A Voice of Distress from a Popular Pulpit.
By F. C. Ross
[BRO. SMITH: I send the following extract from a sermon recently delivered in London by Mr. Spurgeon, thinking it may be as interesting to other readers of the Review, as it has been to me. F. C. ROSS.] What if it be true that within the last twelve months the church of the living God has scarcely made the slightest approach to an advance? What if this be true as respects a far longer period? Let the first sad fact rise before us with its proof. For the last twelve months no apparent increase has been made to the number of professed disciples of the Lord Jesus. Do you ask me for the proofs? I can prove it, alas! too surely. Our own body, the Baptist denomination, is, upon the whole, and all things considered, in as sound and healthy a state as any Christian community now existing; I am persuaded that in some respects it is more sound and more healthy; but do you know what will have been the increase during the twelve months of the entire denomination in England, Scotland, and Ireland, so far as we can ascertain it? Well, with the exception of London, and the County of Glamorgan in Wales, there will be no increase worthy of the name. In many parts of Wales, where we are the strongest, there will be a positive decrease; and I think in fifteen counties of England, we shall have lost numbers instead of making any advance, and when the whole are put together, the good with the bad, and this London of ours, wherein God has greatly blessed us of late, is counted with the rest, our entire increase for all the churches with all their ministers will not make up four thousand souls. It is true that our statistics are not very accurate, but if they were more accurate I believe the result would be more unfavorable. This is the more fearful for me to contemplate, because the increase of the denomination, which by God's grace we might naturally look for merely from the increase of population, should have been very much more than this. If other Christian churches have not increased more, and I am persuaded that most of them have increased less, far less than we have, then I am correct in saying that positively the church of God in Great Britain and Ireland, instead of making any real advance, has, in proportion to the increase of population, absolutely gone back, and I believe it would be accurate and truthful, and could be borne out by statistics, that if at this day there were taken a census of the number of persons who commune at the Lord's table, it would be found to be smaller instead of larger than the number at the corresponding period of last year. As for abroad, what have our missions done? Brethren, if there were but one soul, we ought to rejoice, but the result of missions has been of late so terribly little, as to call for great searchings of heart. Is it not a fact that there are missionaries of ten years standing who have never had a convert? Is it not also a sad fact that the number of members in all our native churches is probably less now than it was twelve months ago? Where is the nation that has been born in a day in this year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six? Where are the kings that have bowed down before King Jesus? Where are the nations that have called him “Blessed?” Is there so much as one little tribe, however insignificant, that has owned Christ during the past year? Not one, not one! There has been no visible advance. The armies of the living God have rather suffered a repulse than gained a victory, and instead of the morning coming and the light arising, and the sun advancing to a noon-day light, it seems as though at the best he stood still, if the light did not even retrograde. Surely, there is a voice from God here, and as I hear, I am afraid. Meanwhile, what kind of an age has this been in which we have lived? Is it so impassive and thoughtless that progress is impossible? Are we living in one of those dark ages in which the mind is rocked to sleep and the soul is stupefied? Has this past year been one in which the somnolence of the human intellect has prevented our presenting the truth to the sons of men? I think not. I believe, brethren, that this year has been one of the most wakeful in the annals of human history. At this moment, London is like the city of which the prophet said, “It is full of stir.” . . . We have indulged the fancy that we have had a general revival, and that our churches are in a healthy state, but is it so? Let our non-success answer the question. In the meantime, while truth slumbereth, the legions of evil spirits cease not their mischievous endeavors. How swiftly have the locusts of priestcraft ascended from the smoke of the bottomless pit and covered the land! While we are compelled to fear that evangelical truth has made no advance, we cannot say this of Ritualism, for its progress has been perfectly astounding. Though a prophet should have told us that this Anglican Popery would have made so great an advance in so short a time, we should have said, “Impossible! England is soundly Protestant; she will never bear to have incense smoking under her nose, and to see the millinery of the Church of Rome flaunted before her face;” but she has borne it, and likes it well. Despite much that has been said concerning Puseyism being non-English, we are inclined to question the statement. Where are the greatest crowds in the Establishment? Are they not at the feet of these priests of Baal? Do not rank and fashion gather most readily in those places where their senses are delighted, while their souls are deluded? Yes. Through the means of our Popish Establishment there has been an onward rush of error which is perfectly appalling. Watchman, when they ask thee, “What of the night?” canst thou say, “The morning cometh?” Ye that love the Saviour, will you open your ears to catch the meaning of all these things? Men dying, men perishing, the church slumbering, and error covering the land—doth not God say something in all this? Do you not hear out of this darkness the voice, saying, “O my people, I have somewhat against you?” Did I not hear the Lord saying, “They shall perish, but their blood will I require at the watchman's hands?” I saw the church of God folding her hands, given to slumber, saying, “I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing;” and all the while she was suffering multitudes to perish for lack of knowledge, leaving the banner of truth to be moth-eaten, or to be trailed in the mire, and permitting the friends of error to ride rough-shod over all the land. As I saw her thus, I said within my heart, surely the Lord will chasten such a people as this, and I feared that he would send judgments upon his church, and perhaps take away her candlestick out of the place, and give the light unto another people that might serve him more faithfully. Then I felt as Habakkuk did: I heard the voice of the Lord, and I was afraid. I was afraid for my fellow men. . . . I was afraid for the Christian church, lest it should have a name to live and be dead—lest the Lord should give up the church in Britain as he did his church in Shiloh, of which he said, “Go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.” I feared lest he might do for the church in Britain as he has to the church in Rome—given it over to become an Antichrist, and an abomination before the eyes of God and men. I was afraid with exceeding great fear for my fellow ministers, for I feared that all this people could not have perished without their being guilty of some of their blood! How could all this ignorance have remained in this land if the preachers had been faithful? I fear that the blood of souls will be required at the hands of many a minister. What do I see? A gathering of ministers. And what is this I see on their garments? I see blood on them. I see blood sprinkled upon gray heads, and alas! I see blood upon the brows of young men who have but lately entered into the work—blood upon them all. Herein do I much fear for myself, lest I also, addressing this multitude so constantly, should have much blood upon my skirts because of my many responsibilities! O God, it is enough to make us afraid! Why, look, my brethren! When God's servants were truly active, as the first twelve were, did the cause stand still? Did they win here and there a soul, and have now and then a conversion? Did the cause of Christ go back, like an army put to the rout? On the contrary, did they not, as soon as ever they received the truth, use it as a firebrand to set the nations on a blaze? They met with persecutions which do not stand in our way; they were assaulted by threats of death which we have not to brave, and yet nothing could stand against their indomitable zeal, the omnipotence of the Holy Ghost rested on them, and they went on conquering and to conquer! And what are we? Oh! we are cold and dead where they were full of fire and life. We are the degenerate sons of glorious fathers. . . . We cannot get on with philosophical gospels: we must bring together all these new geological gospels, and neological gospels, and semi-Pelagian gospels, and do with them as the people of Ephesus did with the books—we must burn them, and let Paul preach again to us. We can do without modern learning, but we cannot do without the ancient gospel. We can do without oratory and eloquence, but we cannot do without Christ crucified. Lord, revive thy work, by giving us the old-fashioned gospel back again in the pulpits. . . . This, however, would not bring back a revival unless there came with it a revival of the gospel spirit. If you read the story of the Reformation, or the later story of the new Reformation under Whitefield and Wesley, you are struck with the singular spirit that went with the preachers. The world said they were mad, the caricaturists drew them as being fanatical beyond all endurance; but there it was, their zeal was their power. Of course the world scoffed at that of which it was afraid. The world fears enthusiasm, enthusiasm which is kindled by the thought of the ruin of men, and by the desire to pluck the firebrands from the flame, the enthusiasm which believes in the Holy Ghost, which believes that God is still present with his church to do wonders; this is what the world dreads, and what the church wants.