A Faithless Age by Rev. H. B. Whipple

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 16, 1858

A Faithless Age.

By Rev. H. B. Whipple

We live in a faithless age. The multitudes around us have no faith. Many a scholar in the land knows less of God and Christ and heaven than a Sunday School child; they have grown up in a christian land, without the christian faith; religion has been to them the opinion of men, and not the revelation of God; the voice of their teacher faltered, and they doubted, and doubt ripened into unbelief.

There are thousands on thousands in America who cannot tell what they believe or disbelieve; they are walking in darkness, going to the grave, no voice to cheer, no hand to guide, no Christ to save. A man in a christian land, without God and without hope, going to death and hell!

The multitude scoff at religion as priestcraft; they fall a prey to delusions and lies; they accept these in the place of the gospel of Christ. In our day a superstition has arisen, which, at the first, provoked a smile at its folly; to-day

Spiritualism raises its head to blaspheme and oppose the religion of Christ, and is the faith of thousands. Unbelief, which turns the multitude over to a godless life, is the parent of every heresy which blasphemes and denies the Lord Jesus Christ. It is this absence of faith in Christ, which is the cause of the wide-spread delusions which sweep over the land. Why should it not be so? If men give up all which Christ has said of his church—if they break down all barriers against heresy and schism—if they teach that it matters not what a man believes if he is only honest—what could so plainly surrender them to the delusions of Satan, to be led captive at his will? We place ourselves in danger of falling, when we turn aside to tamper with any error. It may sound specious, that “it only needs to keep the heart right to be a christian.” The safest way to keep the heart right is, looking to Christ, to dwell in humility in the church which our Lord has given us.

Like an Apostle of old, we must preach Jesus and the resurrection to men sunk in Corinthian sensuality, and declare the glory of the cross to those who, like Athenian philosophers, worship the creations of human wisdom.

Without openly denying the Lord who bought us, we may fall into the snares of the times; we, too, may treat all faith as an opinion; we may be afraid to plant our feet firmly upon the testimony of the church; we may reason that it can do no good, the world is against us, they will not hear, it will provoke a tumult. A thousand motives may appeal to us, to soften down the messages of God; we may think that, if the distinctive doctrines of the church are only tempered to the prejudices of the people, we shall keep our hold upon them. It is not to be denied that there is seeming strength in such reasons, for love and affection are strong bonds to reach the heart.

But, my brethren, do we love these souls more than he who died for them on the cross? Are we better judges of the value of the church and its holy sacraments than he who appointed them? Have we the right to soften down any warning of God? We forget that the people are wrong; they crucified our Lord; their sins crucify him daily. We are placed in trust of this ministry of reconciliation to withstand the people; to ward and plead and pray, and with love to win them back to their allegiance to Christ.

It is a sad truth, that some of the darkest heresies which have desolated the church have come from the sworn liegemen of the cross, by tampering with the faith and attempting to harmonize the truth of God with the doubts and cavils of sinful hearts. We have no right to falter about any truth of divine revelation. We do not blame others for training their people in their faith, or for keeping their prayer-meetings and fast-days. Why should we not be ready to take men in a walk around Zion, and to show them her palaces and bulwarks? I believe, in my heart, that the time has come of which Hooker spake, “when one word spoken in charity is better than a thousand spoken in a disdainful sharpness of wit;” but it is also a day when we should remember the warning of the dying martyr, “Stand thou in the day of trial as an anvil when it is beaten.”—Rev. H. B. Whipple.