AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY

A coleporter or peddler

The American Tract Society turned into Crooswsays (publishers of the ESV Bible).  Here is their mission statement:

"Our vision and calling now is to remain faithful to the ministry entrusted to us—in the words of our mission statement, to help people ‘understand the massive implications of the gospel and the truth of God’s word, for all of life, for all eternity, and for the glory of God alone.’”

[Beebe, speaking of their ideological ancestor, the American Tract Society wrote this in 1856]:

The above-named society. Has issued a general circular dated February 6th, 1856, explanatory of their organization, object, power restriction, modus operandi, etc. And have politely addressed a copy of it to the Signs of the Times. As this favor, like John Gill's doctorate, came to us, unsought, unthought, unbought. We may be regarded as

ungrateful if we passed their kindness in silence. As the circular is somewhat voluminous. And we have but very little space for comment upon its merits or demerit. We are compelled to restrict our remarks to a very few leading features of this document.

i. It claimed to be a body corporate chartered by the state, approved and sustained by the church, and bearing a national and religious title. Consequently, it must be, to be what its name and charter imply, a direct church and state establishment.

ii. The object is disclosed in the first article, which the circular averts is the fundamental article:

Article 1. This society shall be denominated the American Track Society, the object of which shall be to diffuse a knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of sinners, and to promote the interests of vital godliness and saw morality by the circulation of religious tracts calculated to receive the approbation of all evangelical Christians.

As a father and perhaps a more explicit declaration of the object and principles of the monster institution, the Circular says, "the desire of all the founders, as unanimously expressed in their constitution and proceedings," was to secure two points. 

1. A highly evangelical character in the society's publications and laborers. That it might be consecrated to the one work of honoring Christ and raising men from sin and death to heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit.

2. Harmony both in the society itself. And among all truly Evangelical Christians, at home and abroad, wherever its influence should extend in all its proceedings.

These principles, says the circular, have been understood and acted upon as fundamental in the society's constitution. By all the committees and executive officers and all agents and coleporters employed from the foundation of the Society to the present hour.

iii. The power claimed by which this machinery is to work is the Holy Spirit.

iv. Its limitations and constitutional restrictions are to do nothing, publish nothing, with which all whom they designate Evangelical Christians do not agree. No track is to be published without the unanimous concurrence of all the evangelicals. No dead sinner is to be raised from sin and death to heaven by this society without the full consent of the evangelicals. Christ is not to be honored by having his mediatorial work taken out of his hands without unanimity among the societies approved evangelicals.

How truly has the inspired apostle described this MAN OF SIN, this SON OF PERDITION in II Thessalonians 2.3, 4, as exalting himself above, all that is called God, or that is worshipped, will appear to the intelligent Christian by a careful review of what we have copied from the circular.

It exalts itself above God, the Redeemer,, in representing that Christ has redeemed the human family, but thereby secured neither his own honor nor their salvation. That his honor is suspended on their operations, and to rest upon what they can do in raising men from sin and death to heaven.

2. It exalts itself above God our savior, and that in their implied and direct contradiction of what Christ affirmed when he said, "no man can come unto me except my father, which has sent me draw him. And I will raise him up at the last day." And in denying the truth of what God has by inspiration said. That there is salvation and no other name given under heaven or among men, and a palpable contradiction of the words of Jehovah, "For I am God, and besides me, there is no savior."

3. By representing God, the Holy Spirit, as a mere instrument in the hands of the Society, so to be used by them as a lever or a screw, with which they are to raise the dead and transport sinners to heaven.

It is a common saying and universally acted upon by all of this description of self-styled evangelicals, that Christ has died for all mankind and done all that he could to save them, but has failed to save as many as he desires should be saved. That the Holy Spirit has done all he can do to persuade sinners to be saved. But the spirit has also failed and has grieved away that the plan of salvation has provided by the Eternal Father and the grace given in Christ Jesus and the work of the Holy Ghost, all have failed to save those sinners, and the last chance for them is in the power of the American Track Society. If this is true, if all that is called, God has tried and failed, and the American Tract Society shall succeed in accomplishing what they represent God as incapable of, will they will not exalt a society above all that is called God and worshipped?

Our Blessed Redeemer has said, "For us to father raises up the dead and quickens them. Even so, the son quickens whom he will." How then does the father raise up and quicken the dead? Is it through the agency of track societies or any other intermediate agencies? When our God shall be revealed from heaven, in flaming fire, when the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God shall be sounded, and the dead shall be raised, will the American Tract society aid in arousing the slumbering tenants of the grave? If not, then neither have they now any agency in raising men from sin and death to heaven. "Verily, verily, I see on to you the hours coming, and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God, and they to hear shall live."

It is as impossible that the truth as it is in Jesus should be disseminated through the agency of the American Tract Society as it is for a corrupt fountain to send forth pure water. A large number of denominations of professed Christians have organized and are chartered by the state to be known as the American Tract Society. But in their constitution, they bind themselves to publish nothing in which they do not all agree. And there is but one solitary point in which they all do agree, and that is that the salvation is of men, that it is not alone by grace, but that Christ is to be honored by a society whose prominent work it is to raise men from sin and death to heaven. No man can unite with or become a member of the American Tract Society who does not subscribe to this blasphemous doctrine, as perfect unanimity must mark all their activities and this God-defying blasphemy as fundamental to them. No Christian who believes the scriptures of truth can relinquish the Bible doctrine that salvation is of the Lord and of the Lord alone. "God, who is rich in mercy for the great love wherewith he has loved us even when we were dead, and sins has quickened us together with Christ." "For by Grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For you are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto Good works, which God has foreordained, that we should walk in them."

All the religious world is divided into but two general classes, believers and unbelievers. The one class, however, subdivided in other points, unite in the sentiment that there is something to be done by men besides what God has done to save sinners. They may disagree as to what is to be done and when and by whom, but their distinguishing doctrine is salvation by works. The other class are those who are born of God and taught by the Spirit, and they know that salvation is all of God from first to last. These could have no place in the tract society, for they cannot adopt the fundamental doctrine of it, and therefore they are denounced as unevangelized al by the society.