Picture of a Fallen Church.
We present the reader this week, with some further extracts from the sermon of E. Bowen, D. D., Episcopal Methodist, from which we gave an extract in Review No. 6, present volume. Nothing but the most marked and alarming apostasy from the spirit and power of primitive religion on the part of the Methodist church, could call forth such rebukes from the lips of one of its friends. With respect to intemperance, we may not have kept pace with the English Wesleyan connection, whom a correspondent of the Christian Advocate and Journal represents as a community of incipient drunkards. They, being a little older than we, might be expected to have got a little ahead of us in their devotion to Bacchus. But, however we may have fallen behind them in the use of wines, beers, and other intoxicating liquors as a beverage, still, in that sacrific form of intemperance which consists in chewing, smoking, and snuffing tobacco, we can scarcely be out-done. With many among us, the use of this poisonous weed has become an inveterate habit, defying all remedy; their appetite, by long and unrestrained indulgence, having gained the complete mastery over them. In vain are they expostulated with on the subject by relatives and friends, and by "their superiors in office," whose godly judgments they have solemnly pledged themselves to "follow;" all sense of the indecency of the practice, and of its offensiveness to all decent people, having become extinct. Still they continue to bow at the shrine of their Bacchanalian idol, and pay him their eager, filthy, slobbering devotions. The appalling criminality of a practice which has wasted more lives, not to say more time and money, than any other species of intemperance; and of insulting everybody they approach, by compelling them to stand aloof with seeming incivility, or inhale the stinking, pestiferous atmosphere they carry about them, gives them no concern. They even regard their guilty indulgence as an accomplishment, without which they would scarcely be qualified for respectable society; and scoff at the vulgarity and superstition of those who presume to make it a question of morals. None except some poor, old asthmatic, under the delusive notion of the medicinal virtues of tobacco, could be seen using it in the early days of our church without a blush; but now—the Lord have mercy upon us—there are many belonging to the church; of preachers not a few; who can set aside the teachings of physiology, morality, and religion, upon the subject, with a sarcastic sneer; look with an air of self-complacency upon their offensive tobacco-using habits, and "glory in their shame." But the strongest and most lamentable evidence of our defection from God is, that having lost the life and power of religion ourselves, we now persecute it in others. It is by this work of hell, more than anything else, that we become identified with fallen churches; for these alone assume the prerogative,58and possess the disposition, to persecute the truly pious: as they, in their turn, were persecuted when they sustained that character. It is the Church, in her fallen condition, that has forever constituted the great persecuting power; the civil authorities—whether Heathen, Christian, or Infidel—doing comparatively little in this direction; scarcely anything indeed, except by her instigation. Nay, it is the Church whether Catholic, Episcopalian, or Methodist—any one who claims the exclusive right and title of a Church, that constitutes the great persecuting power of the earth. And any denomination engaging in the work of persecution, does it, of course, upon the ground that they are The Church, to the exclusion of all other persuasions. All the persecutions, in general, from the foundation of the world, may be traced to The Church in this acceptance of her character. Who persecuted and slew the prophets, the apostles, the Lord of life and glory? The Church. Who destroyed the lives of more than fifty millions of Protestant Christians in the sixteenth century? The Church. Who drove the Puritans out of England, and the Huguenots out of France, massacring many thousands of them in the most barbarous manner—and hung the Quakers at Boston? The Church. Who formerly persecuted the Methodists in the old country, and more recently in this, while they sustained the character of a holy people? The Church. And if the question be asked,—Who are now kindling the flame of persecution against the Free Methodists; and all who go in for full salvation, as taught by Wesley, within our own pale, even? the same humiliating answer must be given—It is The Church. She it is—no matter what her denominational designation may be; since it is her affiliation with persecutors that gives her this bad eminence—she it is—being fallen to the infernal height of Popish infallibility and exclusiveness—who excommunicates her best members—lay and clerical—ostensibly for contumacy; the stereotyped general charge of all fallen churches against all reputed heretics; but really for the reason for which Cain slew his brother—"Because her own works are evil, and her brethren's righteous." And what else could be expected but that the great body of our people, preachers and all, should sink their Christian practice in a loose morality, and their morality in the fashionable sins of the day, when "our chief ministers"—the Bishops—are understood to lead the way? Just look at the example they have set us for a few years past in respect to practical godliness. See one of them, as he mingles in the scenes of a public banquet, given him by the people of the world, "whose friendship," which "is enmity with God," he reciprocated and enjoyed with such evident gusto at a rum hotel. And another, who so far forgot the proprieties of the occasion, not to say the principle involved, as to ridicule a prominent member of the Philadelphia Conference for simply inquiring—as in duty bound—whether a brother whose character was under examination before the Conference, were a slaveholder. See them, one and all—possessed of vast fortunes, as the most of them are said to be—drawing their heavy salaries from "the proceeds of the Book Concern," made sacred by the original charter of that institution to "the support of the distressed traveling preachers and their families, and the widows and orphans of those who have died in the work; thereby depriving those worthy claimants, in many instances, of the ordinary comforts of life. See them also with eight or nine months of the year allowed them to "travel through the connection at large, and oversee the spiritual and temporal business of the Church"—exclusive of the time necessary to attend the Conferences—yet never making their appearance within the bounds of many of the Conferences during the entire interval of their annual sessions. And see them extending the ægis of their protection over "the sum of all villainies;" by throwing the whole weight of their influence against the impending anti-slavery action of the General Conference, as in their quadrennial address of 1856; and by conferring holy orders upon slave-holding preachers, in utter disregard of the Discipline which they have solemnly vowed to keep and administer. But we are done. Our task has been one of painful interest; not only because of the pain we have felt in being called upon, in the order of Providence, to present to the Church the ugly portrait of her own character; but more especially for the reason that she was not in a condition to sit for a better picture. We mourn over her defection from God; and from Methodism, which we still love, as ever, with an almost idolatrous devotion. We still love the Methodist Episcopal church; and mean no disrespect toward her in anything we have said in this discourse. And if we have felt it incumbent on us to sound the note of alarm, and to admonish her, in this way, of her impending overthrow, it is not because we desire such a catastrophe, but because we fear it. Nothing is plainer to us than that the old Methodist ship, unless she change her course, will inevitably sink—engulfed in her own worldliness and pride—and be irrecoverably lost. But while we grieve over the sinking condition of the old ship, in which we have so long sailed upon the ocean of life, we rejoice in the persuasion that God is preparing a life-boat to take off any passengers who may feel disposed to make their escape before she goes down.