W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

fortifying Jerusalem by impregnable walls.
The Methodist preachers had yielded to intimidation and given up the altar, contenting themselves to take in
members as seekers and risk getting them converted afterwards. This state of things was fast secularizing the
Church, as the old ones who had been saved were going to Heaven and leaving the Church in the hands of their
successors who knew not the Lord experimentally. I could not preach Bible Holy Ghost religion clearly,
forcefully, efficiently and successfully, without constantly exposing the silly, superficial sophistries of
Campbellism, which the people had heard so long that many of them believed, and really the popular mind had
suffered an awful deterioration appertaining to the orthodox truth of the Bible, which is the actual new creation
wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost, through faith subsequently to a radical and genuine repentance.
Campbell's translation of the New Testament was circulated and read, which gives “reformation” for
“repentance,” and “immersion” for “baptism,” thus really eliminating spirituality out of the Bible. The Greek
word for repentance is metamoria, which literally means a change of mind. The Campbellite interpretation is
simply metaphysical, construing it into a mere change of purpose and consequent reformation. The error lurks
deep down on the bottom of Bible theology. The Bible is not a book on mental philosophy, but salvation and
serves as its own expositor. The precious book plainly reveals what the change of mind is; not simply a change
of thought and purpose, but the actual removal of the carnal mind, which is hereditary from fallen Adam, and its
substitution by the mind of Christ, which is created in the heart by the Holy Ghost in regeneration. In the first
great work of grace wrought by the Holy Ghost in justification and regeneration, which constitutes conversion,
the old man of sin,
I. e., the carnal mind, is conquered and grace given to hold him in subordination so that he does not break
out and commit actual transgressions; yet we still have him on hand in the deep interior of the heart and ready to
rise in the form of pride, vanity, ambition, lust, passion, temper, envy, jealousy, revenge, ritualism, prejudice,
bigotry, egotism, sectarianism, self-will and a diversity of insidious metamorphisms. Consequently every true
Christian has the inward conflict till these indwelling enemies, which are the elements of the carnal mind, are all
washed away by the cleansing blood in entire sanctification, which is the completion of repentance.
The vast multitudes who came from all the surrounding country to attend those debates had never heard much
true, straight, orthodox preaching, as four-fifths of the crowd were either members of the Campbellites or under
their influence. My opportunities to preach the Gospel to the people who had really never heard it were almost
as if one were in India. Some places where I preached, the people said that they had never heard the Gospel
before. Let the Campbellites get the complete monopoly of a country and give the people nothing but their water
doctrines, and at the same time abuse and ridicule Holy Ghost religion and tell the people that there is no such
thing, and that the people who profess it are fanatics, deceived and deceiving others; in a generation or two the
Gospel will go out of that country, and the people become practically heathenized. The doctrine constantly
preached by these people, which I heard incessantly during the first twenty years of my life, is literal idolatry. In
the house of Noah, whence all the people in the world emanated, they all had a knowledge of the true God; but
how quickly they trended away into idolatry. Baal, the sun-god, and Ashteroth, the moon-goddess, led the way
in the monopoly of the human heart, as they are the most conspicuous to the eye.
Well has man been denominated by philosophers the “religious animal.” Therefore a nation without a religion
has never been found. The most simple form of religion which has been found among all nations is spiritism, I.
e., the recognition of a spirit at every place, at a fountain, at a river, or a mountain, or a plain. They think that
there is a spirit there somewhere having charge of it, and if they do not respect its rights and show it reverence
by offering it sacrifice, it will punish them in some way. From this comes fetishism, the religion of charms, I. e.,
the wearing of something on one's person, like a ring on the finger, to keep away diseases, and fortify you
against evils.
You see how exceedingly difficult it was to keep Israel out of idolatry. They would engage in the worship of
Jehovah, whom they could not see, but they wanted to see the object of their worship.
Baal, the sun-god, was so conspicuous as he rolled his fiery chariot over the skies, flooding the world with his
light, that they felt awed into reverence before him and constrained to recognize his majesty by offering him a
sacrifice. Thy believed that he was the god that made them. The American Indians have always worshipped the