"NEW THEMES FOR THE PROTESTANT CLERGY."
By J. F. Ballenger
[BRO. SMITH: I here enclose a few leaves that I picked up by the way, which contain a chapter setting forth the defects of, and anti-Christian course pursued by, the Catholic and Protestant churches. I think it should have a wide circulation. Therefore if you see proper to insert it you may do so. It may be the means of awakening some soul to see the spiritual lethargy that the mass of professors have fallen into.
Yours in hope. J. F. BALLENGER.] Such is the title of a new work, which has just made its appearance from the Philadelphia press, to which is added on the title-page, "Creeds without Charity, Theology without Humanity, and Protestantism without Christianity. With notes by the Editor on the Literature of Charity, Population, Pauperism, Political Economy, and Protestantism." It seems to contain a fearless and masterly exposé of the defects and errors of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. The author is said to be, "a merchant of high standing and character, and an esteemed member of the Presbyterian church;" and of the work it is said, "that it contains home-truths of a somewhat unpalatable nature, perhaps, to many high professors and low practicers." The following chapter is said to be a fair condensation of the spirit of the book. We find Christians forgetting their vocation, in the exercise of their duty as citizens, and ranging themselves in the rank and file of political gamblers and demagogues. There are Christians enough, and light and wisdom enough, if properly and zealously applied, to place every truly good cause in the ascendant, and to make our land as remarkable for its exemplification of Christian precepts as it has been for the favor of Providence. If the Christians of this country had only been as faithful to their religious obligations as they have been faithful to party discipline, they would now wield a moral and religious power which nothing within or without could long withstand. Here is a field in which Christians, for more than half a century, have had full liberty and free scope to carry out their Master's injunctions. What have they done? What kind of Christianity is exhibited in this country, where the conscience is free; where religion is not complicated with the government; where abuses are not consecrated by antiquity; where superstitions are not fastened upon us by the habits and associations of ages; where the priesthood is without power, and where the light of the Scriptures shines as freely as the light of the sun? To what extent do we behold the influence of Christians in our legislation, or in the workings of our national or State governments? Do we find that influence in the fierce competition of trades, in the progress of which thousands upon thousands annually fall into distress and poverty, while the eager votaries of wealth sweep past, unheeding the victims upon whom they trample? But this is the mass which owns not Christ. Look, then, at those who profess to be his followers, and bear his name. Scores of churches surround us, mutually repelling and attacking each other, and affording a scene of strife, jealousy, animosity, and evil-speaking, with scarce a parallel for virulence in the proceedings of those who profess no fellowship with Christ. Each of these various sects claim, in terms the most unqualified, that they only are right; no claim of infallibility is stronger than that they arrogate. Some differ as wide as terms can separate them; others agree so nearly that there is scarcely the shade of a phrase between them; yet the bitterness of division only increases with the less it has to fasten upon. But while this sectarianism is thus a spectacle to the world, it is eclipsed by the internal feuds to which these sects are themselves exposed. Many of them have been convulsed to their centers, or blown asunder by the explosions of strife and evil passions, which were a disgrace to civilization, let alone Christianity. Volumes might be filled with accounts of these fatal exhibitions; but alas! they are too fresh in the memory of all, to need any reference, even in the way of warning. Apart from these flagrant departures from the spirit of Christianity, what does the current history of the various churches, in greater or less degree, disclose? Intense, and often unscrupulous rivalry, incessant and unkind competition, a self-glorifying and haughty demeanor. Whatever a few individuals may do to correct or overcome the evil, churches seldom treat each other in a spirit of love or forbearance. If without, they are in a hostile attitude; within, they are far from being at peace with each other, or with the Master they profess to serve. If united, they are but too often frozen together; if at variance, it has all the acrimony of a family quarrel. They build sumptuous temples for the worship of God, and sell the seats to the highest bidder; they neither attend nor allow others to attend. The poor are virtually excluded from houses professedly devoted to the services of their best Friend; they are not invited to come to the services of these temples; much less are they compelled to come in; the streets and highways are never searched to find guests for the empty seats in these costly dwellings of sectarian worship. The gospel is not preached to the poor, either in them nor out of them. Christ is preached, but not obeyed; his various offices are magnified and proclaimed, but his precepts are neither adequately explained nor exemplified. The preaching is done in the churches to the rich, or to the empty seats which belong over them. The word of Life is scattered abroad over the world with a liberal hand; but it goes unaccompanied by any practical ratification of its benign precepts, proving that it is confided in and obeyed by those who send it. The gospel is sent to the heathen of far distant lands, but the heathen at home are neglected. The world is the field committed to Christians for cultivation, and they employ themselves in dividing and sub-dividing the ground, in building high walls, in planting hedges of thorns, in digging deep ditches, and in endless disputes about boundaries and lines of demarkation, whilst the plants, the poor plants, suffer for want of proper culture, wither and die. The laborers in these artificial lines of circumvallation, are not permitted to look over these walls, but are required to contract the range of vision and thought to the lines prescribed. The cultivators of this great field, thus fearfully partitioned, employ themselves in studying and discussing the philosophy of their work, down to the minutest matter, and to the nicest possible distinctions; and while thus engaged, plants perish by thousands at their feet, lacking that attention which the simplest Christian could afford. Thus that labor of Christians is expended in discussing, refining and distinguishing, which should be laid out in exemplifying what they know. Immense efforts are made to induce and compel people to believe the same things, and to think in the same channels, which should be applied to the practical illustration of what we believe and know in common. It is in vain that we master chemistry, meterology, and the whole science of agriculture, if we do not likewise perform the humble offices of plowing, manuring, planting and watering. It is equally in vain to pile up volumes of theology, mountain high, if we are not thereby stimulated186to engage in those Christian labors of love, which it should be a main object of those works of theology, if they are of any value, to recommend and encourage. The truth is, that theology has been exalted immeasurably above practical Christianity; although no theology can be wholly clear or convincing which is not accompanied by a practical illustration. Precept may go before example, but it must go unheeded, unless the example quickly follows. The great work of Christianity being love to God and man, Christianity can only be successfully propagated by those whose lives illustrate these duties. The only solvent for the pride, asperity, hatred, jealousy, envy, and other evil passions of men, is charity. The only medium in which the truths of revelation can be clearly seen and appreciated in all their varied ramifications, is charity; it is the true test of all theology. The only atmosphere in which the rays of truth can reach the hearts of all the dwellers on earth with their full power, and in which the work of bringing the whole race of men under the dominion of Christ shall be successful, is charity. If this be so, a greater Reformation is yet to be accomplished than that of the sixteenth century. How true that no flesh can glory in its doings before God! Let modern Pharisees of every church, who imagine that they have attained unto the full measure of holiness, pause to inquire whether they are not merely full of spiritual pride and uncharitableness; for sanctity cannot dwell but with brotherly love. Let a new Reformation commence, which shall exhibit in its consummation the "Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man." Let it commence here, where there is no need of such a protector as Frederic of Saxony, nor any such champion as the detestable Henry VIII. It demands the disruption of no ties but those which bind us to evil. It implies no revolution, but that gradual one which must take place as men change from worse to better. Let every man examine himself and see what talents are committed to him for his Master's service, and prepare himself by a proper fulfillment of his stewardship to render his final account. There is no pleasure in this world so exalted and so pure as this, in which our great duty consists in honoring God and helping man. If all who profess to be followers of Christ were to carry out, in their lives, all His precepts in this respect, the spectacle would fill the world with awe and admiration. Wickedness and cruelty and oppression would shrink from that observation which now they do not fear. But the world now looks on and beholds in Catholic countries, that great machine called the church, contrived by crafty and ambitious men to enrich themselves, to enslave and rule the masses under cover of ignorance and superstition; where Protestantism prevails, a free intellect, but a hard and unrelenting selfishness, a devotion to mammon never before equaled, a grinding competition in all the pursuits of life, a race for wealth and power, in which the multitudes are distanced by a few, who become masters, and wield their power with unpitying severity; a scene of strife, of endless divisions, of hot discussions about trifles, of sectarian rivalry, in which every element of evil mingles, often without even a spice of human kindness, much less religious charity. Will the world adopt Christianity while this picture is before it? No; the world has already risen in judgment upon Christianity as exemplified by those who are called Christians. What are the characteristics of Christendom in the eye of the world? Civilization, discord, war, priestcraft, sectarianism, greediness of gain, rigor of mind, heartless competition, domination of capital, pauperism, crime. The world sees much to admire in Christendom, but fearful evidence that neither the laws of brotherly kindness nor Christian charity control its institutions, social, political, or religious. Let not the Romanist flatter himself that the church can ultimately vindicate Christianity, and set all right. His church has had her day of uncontrolled sway, and exhibited what men will invariably do when made the depository of such powers: she abused her position shamefully, and sank Christianity into a long night of ignorance and superstition. His church is condemned already, and is clinging with unwise and depraved pertinacity to that power which the world will ere long tear from hands polluted with every crime. A few ill-balanced minds, darkened by drinking at the literary fountains of the middle-ages, may betake themselves to the deep shadows of Romanism, and thus turn their eyes from the cheering light which the progress of humanity is shedding round them. There is a mental vision which cannot endure human progress, nor undergo that change of light which must be encountered in the struggle for human brotherhood. They can perceive no beauty in the religion of Christ; they cannot be reconciled to any religion but that which involves all power in the hands of priests, and all submission on the part of the people. They may believe in Christ; they trust only in the Church. Let not the Protestant wrap himself in spiritual pride, and imagine that because he has escaped the errors of Romanism, he is safe from the judgment of the world. Let him not scorn that judgment because it often condemns what is right; but let him dread it, because it judges him for denying his Master and disgracing his cause. Let Protestants dread that rejection of Christianity which springs from their evil example. Let them fear their responsibility for retarding the cause which they profess to befriend. Let them forbear proclaiming that Christianity is what their example makes it; the world may either refuse to accept such a religion, or condemn the pretensions of its professors. Protestants are now zealously and successfully scattering the Scriptures in all languages to the ends of the earth, and all men are invited to read and judge for themselves. They will do so; they are doing so, and are disposed to judge for themselves. They will not adopt all the sectarian dogmas; they will even question the piety of many of the straitest of the sects. They will decide that either these sects can find no warrant for many of their doings and doctrines in the New Testament, or that it can be no revelation from God. The independent readers of the Evangelists will bow neither to Romish tradition nor to Protestant interpretation. They can read Christ for themselves, and the more they read, the more they will wonder how many who call themselves Christians, can for a moment pretend to be followers of the meek and lowly Jesus, whose whole ministry was among the poor and the erring, and whose strongest rebukes were reserved for the proud, the rich, and the sanctimonious. Christ went from village to village, healing the sick and personally solacing the cares of the poor. Protestants fulfill their charities, not personally, but by delegation, or by machinery; they visit the sick, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, by joint-stock associations, or by the hands of public functionaries. The Romanists trust in the church; the Protestants trust in theology. The former thinks to save himself by confessions, masses, and priestly absolution; the other, by preaching, by prayer-meetings and lectures. The one holds to the accumulated errors of ages, and shuts out Christ for the sake of the church; the other—all right in theology—clings to a skeleton in triumph, rejecting flesh, and blood, and spirit. Both Romanists and Protestants hold up Christ as a Saviour, and proclaim his personal sufferings, his cross, his crucifixion, his atonement, his ascension; but they omit his life of toil among the poor, and, above all, they neither preach nor practice what he taught. The person of Christ has long disappeared from the earth; his earthly sufferings are long since over; his personal mission has long since ended; but his precepts are handed down to us unimpaired in sublimity, beauty, and strength of obligation, by the lapse of ages. These constitute overpowering evidence that he who delivered them "spake as never man spake," and that his mission must have been divine, which breathed so much love, so much compassion, so much that is beyond and above what any human teacher ever imagined or expressed. All this we have now; and this is what is not fairly incorporated in the religious systems of either Protestant or Catholic. The former substitutes his peculiar hobby of theology; his catechism, prayer-book, creed, confession, articles, or other forms of doctrine, are carefully and assiduously taught to old and young, while the teachings of Christ are comparatively neglected. The Romanist rejects the New Testament itself as of no more authority than a papal bull, and Christ as being no wiser than the Pope, both being infallible. But the world is now reading this rejected book, and the readers will compare Christians with Christianity. This ordeal has begun; the motto of an advancing army of reformers is, the "Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man," what arms can Christians oppose to such invaders? That policy may no longer suffice which has hitherto prevailed, of declaiming against the love of the world, and yet falling with savage severity upon him who offers to disturb a single brick in the grand structure of that society which constitutes this present world. There are no greater friends of political liberty than Protestants, but it is that liberty which lets every man take care of himself, and ruin seize the hindmost; it is that liberty which stimulates all to run, but permits the heat of competition to rise so high that none can stoop to pick up the multitudes who fall exhausted by the way.