region, so that his ministry awakened strong opposition, which resulted in official charges against him. He severed his relations with the Reformed Church but continued his ministry, extensive revivals following.

Dr. C. H. Forney, in his History of the Churches of God, says:

Winebrenner did not entertain the purpose of founding a new denomination. These bodies he stigmatized as sects. Professor Nevin called the United Brethren and like bodies “rolling balls,” and accused Winebrenner with “putting in motion a similar ball, which continues rolling to this hour [1842], not without abundance of noise.” Winebrenner denounced this as gross misrepresentation. “But, sir, I did not retire for the ignoble purpose, as you have intimated, of putting another sectarian ball in motion. No, not at all. I had seen, through mercy, the great evil of these rolling balls, put in motion and kept in motion by the cunning craftiness of men and devils, and how by their repeated and unhappy collusions they hindered and marred the work of God in the earth; and, therefore, I resolved to fall back upon original grounds—to stand aloof from all these sectarian balls, and to do the work of an evangelist and minister of Christ by building up the church of God (the only true church) according to the plan and pattern as shown us in the New Testament. This is the high and firm ground we take. Our ball, therefore, is not like your ball, nor similar to other human balls. Ours is the Lord’s ball. It was not cut out of the Romish Church by the hands of Calvin and others as was yours. But it was ‘cut out of the mountain without hands.’ (Daniel 2:45) The ball commenced rolling upwards of eighteen hundred years ago, and it continues rolling to this hour; yea, and it will never cease rolling till every other man-made ball shall he either crushed or rolled up by it, and until the sound of it shall be ‘as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder.’ (Revelation 14:2) ”

[Forney, Dr. C. H.; History of the Churches of God, “Chapter III: 1825-1830”]

On the subject of organization the same writer continues:

Winebrenner was indisposed to begin the organization of churches. The uniform testimony of his contemporaries is that he “had not at the beginning the remotest idea of organizing a distinct or separate body of people.” But driven out of the pulpit by the Reformed Church, ostracized and persecuted, he was led to a closer personal investigation of church polity. He went to the highest source for light. He applied himself with singleness of purpose to the study of the Word of God. The result was a material modification of his former views on ecclesiology. As he himself testified later: “As the writer’s views had by this time materially changed as to the true nature of a Scriptural organization of churches, he adopted the apostolic plan, as taught in the New Testament, and established spiritual, free, and independent churches, consisting of believers or Christians only, without any human name or creed or ordinances or laws.” The local church was the unit. It possessed perfect autonomy. It was wholly independent of every other unit. Each such unit “possesses in its organized state,” as Winebrenner expressed it in 1829, “sufficient power to perform all acts of religious worship and everything relating to ecclesiastic government and discipline. Every individual church is strictly independent of all others as it respects religious worship and the general government of its own affairs.” Fellowship between these “free and independent” units there would be, but no higher organization was then recognized by Winebrenner which could limit the powers of the local church. Each of these local organizations would accept no human name, creed, nor ordinances; but would adopt the divine name and creed and ordinances. In his broad platform he saw a basis of the union of all Christians and churches. And so the imperative duty of cultivating union between all believers was strongly urged. These views prepared the way for Winebrenner to fall in with the growing demand for local church organization. For the multitudes of converts had “conceived the idea of, and began to talk about, organizing themselves into churches founded on Bible doctrines and principles even before Winebrenner had determined in his own mind to do so.”

[Forney, Dr. C. H.; History of the Churches of God, “Chapter III: 1825-1830”]

Thus there were independent local churches organized in and around Harrisburg, which Winebrenner denominated simply “Churches of God.” Each assumed the name of “Church of God at ____.” The members of these churches had equal rights, and elected and licensed men to preach.

There was as yet no common bonds, no general organization or directing authority. In order to effect this and adopt a regular system of cooperation, a meeting was held at Harrisburg in October 1830, attended by six of the licensed ministers. Of this meeting Winebrenner writes, “Thus originated the Church of God, properly so called, in the United States of America, and thus also originated the first Eldership.” This organized body assumed no other name than Eldership, though later the term General Eldership was used to distinguish this body from the eldership of the local church. The term General Eldership was, however, applied at first only to the presbyteries or Elderships of sections or States, which held their sessions annually. In October 1844, Winebrenner proposed a General Eldership for the transaction of all business of a general nature affecting the various annual Elderships. It was provided that this General Eldership should hold its meetings triennially for the first twenty years and after that every five years. Thus we see that by this time Winebrenner’s views of church government were still further modified.

The work continued to grow and spread to adjoining counties and to Maryland, western Pennsylvania, and Ohio, where Elderships were organized.

Each local church elects its own elders and deacons, who with the pastor constitute the church council and are the governing power, having charge of the admission of members and the general care of the church work. The churches within a given district are associated together for cooperation in general work. The pastors and other ordained ministers within a district, together with an equal number of lay members, constitute the Annual Eldership, which appoints the ministers of the various charges. Each local church votes for a pastor, but the Annual Eldership makes the appointments within its own boundaries. These Annual Elderships elect an equal number of ministerial and lay delegates, who constitute the General Eldership.

The Churches of God, as already stated, have no written creed but assume to accept the Word of God as their only rule of faith and practice. They hold the doctrine of the Trinity, believe in human depr