Is True Piety Increasing?
By James White
VERY frequently the religious papers make mention of the rapid spread of Christianity, and the growth of religious sentiment in this Nation. So confident are they of the correctness of their data and of the conclusions drawn therefrom that they predict the speedy evangelization of the world. Almost all that is now required to make this truly “a Christian nation” is an amendment to our National Constitution which shall enable the religious element to control legislation, and so to enforce (what the majority believe to be) the institutions and laws of Christianity. With the large majority against us, we are still skeptical in regard to their predictions. We have the most unbounded confidence in the Bible, and “the sure word of prophecy” which it contains. We read therein that “the age of gold” for this world is far, far in the past. The history of this world has brought us down from the gold, through the silver and brass, even through the iron, and into the mixture or mingling of iron and clay. See Dan. 2. And the setting up of God’s “everlasting kingdom” is not the conversion of the kingdoms or nations, either as cause or consequence, but their entire overthrow and utter destruction. And with this prediction in Dan. 2 agree many prophecies to which we might refer, even Ps. 2, which is so often and so inappropriately appealed to as proof of the world’s conversion. See Ps. 2: 8, 9. Then the question may be asked, What mean these statistics of the large increase of believers, of the wide-spread acceptance of the Christian faith? Our answer is, They who produce them are deceived by appearances. The judgment which they form on the increase of religious sentiment is as superficial as the religious sentiment upon which it is based. The religious sentiment of the age is not deep; it is not a religion of self-denial, of cross-bearing. It is a religion that seeks popular applause; that goes hand in hand with the world and worldlings; a religion of sociables and festivals; of excursions and hilarity; of fairs and raffles; of immense church edifices, and small prayer-meetings. In a number of the American Christian Review in 1882, is an interesting article which contains the following words from Professor W. H. Green, LL.D. All who are acquainted with the condition of the religious world will certify that he drew the picture faithfully, and that he did not magnify the difficulty and the dangers, which are even greater now than they were then:— “All the signs of the times indicate that the American churches, and, in fact, the whole of English-speaking Christendom, are upon the eve of an agitation upon the vital and fundamental question of the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, such as it has never known before. The divinity and authority of the Scriptures have heretofore been defended against the outside world of unbelievers—against pagans, infidels, and skeptics; but the question is now raised, and the supreme authority of the Scriptures contested within the church itself. In the controversies which have agitated the churches of Great Britain and of this country heretofore, the infallible authority of Scripture has been admitted as the ultimate test of doctrine, by all contending parties. All made their appeal to this standard. The settlement of every question depended upon its interpretation, or upon inferences fairly deducible from it. But now the standard is itself brought into question. Utterances which fill the air on every side, and are borne to us from every quarter—from professors’ chairs, from pulpits, from the religious press, not to speak of what is incidentally woven into general literature and promiscuous conversation, show abundantly that the burning question of the age is not, What does the Bible teach? It is one yet more radical and fundamental: What is the Bible? In what sense is it the word of God? Is it a revelation from him, and divinely authoritative? Or, is it to be left to the interpreter to say what in it is from God and worthy of our faith, and what is the fallible human element that may be rejected? This question is approached from all sides, and the most diverse and conflicting answers given.” If it be true that the question of the authenticity and reliability of the Bible is yet to be settled in the English-speaking churches, to what purpose is the increase of their numbers? To what purpose is this boast of increasing strength, this array of statistics, if there is a virus at the heart, a moral infection diffused through the body, which is not destroying it, but turning it into a diseased and corrupted mass? So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd which grew up over him, but he did not mark the worm which was eating away its life. The English-speaking churches have boasted very much of late years of the increase of light and knowledge in their midst, of the higher general education of their ministry. If their education were sanctified to the service of God, then their knowledge would be something over which they might well rejoice. But, unfortunately, this is not the case. It has come to be a mark of wisdom to doubt; a sign of “advanced thought” to look upon the disobedience of the first human pair as the means of great blessings to the race, if, indeed, the whole story be not an allegory. He who respects the testimony of Moses, who does not look upon him as a pitiful specimen of an arbitrary bigot of the Dark Ages, is considered but a sorry graduate in many “higher” Christian circles, while he who professes to be scientifically wiser than the Bible is most highly esteemed, even in many of our theological schools. The theology of the German schools—“German Neology”—is flourishing throughout Christendom. According to it, the Bible must submit to be placed in the crucible of science, and be content to emerge therefrom in whatever shape the scientific world may see fit to mould it; that everything in the Bible must be determined by scientific data, or explained according to the laws of science and philosophy. In such a school miracles can have no place, and thus we find professors of science and religion (professors truly) denying that a miracle was ever performed,—affirming that the Bible was written in terms just suited to the ignorance of the Jews to whom it was given; that it presented things as they appeared to the uneducated, and not as they really were. It may be replied that while this is true to a large extent, it is not universally so; that very many still adhere to the “old paths,” and to the old methods of thought. True; but they are coming to be looked upon as “fogies,” as relics of an age of blind adherence to “authority.” The statement of Professor Green cannot be gainsaid. The most popular pulpits, the chairs of theology in the colleges, are fast moulding the popular sentiment in this direction. “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.” And to this agree the words of inspiration. God, who sees the end from the beginning, has pointed out this very state of things in the religious world. Read the following:— “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away.” 2 Tim. 3: 1-5. Is this description too bold to be applied to Christian churches within whose pale the question of the reliability of the Bible has yet to be settled? We will not assume that all these characteristics are prominently displayed in the churches of this day. But where love of self, covetousness, boastfulness, pride, and inordinate love of pleasure already exist, and some of the other traits are becoming painfully prominent, and the whole resting on a foundation composed of a mixture of Platonic philosophy, “Catholic tradition, “science falsely so-called,” with barely sufficient respect for the Bible to give the air of a Christian body—where these already exist, the coming of all the rest is only a question of time. And the end is hurried on by the churches making their dependence the civil power, by which to enforce their dogmas upon the world, which they despair of moving by arguments. The millennium for which they are now working is a millennium of Church-and-State authority, instead of one of a church of deep, earnest piety, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, only “leaning on the arm of her beloved.” The way to eternal life is still narrow, and few there are who find it. The Bible is still God’s word of truth, and the words of the Saviour about the ways to life and destruction are still true. Well would it be for the cause of religion and the well-being of the world, which needs the sanctifying power of the truth, if the churches would be convinced that the narrow way to life cannot be widened by appeals to “Religious Amendments,” to National Constitutions, to “Civil” or “Penal Codes,” or to “Legislative Enactments.”