A SIGNIFICANT FALLING AWAY.
By S.
Statistics of the Presbyterian Church (North) record a decrease of ten per cent. a year, during the last three years, in the number of candidates for the ministry. In the Presbyterian Church (South) the decrease for the same time has been five per cent. A similar state of affairs is reported to exist among the Congregationalists. Statistics have not been published along this line by other denominations; but there is no reason to suppose that this is a feature of these two denominations only. It is more reasonable to look upon it as a symptom of the times, and indicative of the condition of things in the church generally. Various reasons are given for this condition, such as the increasing spirit of worldliness in the church, commercialism, low state of vital piety, materialism, lust for luxury, and the worship of mammon. Some do not regard these as the cause, but declare unqualifiedly that the true cause lies in the tyranny of creed; that young men shun the pulpit because it is not a place of intellectual freedom; that the higher education brings with it a horror of creedal bonds, and leads them to see a contradiction between the belief of the church and the more advanced “modern knowledge.” To such as hold this view the remedy lies in permitting the younger ministers more freedom of teaching in the pulpit, bringing their religious teaching “into harmony with the facts known,” which have been learned “in library and laboratory,” and discarding “useless tradition.” Certainly “useless tradition” has never been an essential of salvation, and such dogmas as are founded upon it are founded upon sand, and the sooner they are discarded the better for all concerned. Every creed that has been formed is an attempt to bind and hinder the growth and progress of the advancing truth of God. Creeds were not intended so to be by the men who formulated them; but such they have proved to be. The creed thrown over the church is the bushel turned over the candle. So the church can well afford to let it go—it can not afford not to. Banish tradition, banish the creed, and let the church and the world have the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ, untrammelled, unfettered, unhindered. But what of the “modern knowledge” and “the ‘facts known,’” which have been found out “in ‘library and laboratory,’” and with which the young minister would seek to harmonize his religious teaching? This is but another way of stating that modern religious teaching must harmonize with evolution and the higher criticism, and that the churches must allow their ministers to teach this clerical infidelity, or see the pursuits of the world swallowing up the young men who started out to study for the ministry. Higher criticism—which is but an attempt to vivisect the living Word, and evolution—which is but an attempt to unthrone the Creator of the heavens and the earth, have combined their forces to overthrow faith in God and in His Word. These studies have been fostered even in theological schools, and some who had started out to be ministers have been stranded on these rocks. Others are being stranded every day before they have left the academies by the apparently learned disquisitions of these philosophers, and have gone into the great drift of unbelief. Now comes the proposition that this “modern thought” shall have free course in the pulpit to finish off in the congregation the damage which it began in the minister in the course of his theological training. This will be done under the plea that it will unhamper the minister, give him a more inviting field, and thus increase the number of candidates for the ministry. The result will be that these twin deceptions will perform the same undermining work in the congregation that they have done in the ministry, discrediting in one breath, as both of these evils do, both the Word and the Author of the Word. We cannot tell how rapidly these errors will work in undermining faith. They have been working rapidly idly in that direction; they are working more rapidly now. The great majority formerly looked upon them with distrust. Now, because they are advocated by those high in sacred office, the mass are more ready to accept, and so more easily deceived. The decrease of real Christian faith goes on as rapidly as this philosophy prevails, and the ratio increases as the philosophy gains adherents in the sacred desk. We are not advocating that the minister of the Gospel shall be held down to preaching the tenets of a creed; but that the minister of the Gospel preach the Word, be ready at all times to give the reason of his hope, to teach faith, and trust, and hope in God; and then leave to the enemy of souls every work whose tendency is to undermine, to tear down, and to scatter. There is no law to prevent a man teaching the higher criticism or the “science” of evolution; there is no law to prevent men listening to such teachings. As far as human rights are concerned, it is the right of every man to be privileged so to do if he chooses. But God did not include this work in the Great Commission to His followers. Theirs was to be the work of propagating faith and the knowledge of God—not the “science” of the evolution of man from the ooze of the ocean bed. Theirs was to be a work of teaching faith in God’s own record of His work, and the surety of His purpose concerning man—not a scheme of proving Nature her own author, life a spontaneous phenomenon, and man an evolved bit of protoplasm, whose evolver was purposeless, and whose end is shrouded in mystery unfathomable. Theirs was to be the work of preparing men to meet their Lord when He should return to this earth. Let them do that. The creed can not tell them what to teach; but the great Word and the Holy Spirit can. There is the source of true evangelical preparation, and of true evangelical success. That will mean freedom in the pulpit, freedom in the truth; but it does not mean freedom to preach faith-destroying, soul-destroying philosophies, while professing the name of Christ, and the occupation of His servant. Men may teach these philosophies if they will; but it is dishonoring to the Most High to claim that such is the message of Christ for this time. To attempt to remedy this falling away in the ranks of the clergy by teaching to the congregations these same philosophies of distrust and unbelief, is only to increase the malady, and make the situation more hopeless. Christ Himself asked the question: “When the ‘Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the ‘earth’?” Luke 18:8. Every power of the enemy is now in full swing to make the answer, “No!” and he has found many stalwart lieutenants in the pulpits of Christian lands. The philosophies above referred to, and the plan suggested for making them the burden of the ministry, are in the direct line of the work of the enemy in destroying faith. The question of the Saviour implies that when He comes, genuine faith will be rare; that a powerful effort will have been put forth to sweep faith entirely out of the earth. That work is going on now. Higher criticism is the right wing; evolution the left; and in the center the enemy of all good comes on with all the other elements of discord and doubt. The faith of many will be destroyed, and they will be lost; but it is the privilege of every true child of God to be so anchored to the Infinite that he shall not be moved by any of these things. Salvation is possible to every one that willeth to do His will, and he need not be ensnared in the great falling away.