Rivers of Righteousness and Words of Warning. Sermons on the Christ Life with Opinions from Many of God's Men.
Jackson, Miss. People's Defender Print, 1897. 5¾” x 3¾”. Stapled wrappers, now housed in a custom box and chemise. pp. [6], x, 186. Good: chips to front wrap and some loss to backstrip; printed on acidic and very fragile paper which is prone to chipping.
This previously unknown work is likely the most important book ever published related to the African American Holiness Movement (AAHM). It almost certainly played a significant role in the spread of a controversial doctrine that ultimately led to the formation of two new sects which today have over six million combined followers.
The book was written by Pastor Charles Price Jones, one of the three founders of the AAHM. The first half of the book contains the only known text of seven of Jones' earliest Holiness sermons which lay the foundation for what became the first iteration of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC). The rest of the book contains 22 different essays, mostly by Black authors, further expounding on the principles of Jones' sermons as well as the ideas shared in the book's introduction and closing. Considering the book's timing and place of publication, it is likely the first published account of the African American Holiness Movement and its principles.
The Holiness Movement emerged in the United States during the 19th century as a significant religious movement within Protestantism. It is rooted in the Wesleyan tradition, particularly the teachings of John Wesley, who emphasized the concept of Christian perfection—the belief that believers could experience a second work of grace, leading to a life of holiness and sanctification. The movement gained momentum in the 1830s and 1840s, largely in response to the perceived spiritual complacency of mainstream Protestantism. It emphasized personal holiness, entire sanctification, and the possibility of living a life free from willful sin. The movement grew out of the Methodist Church, with figures like Phoebe Palmer, a prominent evangelist, advocating for the "altar experience" as a means of achieving holiness. By the late 19th century, the Holiness Movement had fractured into various denominations, leading to the establishment of churches like the Church of the Nazarene, the Salvation Army, and the Wesleyan Church. The movement's influence extended into the Pentecostal movement, particularly with the doctrine of sanctification as a distinct, post-conversion experience.
Charles Price Jones and the African American Holiness Movement
We learn from John M. Giggie's After Redemption. Jim Crow and the Transformation of African American Religion in the Delta 1875-1915. (Oxford University Press, 2008) that
“[William Christian, Charles Price Jones, and Charles Harrison Mason] birthed the African American holiness movement. Eventually becoming national in scope, its origins were local and deeply entangled in the post-Reconstruction history of black life in the [Mississippi and Arkansas] Deltas. Specifically, its taproots lay in the misery generated by the failure of Reconstruction and the rising level of public confusion and dissatisfaction triggered by recent changes in Baptist and Methodist life . . .
Christian, Jones, and Mason preached subtle variations on a central theme— namely, that earthly comfort, security, and authority lay not in the teaching of any denominational church but in the acceptance of their theology of moral perfectionism. At its core lay the idea that Christians of any rank or station in life could suddenly be sanctified and forever washed of sin.”
Another great encapsulation of the AAHM comes from the doctoral dissertation of David Douglas Daniels, III, Ph.D., The Cultural renewal of slave religion: Charles Price Jones and the emergence of the holiness movement in Mississippi (Union Theological Seminary, 1992):
“The holiness movement emerged as a struggle within the ranks of the new, young African American Baptists who came to prominence after Reconstruction during the 1880s and 1890s. They were the recent graduates and instructors at colleges such as Atlanta Baptist, Arkansas Baptist . . . these were the young progressive ministers dedicated to sound religion and racial uplift. From the first generation of post-slavery leaders they inherited the struggle to wrestle power from the class committed to the religious practices developed during slavery in biracial, separate, and clandestine congregations in order to create an African American Baptist orthodoxy. Within the theological elite was a group identified with restorationist ideas.”
Per a biography of Jones at the website for the Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A., (COCH), Jones' first experience with sanctification was in 1894,
“While living in Selma, he realized that he needed a deeper experience of grace and more power in his life. He said, 'I asked God for grace and God demanded that I let Him sanctify me. It was there I fasted and prayed three days and nights and God sanctified me sweetly in His love. New visions of Christ, of God and of truth were given to me. It was the nearness, the imminence and the reality of the presence of God that exalted my spirit and filled me with joy…the joy of the Holy Ghost. This made me feel keenly unworthy and in need daily of His amazing grace. My ministry was blessed in Selma AL.”
In 1895 Jones accepted the call to Mount Helm Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi and, according to COCH,
“his largest and greatest work was done at this church. He began to promote and teach holiness with no thought that it was about to stir up a storm. He had no idea of taking up holiness as a fad or creed; He stated that 'I just wanted to be personally holy. I just wanted to walk with God in the Spirit.' His toil and suffering was also great. The newspapers covered him with calamity, shame and falsehood but he stood on the word of God in his darkest hour.”
According to Daniels, Mt. Helm is the congregation from which Jones launched the holiness movement in Mississippi among African American Baptists.
In 1896, Jones called his first of several holiness conventions and, per COCH, published his first booklet, The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Churches which had the narrow focus of examining the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. Per COCH, as of 1896,
“All of [Jones'] work seemed to be going forward but there was much opposition. Many people overreacted at this holiness teaching and that it was heresy. The brethren did not appreciate the new teaching and the Holiness Doctrine. Many thought Jones was a fanatic . . . Opposition led him to take a serious step to build another sect, which was not his aim or desire. He sought to reorganize the church as a Holiness congregation.”
Per Jones' himself, in his Autobiographical Sketch of Charles Price Jones (The Journal of Black Sacred Music Vol. 2 Issue 2, 1988) the first African American holiness convention was held in June 1897 and
“at first, our movement was entirely interdenominational, non-sectarian and in spirit antisectarian . . .but we were persecuted by the churches eventually and associations and all sects combined against us. We do not blame them . . . our mission was misunderstood. What we do not understand we fear and fight. But this persecution caused us to build another sect, which was not our aim nor desire.”
These issues caused Jones and Mason to found their first African American Holiness Church, in Jackson, Mississippi-- an independent nondenominational fellowship called “the Churches of God in Christ.” They then began to develop congregations in the South, with Jones elected as the General Overseer and Mason selected as the Overseer of Tennessee. As this book was issued in Jackson in 1897 and advertises Jones' newspaper and two other (unrecorded) works by him, we believe it was part of Mason and Jones' strategy to broadly spread their new and controversial teachings. Making the book even more desirable is that it was published by a Black printer, The People's Defender Press. While not listed in Danky-Hady, contemporary newspaper accounts show The People's Defender was owned by an African American man named Wash Newman. The quality of the paper lends itself to the fact that our copy has just now come to light: it's heavily acidic and chips easily, though this copy only has a few chips on its wrappers; hence if the People's Defender Press used similar paper for the other Jones books, it's not surprising that no copies are known to have survived.
By 1906 COGIC had grown to nearly 100 congregations in three states when Mason went to Los Angeles for five weeks and attended the Asuza Street Revival. While there, Mason received the baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence being that he was “speaking in other tongues.” When he returned to Jackson, Mason was met with opposition that speaking in tongues was evidence of baptism of the Holy Ghost. At the general holiness convention in 1907, Mason was expelled for accepting the new Pentecostal teachings and went on to reorganize COGIC as a separate sect. Litigation ensued over the use of the name COGIC, and in 1915 Jones was forced to change the name of his sect to COCH. As of 2012 COCH had around 140 churches and 13,000 members; COGIC is now the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States and has approximately 6.5 million members worldwide.
Introductory Text by J.H. Green and Jones' Preface
While there's no way of knowing if the book was published before or after the founding of the first COGIC church, it's clear that the text was intended simultaneously as a promotional, exposition and defense of the AAHM. In addition to its time and place of printing, text from the book's introduction as well as Jones' preface bolster this argument.
The following passages are from the book's ten-page introduction by J.H. Green (a friend of Jones who wrote the biographical introduction to Jones' 1902 book An Appeal to the Sons of Africa).
Green railed against the current state of the pulpit and what was preached:
“But what is the status of the church today? Powerless, unholy, unrighteous, unfruitful . . . What is the condition of our ministers and laymen? Unsanctified, unholy, unredeemed, reveling in sin and unbelief which is diametrically opposed to that from which came to save them . . . Now seeing the present status of the Church, seeing that its power has fled that it is no more fruitful, that sin stalks in the midst of it, from which it is said they cannot be delivered, what is the duty of the ministers of today in the churches? The answer comes in peels of thunder, LIFT UP THE STANDARD!”
He also shared the drama and opposition faced by Jones:
“Aroused by the Holy Spirit, and made to see the church in her true state, and yet the inevitable necessity of conforming to the model given in the word, pastor Jones has begun sounding the true reformation in the churches. God has prepared his heart, and brother Jones is determined by the help of the Preserver that that preparation shall not be for naught. He has begun a work that emphasizes the true principles of salvation, that it is not such an easy going thing that one may serve God a while, carelessly lay down his religion and take it up again. He has given the price of this salvation, and that price is his life notwithstanding it may bring down upon him the stigma, ostracism and hatred of men whom he loves. For this very reason he may know that he is right, and rejoice in the God of his salvation . . . . Our brother is incessantly sounding the tocsin of Christian warfare in every possible way, that the impure may become aroused to the fact that they are not on the right way for eternal life. Through mediums of the pulpit, the newspaper and by means of these and other books and tracts is he presenting the true way of salvation to a deluded people . . .
Doubtless, there are those who oppose him because they do not understand him . . . Many alienate themselves from him and hence do not really know what he teaches. It is but just to hear him before repudiating him. Can a doctrine that leads a soul into fellowship with Christ, into real peace with all men, to overcome temptation and the will of the flesh, be heresy? Can the reception of the Spirit of Christ and walking in that Spirit be heresy? Is it heresy for one to get into a state that will cause him to hunger and thirst after righteousness, or to get filled with it? This is the work of this dear brother.”
Also, Green's closing paragraph implied this book was a guide to the new belief system,
“Read carefully this book for it is an embodiment of all the doctrine taught by him. He does teach that one can so live in the Spirit by the exercise of those means of grace revealed in the Bible, as to be daily in favor with Christ; that one can live a righteous and sanctified life: for this is the will of God. Read carefully this volume prepared by one who is led by the Holy Spirit, and one that preaches what he practices. Read this book, search the Scriptures, be filled with Spirit. Oh may each reader of this little volume receive a blessing from the Lord.”
Furthering the argument of the purpose of the book were Jones' “Prefatory Remarks” which preceded the second section of the book, “Opinions of God's Men,”
“This book is written not just to be upon the market, but to instruct the wayward; to lift up the hand that hangs down and the feeble knees and to make straight paths for our feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; to help and inspire those whom the Holy Spirit has already compelled to adopt a holy course of life; to refute certain perversions of some very glorious truths, which perversions are but promoting carnality among the people and crowding the pit of damnation. In our struggle after perfection as it is in Christ Jesus, Elijah like, we often feel ourselves alone in the battle. But God has yet his seven thousand left him. And we are glad to know each other's voice. Therefore, to these sermons, I have added the appendix of Opinions from God's Men that we may hear the testimony of those who are with us awaiting the consolation of Israel, and longing for the time when 'the desert shall blossom as the rose.'”
Section 1: Jones' Sermons
Jones' seven sermons take up 105 pages of text. The first is unsurprisingly called, “True Sanctification” where he stated,
“concerning the doctrine emphasized in these passages of Scripture, namely, Holiness, there is much controversy; there is, in certain quarters, a decided and malignant aversion to it. It is really assuming a cross which few people are willing to bear, to profess to be one of the sanctified; such a stigma has Satan been astute enough to attach to the profession of a holy life.”
Jones also said in the first sermon that opposition to his teachings were due to “carnal mindedness,” misunderstanding, and that “some confound sanctification with perfection.”
The second sermon was entitled “Sanctification the Will of God,” and expressed these beliefs: “Our sanctification is the expressed will of God . . . God wills our sanctification because he would have our lives pure . . . God wills our sanctification because he would have our hearts pure.”
The titles of the rest of the sermons are as follows: “Entire Consecration Reasonable,” “The Unpardonable Sin, or Blasphemy Against the Holy Ghost,” “What It Is to Save the Soul,” “Why Few Will Be Saved,” and “The Good Fight of Faith.”
Section 2: “Opinions by God's Men on Holiness of Life”
The rest of the book has 22 relevant essays on sanctification, baptism, the Holy Ghost and other topics. Three of the authors were white, including Joanna Patterson Moore, the only female contributor. Moore was a white Baptist Missionary who dedicated her life to ministry to African Americans in the Mississippi Delta. Jones met Moore in 1891 and was first exposed to the holiness movement through her. Most of the other authors we have been able to confirm as African American. We believe it a reasonable inference that most of the contributing Black authors were early followers of Jones and Mason.
Most of the writers were pastors or Elders located either in Alabama, Mississippi or Arkansas. Elder John A. Jeter contributed “Why We Must Have the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.” Jeter was a close friend of Mason and Jones who was later named overseer of Arkansas for COGIC. There's also a piece from the Black Baptist leader, Charles Octavius Boothe, “Blessing of Salvation.” Other essayists include Rev. P.S.L. Hutchins, Rev. I.G. Bailey, Elder R.B. Brown, Elder A.C. Morris, Pastor S.L. Short, Elder A.J. Steele, Pastor A.J. Bradley; Pastor W.S. Pleasant, and Pastor Kelly Rucks.
The book ends with a brief essay from the Rev. R.B. Jordan in Terry, Mississippi entitled “You Are Right,” and takes the form of a letter to Jones:
“Dear Brother: I have heard of you concerning the question of 'Bodily Sanctification,' and thought that you were too extreme in introducing your doctrine. I am certainly mistaken as to your extremeness in advocating 'Bodily Sanctification.' Since I have seen the Scripture from which you have your standpoint or grounds, I have no contradiction to make-- I say that you are right. May God help you to accomplish your aim. If we have any Bible proofs for the doctrine of the Baptist Church, or for the establishing of it, then you have the proofs for your subject.”
We find no record of this book anywhere: not in OCLC, online, nor any standard bibliography and not referenced in any of the reference sources cited above.
The only known copy of a work of monumental importance. Good. Item #8575
Price: $30,000.00